Bio Gerasim Eliel - Platina History

Autobiography of Gerasim Eliel (main association with MP)

tells his story of Platina 1980 – 1983

Brief comments by ROCOR Reader Daniel appear at the end along with comments from OCA Nicholas Skovran who sent it to him.  I have magnified the parts that interest me, where Abbot Gerasim talks about Fr. Seraphim Rose.  Somebody might use this autobiography to study the downfall of Platina. 

Biographical Sketch 

Abbot Gerasim (Eliel) 

Updated June 6, 2011 

Family  

I was born on July 16, 1961, in Torrance, California to Lambert Frank Eliel and Suzanne 

Jean Eliel (nee Butcher). I was baptized as an infant with the name Gordon Trent at St. Cross 

Episcopal Church in Hermosa Beach. I was raised on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.  

My father, Lambert Frank Eliel, born on September 6, 1930, grew up in the small town of 

Dillon, Montana. He graduated with a degree in Economics from Northwestern University in 

Evanston, Illinois. He returned to Dillon, but found both the town and the family business to be too 

small to support both him and his father. He married a classmate from high school, but the marriage 

lasted only a month. My father moved to Los Angeles in about 1954 and began his graduate work at 

the University of California at Los Angeles where he met my mother. At that time he was involved 

in the Episcopal Church. 

My mother, Suzanne Jean Butcher, was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on December 10, 

1936, and came to California as a young girl. She lived first in West Los Angeles, later Beverly 

Hills, and then Manhattan Beach. She entered San Jose State University, two years later transferred 

to UCLA, and graduated from USC. She was about twenty-two years old when she married my 

father. Without finishing his master's degree, my father found employment as an economist at 

McDonnell Douglas and—except for a short stint at Aerospace—worked there for the rest of his 

career until 1995. My parents settled in 1959 on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.  

My older brother, Eric Scott Eliel, was born in 1959, and I followed two years later in 

1961, while my younger brother, Brian Craig, was born in 1964. My childhood was spent in two 

different houses on the same street in Rancho Palos Verdes. My father's employment was stable; my 

mother was a homemaker or stay-at-home mother. She also made some money as a seamstress.  

My Grandparents 

My maternal grandparents, Frederick C. and Flora Annabelle Butcher (nee Seeley), were 

devout Episcopalians. They greatly influenced my upbringing, my sense of right and wrong, my 

understanding of education and civic responsibility, and my code of conduct. My maternal 

grandfather lost his own father as a young teenager, so he worked to support his mother and three 

brothers. He graduated from Purdue University with a degree in engineering. Although raised as a 

Presbyterian, he joined the Episcopal Church and married my grandmother at a young age. They 

moved to California in the late 1930s. He enlisted in the Navy during World War II and served as 

an officer in the Construction Battalion (CB's) of the United States Navy in the Pacific Theatre. He 

and my grandmother were involved in many social causes, including the Children's Hospital in Los 

Angeles and the World Affairs Council. They regularly hosted guests from around the world. This 

had a big impact on my life: from an early age I remember meeting dignified, educated guests from 

all over the globe of every religious background and color. They were both life-long Rotarians; my 

grandfather served on scholarship committees for Rotary International until the end of his life. 

My grandparents wholeheartedly believed in the importance of everything that they did. I 

was fortunate to have a very close relationship with them, and they were fundamental in exposing 

me to culture and the world outside the suburbs of Los Angeles. They also sent me to summer camp 

where I discovered my great love for the wilderness. Their Christian faith was central to their life 

and they rarely missed Sunday church services. On December 22, 1991, my grandfather died of 

prostate cancer after several years of decline. My grandmother died in October 2009. 

I had much less contact with my paternal grandparents, Lambert Eliel III and Irene Eliel 

(nee Hollingsworth). Lambert was born in Dillon, Montana although he grew up in Los Angeles, 

California and graduated from Hollywood High School in 1920. He later returned to Dillon, 

Montana to run the family business: Eliel's Department Store (now Womack's). He managed the 

store until the late 1960s when they retired and moved to Arizona. We would see them no more than 

three times a year. I later became well-acquainted with their daughter, my aunt Eve Campbell. 

While their religious expression was somewhat nominal, Eve married a second time to an Episcopal 

priest from Texas named James Reeves.  

Childhood 

My childhood was marked by a stable family, a good education, adequate adult 

supervision, plenty of friends and activities. I had a healthy upbringing: I had the best medical care, 

I was enrolled in one of the best school districts in the state, my father had a good salary, and our 

neighborhood was safe. We played sports such as Little League Baseball, Pop Warner Football, and 

AYSO Soccer. We went to church most Sundays at St. Francis Episcopal Church in Palos Verdes 

Estates, where I attended confirmation classes and where I was also confirmed.  

On the street there were many other children of the same age. We always had bicycles and 

later skateboards. The neighborhood children would play baseball, soccer, and field hockey right on 

our street and basketball in our driveway. There was little crime in our neighborhood. We went 

snow skiing several times a year and also sailed on my father's sailboat. Our family was always 

together on holidays, such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and Easter (Pascha), and this 

often included guests and friends. I have wonderful memories from this time that we spent together, 

surrounded by trust, sharing, common meals, games, and company. 

In my childhood and adolescent years a number of books made a great impact on my life. 

By far the most important of these was my introduction to The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien when I was 

in the fourth grade. I read many books on history, adventure and, in my early teens, science fiction. 

When I was twelve years old I started collecting stamps, which led to an interest in foreign lands, 

history, geography, languages, and travel. I even had a desire to learn Arabic from seeing the 

alphabet on stamps. In addition to organized team sports, I was involved in many forms of athletics 

in my childhood: snow skiing, water skiing, sailing, skateboarding, and surfing.  

Alcohol and Divorce 

The main tragedy of my childhood was my father’s descent into alcoholism. Gradually he 

lost control, and this began to visibly, tangibly change our life. It especially affected his relationship 

with my mother. My parents began to fight regularly. While I don't recall much physical fighting, 

later this also took place. My maternal grandmother spoke disparagingly to and about my father. My 

mother grew unhappy. In 1969 they separated and later that year initiated divorce proceedings. Our 

family crumbled. My brothers and I were too young and hurt to be able to express ourselves and 

respond to these events in a meaningful way. It affected how we thought about ourselves. It made 

me hunger for friendships. I became lonely, inwardly lonely. I found solace in reading, playing 

sports, spending time with my friends, daydreaming, eating, and denying how unhappy I was. My 

mother went back to school to get her teaching credential. Later she contracted a teaching position a 

long drive away from our house, and we were left without the presence of a father or mother at 

home for a good portion of the day. Without the supervision to which I had been accustomed, I 

gradually began to get into trouble. Fortunately, I had good friends and neighbors whose families 

remained intact and such relationships mitigated the effect of my parents' divorce. 

My Christian Life 

Although I was baptized as an infant in the Episcopal Church, until I was in the University 

of California at Santa Cruz, I never had any presentiment or desire that I would want to dedicate my 

life to the service of God. As I have stated, my family regularly attended church on Sundays, and I 

remember fondly the Sunday morning worship services in the Episcopal Church—especially when 

visiting older parishes with more traditional architecture and richer liturgical practice. I had been 

very fortunate to have learned at my Episcopal Church something about Christian doctrine and the 

Bible. I can only remember one of my friends’ parents who substantially shared her faith with me; 

few other parents wanted to talk about their beliefs. I did have a number of Jewish friends and, 

when I spent the night at their house on weekends, I sometimes went to synagogue with them.  

After my parents' divorce, we started attending an affluent Presbyterian Church with my 

mother from approximately 1974 to 1978. It was a respectable mainline Protestant church. 

Liturgically and socially it was clearly a step down from the Episcopal Church. The youth group 

held my interest, but I was taught very little about the Christian faith. Nevertheless, at the 

Presbyterian Church we were certainly included and felt welcome. There was an emphasis on 

gathering young people and sharing very elementary Christian thoughts with them. Looking back I 

don't remember anything that we were taught. 

Teenage Years 

As a teenager I felt very much alone. I did not speak about my religious convictions or my 

personal problems in any depth or honesty with anyone. I wanted to belong; I craved intimacy; I 

wanted to be loved. I also wanted to have fun and be happy. I now understand that I felt bad about 

myself, despised myself, I was ashamed of my family and of myself. I felt embarrassed before the 

rest of the world, miserable. In my efforts to be wanted and accepted by others, I managed to make 

one blunder after another in my relationships with others. At the evening youth group at the 

Presbyterian Church I met people who were more like me. I understood them. We had a common 

background. I was looking for friendship but I wasn't ready to give nor did I know what to give as a 

friend. I was not happy at high school. I did not feel that I belonged to any group. Academically I 

was not that enthused about the curriculum. I had a great deal of difficulty expressing myself in 

essays and reports. My writing skills were poor, and I was ashamed of that. 

When my mother finally remarried in 1976, I did not become any happier. My step-father, 

Robert Karbach, was a teacher like my mother and had also been divorced for many years. He had 

three children of his own. Robert was always kind to us, but he wasn't my father. My life was 

broken, and I didn't feel much happiness deep down inside. At 15 I was in a state of rebellion and 

had drifted far from my mother. My new step-brother, a large and angry teenager, had moved in 

with us and became the cause of constant tension and complaints in our house. In a way I felt that it 

wasn't really my home any more. I was not able to articulate my pain. I wanted a fresh start, so I 

decided move to Irvine to live with my father.  

My move to Irvine in January of 1978  

My move to Irvine in mid-January, 1978 provided me with an opportunity to make a new 

beginning. I established new relationships but I did not find friends with whom I could share what 

was deep in my heart. I felt like an outsider looking in. I made new friends through surfing, parties, 

and dances. The vast majority of these interactions ended fruitlessly. 

I continued to be involved in the Episcopal Church. My grandparents had moved a few 

years earlier from Burbank to Mission Viejo, a fifteen minute drive from my father's house in 

Irvine. When not working on Sunday mornings, I often drove the short distance to Laguna Hills to 

join my grandparents at the St. George Episcopal Church. I felt quite comfortable there. My 

grandparents were always happy when I would spend time with them, especially at their church. 

The Episcopal youth group there was cordial but not transforming. I later became involved with the 

Young Life movement in Irvine. This provided me with Christian fellowship with people at my new 

high school. I became close friends with a classmate who not only became a companion but served 

as a kind of mentor as well. During a Young Life retreat in the winter of 1978, I began to seriously 

think about prayer. My experience of prayer was very primitive, but I began to comprehend the 

person of Jesus Christ and the message of the New Testament. I began to attend church with more 

hunger, attention, and conviction. I went to the Episcopal Church, to Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, 

and a few times to a Lutheran Church. I continued my involvement with Young Life during the 

spring of 1979 and signed up to participate in the Work Crew program for one month during the 

summer of 1979 at the Woodleaf Camp near Challenge, California about two hours north of 

Sacramento. This became an important turning point in my life. I headed off to the University of 

California at Santa Cruz in autumn, 1979 as a born-again Christian hungry for Christian fellowship 

and instruction. I believe that my renewed life as a Christian kept me from falling headlong into all 

sorts of pits during my first semester at UCSC.  

Employment 

As a teenager I held a series of part-time jobs: first doing yard work and later working in 

restaurants. I developed relationships with my employers and with fellow employees, that is, with 

adults outside my family. This helped me to glimpse life beyond high school. In fact, I looked up to 

my employers to such an extent that I considered restaurant management as a possible career at one 

point. In the spring of 1978 I started working at the new Neiman Marcus department store in 

Newport Beach. This world of glamour and fashion did not significantly attract me. In fact I think it 

had the reverse effect. These values of style and fashion were pursued, desired and respected by 

others, but I despised them. The fine clothing, styles, jewelry and perfumes simply masked the 

emptiness that I sensed around me. 

Spanish 

One of my main interests in high school was Spanish literature. I began studying Spanish 

in the seventh grade and continued through high school. I was fortunate to have an extremely gifted 

teacher for my final two years of high school. He introduced me to many great Spanish-language 

writers: Miguel de Unamuno, Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, Benito Perez Galdos, and Federico 

Garcia Lorca. Living in Southern California, I also had ample opportunity to practice Spanish— 

whether at work or traveling down to Baja California. From that time on I had a great yearning to 

visit the countries of Latin America. 

Surfing 

Surfing became a very big influence in my life and, oddly enough, I believe it prepared me 

to consider and later embrace the monastic life. At twelve years of age I acquired and repaired an 

old surfboard and a used wetsuit. I soon met some friends with whom I would travel down our Palos 

Verdes Peninsula four miles to the beach every Saturday morning on a skateboard, carrying our 

surfboards under our arms and a small backpack on our backs holding wetsuit, towel, and lunch. As 

the years went passed we bonded ever more closely and focused much of our energy into the sport. 

Surfing kept us in great physical shape, it also gave us a sense of belonging or identity, and it gave 

us some [empty] role models. Surfing took a lot of time away from our studies, but I also think that 

it kept us out of a lot of trouble. It required great commitment, extreme effort, the bearing of 

adversities, such as a lack of sleep, the necessity to tolerate the cold weather and water, and to 

accept disappointment when after days of planning the waves failed to materialize or the weather 

was too adverse. It also compelled me to work so that I could pay for equipment and surfing trips. 

The desire for bigger and better waves and fewer crowds (with which to share the waves) led me to 

long for adventure, solitude, and simplicity.  

These factors awoke in me a desire to be far from densely populated Southern California. 

The allure of larger and better waves further afield kept leading me away from home. In the end I 

was only too happy to enroll at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), since Santa Cruz 

was known for having some of the largest, best, and most consistent waves for surfing on the 

California coast. Surfing led me to UC Santa Cruz where I first encountered the Orthodox Church. 

UCSC 

I originally applied to UC Berkeley and a few other schools to study Physical Sciences. I 

was presented with the option of the two year UC Berkeley Redirect Program in which I would take 

my lower division classes at UCSC and later be eligible for automatic transfer in my junior year to 

UC Berkeley into the School of Physical Sciences. However, I personally liked the idea of UCSC, 

because of the proximity to the ocean and to surfing. In addition, I looked forward to taking classes 

in Oceanography at UCSC, which had an entire program in this discipline at the graduate level. This 

choice harmonized well my disdain for life in the suburbs, my educational choices, and the 

possibility to study at a smaller university. 

While my academic interests were focused primarily in mathematics, my father continued 

to emphasize that if I were to study physics, I would learn how to solve problems and how to think. 

I arrived at college with a resolve to further my education in Physics and Spanish literature, but by 

the end of my freshman year at UCSC, I began rapidly to lose my interest in Physics. I was drawn 

more and more through my love of the writings of Miguel de Unamuno and Jorge Luis Borges to 

the entire breadth of authors that we were studying in my Spanish literature classes. 

Encounter with the Orthodox Church 

In the week following registration I became involved in Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. 

They met in a small room about a fifteen minute walk from Merrill College where I lived. A few 

weeks into the semester I became acquainted at Intervarsity with James Paffhausen (Metropolitan 

Jonah). He offered to lead one of the small Bible study groups that would meet in each of the 

separate colleges on the UCSC Campus. Soon only the two of us remained in our specific Bible 

study. This meeting rapidly became for all intents and purposes an Orthodox Catechism class. At 

the same time I was involved in two other evangelical groups: Christian Ambassadors and the 

University Christian Fellowship. I felt rather awkward in the first of these two groups, partly due to 

their emphasis on door-to-door evangelism. This was something I was neither prepared to do nor 

felt to be the appropriate way to express my Christian faith. 

It was in James Paffhausen's dorm at Stevenson College that I first became acquainted 

with the Tradition of the Church, the Ecumenical Councils, iconography, church hymnography, 

monasticism, the Holy Fathers, etc. Even then he had a significant Orthodox library. Later James 

invited me to come with him to church services, first in Saratoga and then at the St. Nicholas 

Cathedral (Moscow Patriarchate) in San Francisco. I first attended St. Nicholas Church (OCA) in 

Saratoga in November of 1979. During the Christmas holiday James invited me down to visit him at 

his parents' house in La Jolla, California for a few days. During the time that I was a guest in his 

parents' house, we visited Priest Roman Merlos and some of the parishioners of the Our Lady of 

Kazan Church (Moscow Patriarchate). In meeting these people I was moving one step closer to an 

appreciation of Orthodox Christianity and reception into the Orthodox Church.  

Soon after our acquaintance James Paffhausen advised me to reacquaint myself with my 

own liturgical roots in the Episcopal Church. His intention was for me to learn something about 

prayer and worship in circumstances that were more familiar to me, but quite different from the 

evangelical groups with which I was then involved. I found the Episcopal parish in Santa Cruz very 

insipid and uninspiring, and after a few services I did not go back. I had found something far more 

appealing in the Orthodox Church. 

Priest John Newcombe 

The biggest influence on my spiritual development came with my return to the university 

in January 1980. The Priest John Newcombe had just been assigned as the acting rector of St. 

Nicholas Church in Saratoga, the closest OCA parish to our UCSC campus. [Priest John 

Newcombe, then a celibate priest, was later tonsured a monk by Bishop Basil (Rodzianko) of San 

Francisco and the West on Holy Thursday, 1981 and given the name Anastasy. He left the OCA and 

was received into ROCOR in December, 1983. He died on May 8/21, 2004 as Archimandrite 

Anastasy and was buried in the Russian Orthodox Cemetery in Sacramento, California.] Fr. John 

was around fifty years old at that time. He served in a solemn manner, spoke very clearly, 

welcomed us warmly, and then asked if we would like to come to his rectory. I was not even a 

catechumen at the time, but he welcomed us with the words: "So I understand that you want to 

become monks." I was a little dumbfounded since I hardly knew what the Orthodox Church was: I 

had only been to about three services. He invited us in, cooked us a full lunch, showed us some 

books of interest on the Orthodox Faith and began to discourse with us not only about monastic life 

but especially about a subject to which he would return every time that we met him: the difference 

between the Orthodox Church and Western Christian Churches.  

I cannot underestimate the impact on my life of this meeting and all subsequent 

conversations with Father John. There were three main aspects to what he taught me. First, he 

instilled in me a love and respect for the monastic life at a time when monastic life was almost 

inaccessible to Orthodox Christians in the United States; second, an awe of Orthodox theology and 

sacramental theology; and third, he dissected the psychology and mindset of American 

Protestantism and to a lesser degree Roman Catholicism. My initial meeting with him left a very 

strong impression. He had a big impact on how I saw everything. He was also quite outspoken. He 

had the most decisive affect on my subsequent decision to become a monk. For the next year and a 

half he guided my development as an Orthodox Christian: instructing us unceasingly, always 

available on the telephone, regularly giving us books, leaflets, icons and especially cassettes of 

beautiful Orthodox chant that were all so new to me. Father John Newcombe was also highly 

critical of many people in our own Orthodox Church. This polemical and adversarial aspect of his 

talks eventually had a detrimental affect on our Orthodox campus fellowship. Each of us went our 

own way; our communication was limited for many years.  

[MP] Bishop Mark 

I first met [MP] Bishop Mark (Schaviakin) of Ladoga at the very beginning of 1980 at the St. 

Nicholas Cathedral (Moscow Patriarchate) in San Francisco. James Paffhausen had been tonsured a 

reader for Our Lady of Kazan Russian Orthodox Church in San Diego by [MP] Bishop Mark 

(Schaviakin). A humble man who lived very modestly, he epitomized the tragedy of the 

ecclesiastical divisions of the twentieth century. He was scorned as something of an agent of the 

KGB by the representatives of ROCOR and as someone not able to lead the OCA with the new 

direction and identity represented by the Autocephaly. [MP] Bishop Mark had great love for the Church, 

the Divine services, and the monastic tradition. He had some Finnish stock but had no use for their 

rigid Finnish nationalism. He was caught between worlds and, consequently, a lonely man. Long 

absent from life in a monastery, he was to become even more isolated after his retirement in the 

mid-1980s.  [MP] Vladyka Mark welcomed us warmly and opened for us a path into Christ's Church. In 

1980-81 we would drive from UCSC to San Francisco every three or four weeks to attend services, 

spending time with [MP] Bishop Mark as his guests. He shared with us much about the Church, monastic 

life, and Valaam monastery where he had lived for nearly two decades. This introduction to the 

Church by a monastic helped me to feel very much at home in the monastic life. He loved to tell 

stories about his monastic life. He noticed that we were interested and waited on his every word. He 

had a vast library in his living room that also intrigued me. Since most of the books were in 

Russian, this kindled within me a desire to learn what lay inside these books. I later saw the 

monasteries of the Russian north as my own Church heritage. [MP] Bishop Mark always made time for 

us. We learned to make candles, prepare the trikyrie and dikyrie, remove wax from the church floor, 

and also watched him make prosphora. He showed us the vestments that he would take care of and 

how he made his own Episcopal mitres.  [MP] Bishop Mark served in a very beautiful orderly and 

dignified manner. Later as his heart grew weak, serving would put a tremendous strain on his 

health. This was a great sadness for him. 

Catechism 

My catechism took place under the guidance of Priest John Newcombe and through the 

constant instruction of James Paffhausen during the winter and spring of 1980. At the 

recommendation of Priest John, I was received into the Russian Orthodox Church by [MP] Bishop Mark 

on the feast of the Annunciation on March25/April 7, 1980—being also Bright Monday—at the St. 

Nicholas Cathedral (Moscow Patriarchate) in San Francisco. 

How I lived my Orthodox faith on campus. 

I spent a good portion of my freshman year studying. I was very fortunate to have a calm, 

quiet roommate during the second half of my freshman year. Every evening I would read from The 

Northern Thebaid, about the monastic saints of northern Russia, and then I would walk out in the 

dark into the garden below my college and recite the Jesus Prayer. Of course, I was young and my 

heart was full of delusion. I was ignorant of many basic aspects of our Faith. Nonetheless my desire 

to live a godly life and to follow the monastic path was gathering steam. During my two years in 

college, I read The Orthodox Church, The Orthodox Way, The Church is One by A.S. Khomiakov, 

His Life is Mine, In Search of True Wisdom by Sergius Bolshakoff, The Monk of Mount Athos, The  

Northern Thebaid, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, Orthodox Spirituality by a Monk of 

the Eastern Church, Anchored in God, The Way of a Pilgrim, A Wonderful Revelation to the Whole 

World, and the Faith Series by Father Thomas Hopko, along with many shorter articles and essays. 

Although I still had my eyes open for some young woman, my last romantic relationship 

at UCSC had passed. My other friends from high school and youth groups ceased to have the same 

interests and goals that I had, and our interactions became less compatible with my new life. 

Holy Assumption Monastery in Calistoga, California  

During the summer of 1980, at the invitation of Priest John (Newcombe), I lived at the 

Holy Assumption Monastery in Calistoga, California. Both James Paffhausen and I stayed upstairs 

in the main convent building for about two months that summer under the spiritual direction of our 

spiritual father. At that time two elderly nuns (in their 90’s) lived downstairs. We helped out 

cleaning and restoring the convent with the idea that possibly it could serve for the foundation of 

some future monastery. We usually read some short prayers together on weekday mornings when 

there was not a feast appointed. Father John would make us breakfast and then talk with us if he 

was not interrupted by a phone call. He would talk about monasticism and then speak about future 

possibilities. He would always state that it is very important that a monastery be founded for 

Americans, where converts would be welcome, where decent people could come and learn. He 

returned to this theme frequently. He also often stated that he didn't want this for himself but for 

others. He was content with his cell, with a few good books, with peace, and a prayer rope.  

That summer this became my dream: that I could participate in the founding of our own 

monastery, under the direction of Priest John, not for Greeks or Russians but for Americans. He 

planted this in our hearts. This remained our dream to carry out and fulfill. Throughout the summer 

we cleaned, painted and repaired various sections of the monastery. I learned to make prosphora and 

began serving regularly as an acolyte. We also took trips to the Kazan Icon Skete in Santa Rosa, 

where I was further exposed to the monastic life. There I met Archimandrite Dimitri (Egoroff), Sr. 

Joanna (later Abbess Susana) and Nun Victoria (later Abbess Victoria). These individuals helped 

me to begin my life as an Orthodox Christian, and involuntarily they exercised a great influence on 

my life. They always took good care of me and treated me with genuine tenderness as their son, as 

their little brother, every time I visited, even until the present day. Nun Victoria and Sr. Joanna had 

witnessed all sorts of nonsense in the way that clergy viewed and spoke about the monastic life. 

While neither of them today has a large monastic establishment, it should be noted that the times in 

which they began their monastic life were not conducive to establishing stable monasteries. 

My First Visit to the St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in July, 1980 

On July 6, 1980, during our summer in Calistoga, James Paffhausen and I, with the blessing of Priest John Newcombe, drove four hours north to the St. Herman of Alaska Monastery.  This proved to be a very pivotal event in my life's path.  I found the monastery to be very strange at first, but I was intrigued because I saw that they were living the type of life that I had been reading about and that I longed to emulate.  When we arrived, the monastery was desolate. After Small Vespers and an evening meal we retired until around 10:00 p.m., at which time an All-night Vigil with Divine Liturgy was served. The singing was rather plain and brisk, bats flew through the temple a few times during the service. The church had never been finished, tar paper could be seen on the walls and ceiling behind the studs and rafters, stubs of candles burned on several second-hand candlestands, the church was lit with oil lamps that were filled at least once during the Vigil, and the entire church was censed several times during the course of the service.  Since this monastery was in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, James explained that we were not to receive Holy Communion. This service may seem simple in retrospect, but at my impressionable young age, diligently pondering the monastic life, here I tasted what I had been seeking. After the Divine Liturgy there was a simple meal in a refectory whose walls contained iconographic sketches that had never been finished. I witnessed the monastic life in a small skete secluded in the mountains, on a feast honoring the Forerunner of the Lord.  At that time there were very few places on the West Coast where one could attend an All-night Vigil in English, let alone on a weekday and lasting most of the way through the night.  The fact that this monastery was not in communion with either the OCA or the Moscow Patriarchate and the rustic facilities was hard to accept at first.  

The monastic brotherhood then consisted of Abbot Herman, Hieromonk Seraphim, Riassaphore-monk Peter (now Hieromonk Juvenaly), and perhaps three other brothers. Later that morning after resting, James and I went on a walk with Father Seraphim along the county road that passes through the monastery land. We each had partially developed thoughts about the monastic life. Everything that Father Seraphim said was very inspiring. I think that he was happy to speak with a couple of young people who were seriously interested in the monastic life. Our encounter and conversation that day was pivotal in my own life. I observed Hieromonk Seraphim as a teacher of the Orthodox Faith and of the spiritual life. I saw that I had much to learn from him and from the unpretentious way of life at this monastery. At one point in our walk James bluntly told Father Seraphim that we were intending to start a hesychast monastery. I gulped.  At the time James did not know how absurd this sounded.  Hieromonk Seraphim, silently saying the Jesus Prayer as he walked, then gently spoke about sobriety and the need to think humbly of ourselves.  He recommended reading The Arena by St. Ignatius Brianchaninov (which James had in his collection) and began to speak about delusion or prelest. (I later witnessed Hieromonk Seraphim responding in a mild way to a number of other people who came to talk about exalted themes like hesychasm). This day marked a milestone in our lives and a very important point in our spiritual development. Later in the morning we had a talk with Abbot Herman who made recommendations about what we should do at our campus, how we should gather to pray, and how we should organize talks.  He offered to help us out with some literature.  I kept all these ideas in my head.  The next year I continually reflected back on my visit to the monastery as a model of what I wanted in the monastic life. 

UCSC September 1980-June 1981 

When I returned to the university in September 1980, I started studying the Russian 

language, too. I saw the Russian language as a key to helping me unlock the treasures of the 

Orthodox Church. I saw the vast sea of literature that existed in Russian. I wanted to understand the 

services that were conducted in so many churches in Slavonic and to understand not only the 

Russian sermons but also to be able to communicate with the older parishioners who had a lifetime 

of heritage in the Orthodox Church and who could not speak English very well. I put a lot of effort 

in learning to speak Russian, which came easily to me. During that school year, I took one class 

entitled: ―Russian Religion‖ taught by Donald Nichol and another on the novels of Dostoevsky. 

Reading these novels was a great inspiration to me during that semester. The figures of Bishop 

Tikhon and Elder Zosima continued to evoke my zeal for the monastic life and the entire spiritual 

tradition of the Church. At the same time that I was reading Dostoyevsky, I read for my spiritual 

enrichment Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky. In this volume I read about a man who had left schooling 

to pursue the monastic life without looking back. There was no hardship that he was not ready to 

endure for the sake of his spiritual quest in learning and acquiring the wisdom of the Holy Fathers.  

While I was enthralled by the writings of Dostoyevsky, the story of Elder Paisius was on an entirely 

different level.  

Visit of Hieromonk Seraphim Rose to UCSC 

Our Orthodox Christian Fellowship began to grow.  That small group eventually produced a large number of clergy and monastics, including Hieromonk James Corraza of the Old Joy of All Who Sorrow Cathedral in San Francisco, California. 

On May 15 Hieromonk Seraphim Rose was invited to visit our university to address our World Religions class taught by Noel Q. King.  Two guests from the future Evangelical Orthodox Church, Marion Cardoza (later Priest Seraphim Cardoza of Rogue River, Oregon [ROCOR]) and his friend Daniel Ogan (afterwards an iconographer) also attended Father Seraphim's talk.  It is amazing how pivotal this talk proved to be for Marion Cardoza, John Christensen, James Corraza and others.  I think that we had studied hard, and were ripe to hear a living word.  I had always treasured this talk which was taped by James Corraza and distributed widely among friends.  Seven years later I was instrumental in seeing this lecture being printed as a separate book entitled God's Revelation to the Human Heart.  

Transition 

Father John (Newcombe) presented to me the monastic life as he had experienced it on 

Mount Athos and later at the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, Massachusetts. With 

my first introduction to the Orthodox Church I was also being guided in the monastic life. Father 

John always shared with us the love and nostalgia that he had for the peaceful and beautiful days 

that he had spent in the monasteries. So much had occurred in his life since his quiet Roman 

Catholic childhood that the quiet and peaceful times that he experienced in prayer both in his cell 

and in church served as a remedy for his soul. Looking back, it is no surprise to me that I followed 

the leanings of his heart and accepted them uncritically. He spoke so clearly and powerfully, with 

such conviction, and I implicitly trusted him and accepted his views without much analysis. His 

scathing critique of modern American society I also adopted. To me it was an apologia for the 

monastic life. Together with [MP]Bishop Mark representing the tradition of Valaam Monastery, under 

Father John's instruction I did not need a big push to head for the monastery. 

In June of 1981 I stood at a crossroads. My life had changed tremendously in the last two 

years. Many things both outward and within me changed at the same time. My spiritual father, 

Hieromonk Anastasy, had moved to Oregon. Due to the divisions within our OCF my relationship 

with James Paffhausen had soured. Hieromonk Anastasy had characterized him as someone who 

was going to go the way of the OCA. Nonetheless, as James had graduated that May, there was less 

tying me to UCSC. I had already decided not to pursue my studies in Physics, and now the political 

correctness in Latin American Studies began to adversely affect me to the extent that I was losing 

my interest in studying Spanish literature. At that time I could not see Spanish literature as a key to 

helping me to unlock the tradition of the Church. I did not see how it would help me to study 

theology nor would I use it in the monastic life. I stopped looking at my university studies as a way 

to pursue my goals. Realistically I did not have the patience and clear guidance at that point in 1981 

to settle down, focus, and finish college. My interests were leading me to the monastic life. 

In the early summer of 1981 both Hieromonk Anastasy and James Corraza had moved to 

Oregon. With these two people—my closest acquaintances at the time—in the Portland area, I 

resolved to head north to Oregon to look for work. I had visited a few other Orthodox Churches in 

Southern California but all of them seemed rather dull at the time. I wanted what I had experienced  

in the Bay Area, and so I left and headed north. Departing in the middle of July of 1981, I drove 

Archimandrite Dimitri (Egorov) from Santa Barbara to Santa Rosa. While I drove Archimandrite 

Dimitri from Santa Barbara, he lay in the back seat almost the entire time. He was saying the Jesus 

Prayer, and every few minutes would make some sort of soft cry. As I knew very little about prayer 

at that time, I considered it strange. Later I shared some aspect of this with Mother Victoria. In a 

very matter-of-fact manner she told me that he was accustomed to praying like that when he 

traveled. In reflecting I saw how God conceals His true servants. 

St. Herman of Alaska Monastery 

I reached St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina on the afternoon of July 28 [1981] en route to Portland.  Neither Abbot Herman nor Hieromonk Seraphim were there at that hour—only a few novices.  I decided to stay to help prepare for the 1981 St. Herman of Alaska summer pilgrimage.  I was quite happy and willing to contribute my efforts;  I looked forward to participating in the Divine Services and experiencing the monastic life.  However, I had no intention of staying at the monastery.   I looked forward to being involved in establishing the monastic life with Hieromonk Anastasy as my instructor and spiritual father.  

Pilgrims began to arrive just before St. Herman’s feast day from all over the West Coast and even overseas.  [ROCOR] Bishop Alypy of Cleveland visited on the feast day and [ROCOR] Bishop Laurus of Holy Trinity Monastery visited later in the week.  The feast was followed by a week of  classes on the Orthodox Faith and was designed to present the foundations of the faith primarily to converts and cradle Orthodox who wanted to know more about their faith.  There was a decided missionary tone to the "Pilgrimage."  The curriculum consisted of Church history, Orthodox doctrine, liturgics and chanting, and an explanation of the Book of Genesis by Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose).  Priest Alexey 

Young, who was very close to Fathers Herman and Seraphim, came from Etna and gave several of the classes.  There was also a slide show about Valaam Monastery and its elders.  This was accompanied by music of the monks of Old Valaam singing Valaam chant.  Since St. Herman of Alaska had laid his monastic beginning in that monastery, this slide show helped to give a background and context to the whole week.  This also was one of the things that most intrigued me: pictures and stories of the way monks lived in a traditional monastery, especially one such as 

Valaam where [MP] Bishop Mark had laid the beginning of his monastic life.  Here I encountered a context in which I could learn all about the teaching of the Church, and in which I could participate in the full cycle of services in the English language.  There was a daily explanation of the lives of the saints and the scripture readings.  The monastery was remote and cut off from the world.  I felt peace here.  It was also important to me that they were actively disseminating the Orthodox Faith.  

I talked to Hieromonk Anastasy on the telephone and, as he had not made any arrangements for me in Portland, I was in no hurry to go.  Finally, one day one of the monks sat next to me and asked me what I was going to do.  He asked if I had thought about staying at the monastery.  Of course, I had, but I knew that my family would be absolutely against it.  I also did not think that my spiritual father would give me his blessing to stay.  It should be stated that there were people, both pilgrims and monks who regularly bad mouthed the Moscow Patriarchate and the OCA 

from almost the first day that I came to the monastery. People around the monastery pejoratively called the OCA "the Metropolia."   They called the Moscow Patriarchate the "Soviet Church."  [MP] Bishop Mark had told us that not only ROCOR but Abbot Herman as well was "making politik," as he would express himself.  So there were a number of different reasons that I hesitated to join the monastery.  I talked with the Abbot, Father Herman, and asked him if it was possible for me to stay.  He told me that I could and that he would be happy to talk with Hieromonk Anastasy.  One day we  called him from Redding.  I asked his blessing to stay at the monastery.  He gave his blessing but, I could sense, very reluctantly.  I do not believe that he ever had full confidence in Abbot Herman.  

Family reaction 

My family's reaction was strong and clear: they did not agree with my choice. They 

thought that first of all I should finish college. They thought that monasticism was a waste of my 

talents. They thought that it was wrong if I did not get married and have a family. They felt that I 

had lied and deceived them. My grandfather had actually called the university to see if I was 

registered and had learned that I was not. So it was not a surprise to them when they learned where I 

was. Since I had stayed in the monastery in Calistoga the previous summer, my decision was not so 

unusual. My decision to become a monk triggered a rift between my family and I, whose traces still 

mark our relationship today. They feel that I have rejected them, that I do not care about family, in 

fact, that the Orthodox Church does not care about the family, etc. For many years it was very 

painful for me to write, talk, visit or interact with my family.  

Life in the Monastery 

I stayed the first few months at the monastery soaking in the monastic life without making any commitment.  In late November, 1981 I petitioned to be accepted as a novice.  On the feast of St. Herman of Alaska, celebrated there at the monastery on December 12/25, 1981, I was clothed as a novice.  I was very happy at that time.  I lived that first winter in an unheated cell.  I would put on several coats and use extra blankets to stay warm but I had my own partitioned cell, my icon corner, and spiritual books.  I had only one robe.  My life was centered around the Divine Services, my obediences, and my prayer rule.

During my novitiate I performed the usual obediences of a novice: I cooked, cleaned the church, cut firewood, helped in carpentry and construction projects, made elementary automotive repairs, etc.  In the spring of 1982 I began building a new set of cells which due to my lack of experience had many shortcomings.  However, as the future showed, this experience proved to be valuable. 

I soon began to assist with research for the monastery publications. I was gradually trained to do post-production work on the monastery publications, such as collating, stapling and cutting.  Later I was instructed how to use the old letterpress. Late in 1981 I began to help with research for the book Russia's Catacomb Saints. I would cross-reference citations and facts, analyze sources, write synopses of periods of persecution, movements in the early years of the Soviet regime and episodes in the life of the Church. I enjoyed this work very much. During the first two years I spent at the monastery my involvement with missionary trips to Redding, Etna, and Medford was very limited. Since I was a young novice, I was kept out of harm's way. Gradually I was included and often this involved the showing of slide shows on Holy Places in America, Valaam Monastery, Mount Athos, the New Martyrs of Russia, or some other theme.  

An important aspect of my monastic experience began during the fall of 1981.  After Compline the brothers were given an opportunity to have "revelation of thoughts" with Hieromonk Seraphim.  Although Father Herman was the abbot, Hieromonk Seraphim more often heard the confessions of the brothers and the revelation of thoughts.  This helped to lift the burden from my soul on a daily basis.  This continued regularly four or five times a week until mid-August, 1982.  At the same time, I became accustomed to going to Confession.  I did not have much experience with confession with Hieromonk Anastasy.  I think that he realized that I had to become at home in the Church first and that this was very foreign to me.  It was very hard in the beginning to accept correction.  Hieromonk Anastasy also had been reticent to correct me as was Abbot Herman later.  I distinctly remember that at one point during the first six months I made the remark to Hieromonk Seraphim during Confession that I was like everyone else.  I remember hearing him sigh.  I believe that he made a remark to the extent that this showed what a long way I had to go.  When I realized what I had said, my conscience stung.  I was very embarrassed.  I also had a number of lessons to learn in asking blessings to undertake some project.  Once when I was making some simple furniture item out of leftover wood, Hieromonk Seraphim asked me what I was doing.  When I explained, he asked, "Did you get a blessing to do this?"  Of course, I had not.  

Central to our monastic life was the monastic cell-rule of prayer.  At a certain point each monastic aspirant would be assigned a prayer rule.  It was the practice of the monastery for each monk to retire to his cell in the evening and there do his cell rule.  Because of the absence of electricity, it fit well with our life to perform our cell rule in the evening after Compline.  It was not easy to accustom myself to this.  I did not have good habits of self-discipline. It also kept the brothers from talking after evening prayers which were read in common in church.  We also had the habit that when we drove to Redding or on any journey that we would begin the journey with the Optina five hundred prayer rule.  This also brought a blessing on the journey and limited talking.  During Father Seraphim's lifetime when we went on any long trip, we would also bring the Horologion, Menaion, and Psalter and read the Vespers or Matins service that would otherwise have been omitted.  This produced in us a monastic world view and helped with our identity as monks.  Fundamental to our monastic formation were the evening talks that were delivered in the refectory primarily by Abbot Herman.  After the reading would finish, we would all be gathered around the table.  I soaked up every word that he or Hieromonk Seraphim had to share.  Sometimes I would record it in my journal that evening or during the next day.  In 1981–82 we did not have any editions of the Lives of the Saints, the Synaxarion or the Prologue.  Abbot Herman was able to share substantially the entire life of a saint or a righteous one from recent times without a text or notes.  He had a superb gift for relating the lives of the saints and the righteous ones of recent times.  His memory was very sharp and he was able to involve his listener in what he was trying to emphasize.  For those who listened intently it was quite an education.  The first books that I read at the monastery were Abba Dorotheos of Gaza, The Arena: An Offering to Contemporary Monasticism, Unseen Warfare, Spiritual Homilies of St. Macarius of Egypt. 

Hieromonk Seraphim Rose 

Hieromonk Seraphim was usually the first or second one to church every morning. He often began the morning prayers himself in the Narthex. He would serve Matins without fail every day unless there was a literal all-night vigil which would be too much stress on his physical condition.  At times he would come to the cliros during Matins and help to lead the singing, either reading the canon in Slavonic or translating verses on the spot into English for the instruction of those gathered.  Every day, regardless of whether the Divine Liturgy was to be served or not, he would give a sermon on the theme of the daily Epistle or Gospel reading.  The Divine Liturgy was always served on Saturday and Sunday.  

He had great love for the nature that surrounded the monastery.  I reveled in this, too.  Up until I was ordained a priest, I would regularly take a book and hike up our mountain every Sunday, feast day or whenever I had the chance and find some new secluded spot in which to pray and read.  In October 1981 we were able to hike to the top of Mount Yolla Bolly (8,000 ft) located about twenty-five miles from the monastery.  Here at the top Fr. Seraphim read about the ascetic feats of the western desert dwellers of the Jura Mountains as we sat atop that chilly peak.  It was a beautiful glimpse of the world that he loved and which greatly impressed itself on me. 

In the autumn of 1981 Hieromonk Seraphim taught a class every other morning from his notes for a summer seminar that he had begun four or five years previously.  This course eventually became dubbed as the "Orthodox Survival Course."  It was his analysis of the history of Western philosophy, political history, and religious development from the time of the Great Schism.  He felt very strongly that an acute analysis in this manner showed the fruits of the schism of Rome from the Church and how the consequences of this schism are expressed in the history of Western culture.  In the following spring Hieromonk Seraphim sought to include me in the classes that he was teaching to one Seminary student who was taking correspondence courses through the Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville.  Father Seraphim had questioned me several times whether or not I felt I was being challenged.  I was actually afraid that he would send me back to the university, which I do not believe was his intention but which was my greatest fear.  We also had classes in Russian which were crucial in providing me continuity with the one year during which I had studied Russian in the university.  At the same time I made it a discipline that whenever Hieromonk Seraphim or anyone else was reading in Slavonic on the cliros that I would walk over and look on at the text.  By the mid 1980s I was able to translate Slavonic into English without much difficulty.  The illness and repose of Hieromonk Seraphim was a great tragedy in my life.  It left us all stunned.  It happened so unexpectedly.  At first I did not suspect anything serious.  It seemed that he merely had a bad case of constipation.  He took a turn for the worse.  The heat in the valley was intense, approximately 115° F, and therefore we did not want to make him worse by taking him to Redding.  When we finally did the news was shocking: a section of his large intestine had ceased to function.  An operation began immediately.  Gangrene was already setting in and peritonitis of the stomach cavity developed.  It affected all his internal organs.  Having only one functioning kidney from an early age his system was not sufficiently strong to battle this condition.  Within several days Hieromonk Seraphim died.  

Abbot Herman and I drove back in the hearse from Redding to the monastery on September 3 with Father Seraphim's body in a coffin.  When Archbishop Anthony and Bishop Nektary arrived, Abbot Herman spoke to them about the details of the funeral and burial.  I was to be tonsured a reader on that day.  However, I stated that I did not want to become a reader, but rather that I wanted to be a monk.  I clung steadfastly to my desire for the monastic life that I had formed under the direction of Hieromonk Anastasy, [MP] Bishop Mark, and my first year at the monastery.  The funeral was attended by approximately 120 people.  I was so overwhelmed by all those events that I do not remember many details.  I remember Hieromonk Anastasy came for the funeral.  Before the Divine Liturgy, Novice Stephen and I were tonsured riassaphore-monks at the coffin of Hieromonk Seraphim by Archbishop Anthony.  In the monastic tonsure I was given the name Gerasim, with St. Gerasimus of the Jordan as my monastic patron and receiving this name in honor of Archimandrite Gerasim (Schmaltz) who had settled at Monks' Lagoon and devoted his life to the veneration of St. Herman of Alaska.  It was in such a context that I embraced the monastic life. 

Change 

Soon things began to change in our St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.  More brothers came, our conditions were very crowded.  We were busy with our publications, including Russia's Catacomb Saints.  We spent a good deal of time that long, dark autumn with the regular celebration at sporadic times of the Divine Liturgy.  Gradually I began to participate more and more in the administration of the monastery.  Our abbot was frequently absent on little excursions here and there.  This was a pattern which would continue to develop until he was forced into reclusion in April 2000.  There were no longer two experienced monks here capable of guiding me in the  monastic life and providing stability in the monastery.  Now there was only one priest in the monastery to conduct the Divine services and to serve the Liturgy.  

We scrambled to salvage Hieromonk Seraphim's legacy.  We attempted to patch together projects that he had left unfinished.  In late 1982 discipline in the monastery gradually started to wane.  This was a process which extended over many years.  We no longer experienced the same 

regular instruction.  I began to have serious doubts about how I would remain in the monastic life.  I remember becoming habitually angry or wrathful.  I recall it being a long, wet and lonely autumn in 1982, and a few months later the monastery church would burn down.  I had a temptation to leave at the end of November.  But I did not know where to go?  To what other monastery could I go?  (We were quite prejudiced toward the New Calendar, so that eliminated a number of options).  I wanted to live a real monastic life; I saw that our monastic life was beginning to crumble. 

 Abbot Herman, sensing that I needed a challenge, assigned me to go over a translation of One of the Ancients: the Life of Schema-archimandrite Gabriel of Kazan and Pskov.  This obedience continued for the next few years.  In this manner I kept my study of Russian going the entire time that I was in Alaska (1983–1986).  During the long, dark storms of the Alaskan winter, by kerosene lamp and candles I continued to study, translate, and edit.  This later proved to be very providential to me during my subsequent visits to Russia. 

In March 1983 Monk Nazarius was ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Anthony.  Abbot Herman arranged to travel to Spruce Island to spend Holy Week and Pascha of 1983.  There he prayed and conceived the idea of reestablishing monastic life at Monks' Lagoon.  He felt that this dream was now possible and that perhaps some new phase was ahead for the mission of our brotherhood.  On the memorial day of Archbishop John's repose, I was tonsured as a reader over Archbishop John's coffin in his sepulcher by Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco.  

Alaska 

In the spring issue of the Orthodox America newspaper, we advertised a pilgrimage to 

Spruce Island to take place just after the feast of Transfiguration that August. It was kept to a group 

of ten people, seven of whom traveled from the St. Herman of Alaska Monastery, and three others 

who joined us in Portland, Oregon. Abbot Herman planned that we would go with enough supplies 

to settle there and reestablish monastic life there if it worked out. Most of the brothers that went 

were chosen primarily for their loyalty to and trust in Abbot Herman. We were also younger and 

more physically fit than the ones who stayed behind. We arrived in Kodiak on August 26 in the 

afternoon. We were met at the airport by Guy Vurick (later Hieromonk Gerasim). We went to 

venerate the relics of St. Herman of Alaska and were welcomed warmly. (We gave no explanation 

about the sixteen huge bags and duffels that we brought.) We were given some prosphora and the 

keys to the chapel at Monks' Lagoon. We held vigil on Saturday evening for the feast of the 

Dormition around which our pilgrimage centered. The next morning there was a baptism in Monks' 

Lagoon, and John Christensen was clothed as a novice.

Abbot Herman, Riassaphore-monk Juvenal, Novice Michael McGee, Novice John, Peter 

Karat, and I stayed while our traveling companions left at the beginning of the week for home. 

Initially a few of the natives were ready and willing to help. At the beginning of the St. Herman of 

Alaska Seminary year on September 2/15, Bishop Gregory and Archpriest Joseph Kreta visited with 

a boat load of seminarians. They were friendly and served a moleben in the Sts. Sergius and Herman 

chapel as well as a pannikhida at Archimandrite Gerasim's grave. Then they met with Abbot 

Herman and told him that he did not have their blessing to stay there and needed to leave. It was a 

very confusing and disturbing time. One of the main points of friction was a brochure entitled 

Father Gerasim: Guardian of St. Herman of Alaska that we had distributed among the local natives. 

This brochure had statements in it declaring that Archimandrite Gerasim did not belong to the 

American Metropolia and had always belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. 

Abbot Herman used this to draw the sympathy of the natives. It was a subtle device that excused 

him from needing to have the blessing of the ruling bishop of the Diocese of Alaska to live at 

Monks' Lagoon. (He did not have his own bishop's blessing to do this either). The land at Monks' 

Lagoon technically belongs to the Ouzinkie Native Corporation. We did not have their permission 

or consent to live there either, nor had we asked for it. This was complicated by an article that we 

published in The Orthodox Word, copies of which we had brought with us, which contained the 

phrase: "The eastern end of Spruce Island shall be given to Father Herman for him to do with as he 

likes." We found ourselves in what I can describe in retrospect as a ridiculous position trying to 

justify our unauthorized actions at every turn.

A few days later en route to Ouzinkie we learned that we could rent a small building 

several miles away at Pleasant Harbor. Here we could legally keep all our belongings. We would 

have a place to stay if the Diocese of Alaska or the Ouzinkie Native Corporation were to try to 

"kick us out." That evening on September 5/18, the eve of the commemoration of the miracle of the 

Archangel Michael at Chonae, we learned that we could buy a piece of land on which we could 

build our own monastery building and from where it would not be hard to stay from time to time at 

Monks' Lagoon and plan to eventually resettle there. Subsequently this day became the feast day for 

our Spruce Island metochion. 

When Abbot Herman left from Kodiak to California, to the surprise of the clergy in 

Kodiak, we had not. Later in the fall Archpriest Joseph Kreta came out to Monks Lagoon and put a 

combination lock on the chapel. Soon Riassaphore-monk Juvenal and Peter Karat departed. Novice 

Michael and Novice John remained with me. Novice John stayed at Pleasant Harbor most of the 

time while Michael and I stayed at Monks' Lagoon.  

That fall of 1983 we experienced one painful event after another. One of the most difficult 

was a meeting with Archpriest Joseph Kreta in November, 1983. One gloomy afternoon while we 

were buying supplies in Kodiak, Novice Michael and I walked into his office to talk and politely 

give our greetings. He sat us down and within a few minutes began a tirade, he turned bright red, 

was totally incensed, was speaking with all his might. I was terribly hurt. For many years this was 

my overwhelming, horrible impression of Fr. Joseph Kreta—until it gradually became clear that he 

was not the problem. He started to tell us that Abbot Herman sounds so "spiritual," that what we 

think we are doing at Monks' Lagoon was so "spiritual," but that we were totally misled, 

uninformed, and were spreading lies about St. Herman, Archimandrite Gerasim, and the Church. 

This went on for at least thirty minutes. It had a reverse effect. I hated this man for a long time. I did 

not understand that he wanted to break through our defenses and bring us to our senses. 

Hieromonk Nazary arrived on Spruce Island in late November. With the onset of winter 

and the presence of a priest we then spent most of our time at Pleasant Harbor. At the time his 

presence gave us more stability. (Of course, he had not been sent by the ruling bishop). In early 

December we arranged with an escrow company in Kodiak to buy a piece of land at Sunny Cove on 

Spruce Island. Since this land had first been glimpsed on the feast of the Archangel Michael in 

September, we called it St. Michael's Skete. 

Winter presented new difficulties. One day Novice Michael tried to leave from Monks' 

Lagoon but became hopelessly lost in a snowstorm and barely returned by nightfall. He left for 

good a few weeks later. (He remains a lifelong friend). During the second week of Great Lent, 

Hieromonk Nazary was summoned to San Francisco by Archbishop Anthony. We then learned of 

the suspension of Abbot Herman as Abbot and as a priest by Archbishop Anthony. Hieromonk 

Nazary had left with our liturgical vessels and antimension at the request of Archbishop Anthony. 

Having just been given a set of chalices by the dying Archimandrite Macarius of Bluffton, Canada, 

Abbot Herman sent Riassaphore-monk Juvenal up to Alaska soon afterwards to bring that set to us 

for safekeeping and future use. Abbot Herman made the brothers in Platina choose between loyalty 

to him and obedience to the Church. Soon all the monks who had remained at the St. Herman of 

Alaska Monastery left for Medford, Oregon. Sadly, almost all of them subsequently left the 

monastic life. Novice John and I were cut off from contact with most of our Orthodox friends and 

community. We were cautioned by Abbot Herman about communicating with others who were no 

longer loyal to him. We were very confused about what to do and to whom we were to be 

accountable. This was the beginning of a long, sad legacy, characterized first and foremost by our 

isolation from the Church.  

Throughout 1984 and 1985 we worked on the construction of St. Michael’s Skete. I threw 

myself into this task. I was able contribute to this project in a constructive manner with my heart, 

mind, and will. In the late summer of 1985, Abbot Herman asked Br. John Damascene to go down 

to Platina to assist with the production of The Orthodox Word and do missionary work. At the end 

of 1985 Abbot Herman came up to Spruce Island. By that time he described how he had the 

blessing of some bishop to serve. From then until Lent of 2000 he continued to serve in defiance of 

having been suspended from the priesthood. He was our abbot, he asked us to trust him and 

explained his rationale. I knew that this was wrong but to remedy the situation would have required 

me to completely leave Spruce Island and move to some other monastery, which in those years were 

in very short supply. At that point I did not feel that I had a bishop to whom I could turn or one to 

whom we were accountable. I always believed that the problem that Abbot Herman had with 

Archbishop Anthony could have been remedied. Abbot Herman painted the local OCA hierarchy in 

such bad colors that I did not pursue asking their mediation. 

That winter I went through for the first time the entire correspondence (several hundred 

pages) between Michael Z. Vinokouroff and Archimandrite Gerasim Schmaltz. We were kindly 

provided copies by the Alaska State Library in Juneau, Alaska. I deeply delved into Archimandrite 

Gerasim's world, his isolation, his sorrow, his frustration and his joys. I would regularly walk to 

Monks' Lagoon, where he had lived, and stay there for a few days. I would climb through one of the 

windows on the Sts. Sergius and Herman Chapel to circumvent the lock on the chapel doors. 

At first our relations with the natives in Ouzinkie were good. Some friends soon moved to 

Anchorage for a few years. When we went to get the mail, very few people were friendly. We had 

confused them. We were expecting them to take sides, our side. Many of them were told that we 

were not in "their" church. Their initial enthusiasm was gone. Some people looked at us as 

"squatters." Some simply looked the other way when we passed. In Kodiak a few of the seminarians 

asked us, "When are you going to join our Church?" Instead of offering hope to the natives, we 

unwillingly stirred up division. Abbot Herman did not see it that way, but he was not living there.  

Platina 

With the arrival of the Nuns Brigid, Maria and Sophia on Spruce Island at the beginning 

of September, 1986, I returned to the St. Herman of Alaska Monastery in Platina. I had become 

isolated in Alaska. This solitude was not the best thing for my spiritual life at that time. Now a time 

of intense activity was about to begin. New brothers had arrived to test the monastic life: Mark, 

David, and James. One distinctive trait of this period was that whenever Abbot Herman would 

speak in the refectory, he would work himself into a tirade against bishops or whoever else  

questioned him. This would lead into an endless explanation of how he had been unjustly treated or 

persecuted, how Archbishop John had been persecuted, and how Archimandrite Gerasim had been 

ostracized. I began to be inwardly pained at how these formerly "profitable tales," that had 

strengthened my monastic life, had turned into attacks on everyone who questioned us. I dreaded 

these ordeals which in 1987-1989 could last several hours. It was a pain that I bore alone. 

Riassaphore-monk Damascene was living at the St. Xenia Skete in Wildwood, California, 

where he worked on The Orthodox Word. Henceforth most of his time was spent on our monastery 

publications and in writing the book Not of This World: Life and Teaching of Fr Seraphim Rose .  

As Abbot Herman was busy visiting various communities connected to the Holy Order of Mans 

(HOOM, afterwards the Christ the Savior Brotherhood), I spent most of my time coordinating 

the affairs at the monastery, except as regards the publications. I honestly gave my best efforts to 

solidify and practice our monastic life there at the Monastery. I had a conviction that it depended 

upon my personal effort to live the monastic life. I was responsible for being an example. The 

approaching millennium celebrations and the entrance of the former EOC parishes had brought 

hope into the life of the Church, but we were not able to participate in this directly. Justifying his 

need to minister to the HOOM communities and his distrust of almost all Orthodox bishops, Abbot 

Herman had found a charlatan bishop in New York, Pangratios, who called himself the 

Metropolitan of Vasilopoulis (city of Queens). 

Our brotherhood prospered outwardly, that is, it grew in numbers, in the quality and size 

of our structures and property. Our publications increased in number and quality. Our sales had 

increased as well. In September 1987 we poured by hand the foundation for our new our monastery 

catholicon. I experienced hope during this period that our monastic life would become healthier.  

Mt. Athos pilgrimage 

In May of 1987 the former novice Michael, with whom I had lived in Alaska, invited me 

to make a pilgrimage to Mount Athos. My pilgrimage to Mount Athos was a return to the source of 

our common monastic life. I was going there to witness the fullness of our monastic tradition. We 

spent two weeks there and visited eight monasteries and a number of sketes. I did not have many 

significant meetings with spiritual fathers at that time. I was not looking for that. In fact, I had been 

discouraged to do that. I was looking for information to augment what was presented in a book I 

was helping to prepare for publication, Contemporary Ascetics of Mount Athos, but I did not have 

substantial success. Nevertheless, some of the personal contacts proved to be important. I came 

back with great personal resolve to struggle in the monastic life. Everything about Mount Athos 

made perfect sense to me. We walked for hours along the old paths of the Holy Mountain. We 

attended an All-night Vigil for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross at Xeropotamou Monastery.  

The most important thing that I gathered for our own monastic community was the feel, rhythm and 

practice of Athonite monastic life. Mount Athos has remained as a model to me ever since. 

A Year of Hope 

1988 was a year full of great hope. Beginning on Lazarus Saturday waves of people were 

baptized at our monastery. People were drawn to our monastery, to our publications, to the zeal or 

our witness. This brought encouragement to us. We represented what was taking place throughout 

the whole world, the revelation of the Orthodox Church to the world at large. We presumed that we 

were the future of the Church. The construction of our catholicon went forward rapidly and we 

raised the main dome on the feast of St. Athanasius of Mount Athos on July 5/18, 1988. 

 19 

Abbot Herman Defrocked 

In July Archpriest Stefan Pavlenko of Burlingame and Archpriest Peter Perekrestov of San 

Francisco brought Ukaz #11/35/68/36/141 of July 12/25, 1988 from the Synod of Bishops of the 

Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia stating that by decree of the Council of Bishops Abbot 

Herman had been defrocked. He did nothing but ignore it and state that he had already been 

received by Pangratios, that these bishops were jealous, that the Russian Church Abroad was itself 

not recognized by others, and that these bishops wanted to destroy his godly work and reputation. 

He regularly returned to his stand that he was being persecuted for defending Archbishop John 

(Maximovitch). We were urged to always value the blessing of Archbishop John, not of some 

worldly bishop. Now a period of outright schism had begun.

It is painful to me, even now, that I remained in schism all that time. Since I had a slightly 

broader experience of the Church than the other monks, I should have been the one to put my foot 

down or leave. I was not silenced when I disagreed or objected, but was often mocked and 

ridiculed.  I grew to avoid direct conflict. I gradually accepted what was taking place. Perhaps this 

is why Abbot Herman was content for me to remain in the monastery and deal with day-to-day 

matters. I had acquired considerable knowledge of many aspects of the monastic life and the 

monastery functioned smoothly in his absence. 

Valaam Society of America 

Most of our missionary outreach in the late 1980s and through the 1990s was conducted 

through the auspices of the Valaam Society Bookstores. In late 1986 Abbot Herman had created the 

Valaam Society of America. This was supposed to be a lay organization that would support and 

defend monasteries and proclaim traditional Orthodox Christianity. Although it never really took 

shape as he desired, there was success in opening about forty Orthodox bookstores/chapels 

throughout the United States and even in other countries. These served not only as economic outlets 

for selling our books but primarily as missionary centers to proclaim the Orthodox Faith. This took 

place just prior to and contributed to the rapid growth in numbers of converts to the Orthodox faith 

that was witnessed in 1987-1989. Our monasteries were involved intimately with many of these 

stores. We could be sent at little more than a moment's notice to promote and support the Orthodox 

Faith and monasticism. I regularly gave lectures and slide presentations at these stores from 1989 to 

2000. After my ordination to the priesthood I would regularly serve in the chapels of some of these 

stores, specifically those in closer proximity to the monastery: Chico, Reno, and later Redding.  

Russky Palomnik 

Beginning in 1988 a wave of pilgrims started to visit from Russia. With these new 

contacts from within Russia there arose the idea to resume the publication of Russky Palomnik. It 

would be published under the auspices of the Valaam Society of America. This magazine used the 

title of a large format popular Russian Orthodox magazine of the late nineteenth century and 

followed to some extent its content. At first we would publish the magazine in California and ship it 

to Russia to individuals with whom we had established contact. Later we established what we called 

the "American Orthodox Mission to Russia‖ in Moscow, primarily as a foundation that would 

publish and distribute the Russky Palomnik magazine. I was active in proofreading the Russky 

Palomnik and with distribution through the mail. The publication of this magazine added a heavy 

new workload to Abbot Herman's responsibilities and this necessitated that I spend more time 

handling the general affairs of the monastery. I saw that the work of Russky Palomnik would bring 

us into close contact with Russian monasteries and perhaps strengthen our monastic life. With my 

knowledge of Russian, this work became for me a major source of edification. 

Involvement with Publications 

During the late 1980's I began to be regularly involved with the editing the annual St. 

Herman Calendar. Because of my love for the liturgical life of the Church and the saints of God, 

this was an obedience into which I annually put a lot of my time and effort. In 1989 and 1990 I 

prepared for publication translations of Elder Leonid of Optina and Elder Anthony of Optina. I also 

spent time annotating a whole volume of the letters of Elder Anthony that we used in several other 

publications. Working on these hitherto unpublished works allowed me to maintain my proficiency 

in Russian. We also saw this as a way that we participated in the glorification of the elders of 

Optina Monastery who had been guiding lights in our own monastic life in Platina. 

Western Europe 

In April, 1990 I traveled to Bergamo, Italy to attend a conference on Optina Monastery. It 

was attended by a number of ecclesiastical personalities and scholars from Russia as well as from 

the West. (Here I met the late Metropolitan Pitirim of Volokolamsk, Archimandrite Innokenti 

[Prosfirin], as well as His Eminence Archbishop Evlogy of Vladimir and Suzdal.) While in Italy I 

was also able to visit the Comunita Contemplativi di Gesu, a Roman Catholic monastic community 

that focused on Eastern Orthodox spirituality. These monks had published outstanding books on St. 

Paisius Velichkovsky and St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain in the Italian language. They had 

forged close bonds with many monks from Romania. I was also able to visit a Roman Catholic 

Benedictine community that was then located in Desio. The abbot, Father Adalberto, was a 

specialist in Russian Orthodox monasticism. These monks were extremely hospitable and 

welcoming. The monastics that I met there I found to be very serious and very interested in our 

monastic tradition. Their example, their communities, and their research inspired my monastic life.  

Alaska and Russia 

In June of 1991, I returned to Alaska with Riassaphore-monk Raphael (now Abbot 

Ioasaph), and Novice Zachariah along the AlCan Highway, sending the nuns who had been living in 

St. Michael’s Skete back to California.  

In August of the same year, I made my first trip to Russia. I first traveled on a Christian 

Ecology tour for two weeks and stayed for another four months. It was my goal to spend time at the 

newly reopened Valaam Monastery, to know its way of life, to study the tradition, to gather 

information about the elders, and to form contacts between our monasteries. We were dearly 

welcomed by Abbot Andronik, but in his absence the confessor Hieromonk Geronty, was formal, 

curt and somewhat cold. Eventually I learned that he had heard some rather accurate reports about 

Abbot Herman's uncanonical status as well as some speculation about his work in Russia and his 

personal character. Hieromonk Geronty inferred from the use of a Nicholai Roerich painting on the 

cover of Russky Palomnik that Abbot Herman was presenting the Orthodox tradition in a very 

undesirable manner. This cast a shadow over my stay at Valaam. 

During that same trip to Russia Abbot Herman had received as a personal gift a gold cross 

from His Holiness Patriarch Alexei II. We were led to believe that our ecclesiastical situation was 

being resolved or was not as bad as other people said. After I left Valaam to visit other holy places 

in Russia, I headed to Pechori near Pskov. Our dear friend Katherine Rees was staying in the 

vicinity at the time under the direction of Elder Adrian. We were very fortunate and were received 

with great love by him and by his disciples. I spent about a week there, going regularly to the 

Church services in the different chapels around the monastery, going to confession to Father 

Adrian, speaking with the monks and praying in the caves. I also met Archimandrite John 

(Krestyankin) there but did not converse with him at any length. 

Georgia 

One of the most important journeys of my life took place in late November--early 

December, 1991. I accompanied a young hierodeacon from St. Petersburg to the Republic of 

Georgia. I had no previous interest in Georgia or the Georgian Church, but it turned out to be very 

pivotal in my spiritual life, in my life in the Orthodox Church, and for the future of our St. Herman 

of Alaska Brotherhood. This pilgrimage and the subsequent relationships that I formed with the 

clergy and laity of the Georgian Church were the most important steps in my monastic life. At first 

the people, their language, their culture, their churches seemed strange. 

Georgian clergy 

The most remarkable event of all was my meeting with the elder Schema-Archimandrite 

Vitaly of Tbilisi. Fr. Vitaly was the last in the lineage of the Glinsk elders and reposed one year 

after our visit in 1992. We had quite a time convincing his fellow ascetic, Schema-Abbess 

Seraphima, to take us to see him. The house was situated below the road behind a non-descript 

wooden gate. He met us at the bottom of the stairs with a prostration to the ground. However, since 

we had not been introduced, I had no clue that this was the elder himself, as I did not know that that 

is how a well-known elder would meet his guests. As it dawned on me that this was him, I was 

completely humbled. He proceeded over the course of the next two hours to sit on his knees in front 

of us and to weep the entire time that he spoke to us about the true elders he had known and those 

still alive. He spoke to us about bishops who practice the Jesus Prayer. His humble words evoked in 

me the desire to confess my sins right then and there. This was definitely the most amazing 

conversation/discourse of my entire life. Here was a spiritual giant living in obscurity. When I later 

returned to St. Petersburg and related this event to Hieromonk Boris of the Valaam Metochion, he 

said in reply: "He is a great starets." During his funeral in December, 1992, he opened his hand and 

grasped the scroll containing the Prayer of Absolution.  

Leaving the residence of Schema-archimandrite Vitaly, we headed to the Patriarchate for a 

scheduled meeting with His Holiness Patriarch Ilia II, who welcomed us, invited us to meet with 

people in the Patriarchate, to visit the churches and monasteries as their guests. I was impressed by 

their warm open hospitality. Years later I would come to know His Holiness more closely. 

Department of Missions and Evangelism 

We were encouraged to visit the Department of Missions and Evangelism headed by an 

Archimandrite Daniel (Datuashvili), now Metropolitan Daniel of Abkhazeti., who was out of town. 

I was not interested in meeting him because I felt that, if they needed a bureaucracy to do 

missionary work, it could not be of any value. Nevertheless we went, and there I met the Priest 

Pavle (Pachuashvili), now Metropolitan Nikoloz of Kumurdo and Ninotsminda. This man came 

alive when we entered. He shared with us everything that they had done and were setting out to do 

in the realm of missions and evangelism. I presented to Father Pavle a copy of Russky Palomnik 

magazine with the first installment of a short biography of Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose). I explained 

to him that I was from the monastery where he lived. He took it with great interest and informed me 

that I must meet Archimandrite Daniel. He said that he would be most interested, and he felt that I 

should meet him. I shook this offer very casually because, after our meeting that morning with 

Schema-archimandrite Vitaly, I had no wish to meet with someone whom I assumed was merely a 

bureaucrat, once again convinced that one did not need a department of Missions and Evangelism to 

spread the Orthodox Faith. We were shown some pictures of their missionary work and some 

literature. I did not realize then how significant my meeting with these people would be, who would 

later help me through the most difficult years of my monastic life and eventually help me to obtain 

the clarity to return from schism to the Church.  

Several days later Father Pavle came to our hotel and asked if I would join him to attend a 

house blessing to meet Archimandrite Daniel. Here I encountered a man who was to serve as a 

father in the faith to me for many years, an example of pastoral care, of tact, of patience, of wisdom 

and service. In a very modest way without presupposing anything he took me under his wing that 

day. The service was a paraklesis with the full blessing of the house. This was followed by 

fellowship at the table led by Archimandrite Daniel. Everything that happened to me subsequently 

in Georgia and in my relations with the Georgian people, I owe to Metropolitan Daniel. He made it 

all happen. No matter what anyone would have to say about him, I cannot adequately express the 

debt I have to him in my heart. 

When I first met Archimandrite Daniel and Father Pavle they were simply priests. I valued 

them as kindred souls. However, within five years an entire crop of young men, almost all of them 

my age, were consecrated to the episcopacy. When I first met them, our monastery was in schism 

from the Church, however, because of the ecclesiology (or lack thereof) that was being hammered 

into us, I rationalized the matter. It was in their midst that I first truly understood and experienced 

the Church. They had something that I was not experiencing. They lived the Church as a family. 

After the ebb of communism, they were as children being gathered by God their Father into the 

body of His Son. Seeing their life, their witness, their faith, I knew that the Church was real, living 

and that it did not have to be Greek or Russian. (This also was a revelation to me. This point has 

been emphasized to me in relation to the United States by Metropolitans Daniel, Nikoloz, Isaiah, 

and Dimitri in a very eloquent way.) My conviction is very strong that without this experience and 

without their guidance and friendship I would not have lasted in the monastic life or perhaps 

remained an Orthodox Christian. These men have been dear friends to me for the last eighteen 

years, at times the closest people in the whole world to me. 

I returned to the California in January against my own desire. In Russia and Georgia I had 

encountered a Church that was alive; it was growing; people were praying, confessing, and fasting. 

This strengthened my experience of the Church. I saw this was an antidote to our isolation, both 

geographical and ecclesiological. 

Tonsure 

In 1992 on the Sunday of Myrrh-bearing Women, in 1992 I was tonsured as a monk by 

Abbot Herman in our St. Herman of Alaska Monastery Church. The tonsure was long overdue. I 

had become a monk earlier over the coffin of Hieromonk Seraphim, and while I had taken the 

plough and looked back, I never wished to do anything else.  

St. Paisius Abbey 

In 1990 our St. Herman Brotherhood heard that the newly formed Christ the Savior 

Brotherhood was going to sell their land in Forestville, California (formerly designated as the 

Central Abbey of the Holy Order of MANS). Abbot Herman tried to get their leadership to oppose 

this. He thought of different ways to utilize the property. At certain times I would be involved.  

By 1991 the first St. Paisius Missionary School was held there. The Missionary School, 

which took the place of the St. Herman Summer Pilgrimages, due to the lack of viable facilities in 

Platina, continued each July up through 1999. During the eight or nine years that it functioned I 

taught Liturgics on about three occasions and Ascetic Theology twice. In later years we developed a 

St. John of Kronstadt Pastors' Conference, a St. Theophan retreat (on their respective feast days in 

late October and mid-January), and a popular Women's Retreat. Eventually a women’s monastic 

community was established there along with a school for teenage girls known as the Lyceum. In 

2001 this community moved to Safford, in eastern Arizona.  

Theophany Skete 

Theophany Skete began in 1992 in Chico, California as a missionary outreach program to 

those in the "punk" movement. Several young men had come to the monastery from such a 

background. In turn they wanted to reach out to their peers. A number of monks were regularly 

involved in various aspects of this ministry. After the monastic tonsure of some of the participants, 

my own involvement increased. In 1994 the magazine Death to the World was launched. It was 

designed as an outreach to young people from the counter-culture. It was published until about 1999 

and then again in 2006 the zine was revived by young Orthodox converts in Orange County.  

Return to Alaska 

On September 14/27, 1994, Monk John, Novice Martyrius and I and returned to Monks' 

Lagoon. Monks Ioasaph and Theophil were already there on Spruce Island. When we arrived, I 

informed Monk Ioasaph that he was to return to the St. Herman of Alaska Monastery. This did not 

go over well at all. Monk Ioasaph had spent the last three years on Spruce Island and had worked 

hard to form relationships with the local clergy, the St. Herman Seminary, and the Ouzinkie natives. 

The primary reason why Abbot Herman had asked him to come to Platina is that he did not want 

Monk Ioasaph to be either the model for the young monastics nor to be their superior. He was asked 

to return to Platina to help build the monastery refectory. Monk Theophil stayed for another six 

months. My main task was to orient the young monks to life on Spruce Island, to make sure that 

they learned how to get around the island on foot and by boat, to initiate further construction, and to 

try to provide a clear, coenobitic monastic life.  

Ordination to the Priesthood 

Abbot Herman arrived in early November. He discussed with me the plans that he had 

made. An Archimandrite Innokenti (Veniaminov) had stayed several months at the St. Paisius 

Abbey and at a friend's ranch in Shingletown in 1994. Afterwards Abbot Herman and 

Archimandrite Innokenti (Veniaminov) had persuaded Metropolitan John of St. Petersburg to 

perform the ordinations of several monks of our monastery. They had obviously blurred the reality 

of our monastery's canonical status and that of our "bishop." Nevertheless, we were long overdue 

for a second priest in the monastic community. In terms of seniority and involvement in the lives of 

the monks, I had been asked many times to consider ordination to the priesthood, but I never had 

wanted to have anything to do with either Pangratios or any of his fellow "bishops." I returned to 

Platina, and prepared to go to Russia to be ordained to the holy Priesthood together with Hieromonk 

Damascene and an Orthodox deacon. We left for Russia on December 12, 1994.  

A very special occasion took place in Moscow a few days after our arrival. We visited 

Hieroschemamonk Raphael at the Valaam Metochion. While other people were talking and few 

were paying attention to what he said, I heard him clearly state out loud, "They will be ordained to 

the priesthood, then they need an island and an antimension." I cannot tell you how I felt at that 

moment. One friend was talking and had paid no attention. Another friend had said: "The Elder is 

prophesying,‖ But my friend had no idea what Father Raphael's words meant. Father Raphael then 

continued to converse with us about his time as a desert-dweller in the Caucasus Mountains. 

I was ordained by Metropolitan John to the diaconate on feast of St. Boniface, December 

19/January 1, 1994/5 at the Church of Sts. Symeon and Anna on which day Father Damascene had 

been ordained to the priesthood. I was ordained to the priesthood at the Church of Sts. Symeon and 

Anna on the feast of the Ten Martyrs of Crete on December 23/January 5 1994/5. On my arrival 

back at the monastery, Abbot Herman decided that I would spend one year at the monastery, 

serving regularly and not traveling anywhere.  

Return to Alaska 

I returned to Alaska on January 4/17, 1996. In my absence after Pascha in 1995 the 

brothers, having received expressed consent of the Ouzinkie Native Corporation (but without any 

Episcopal blessing), built a 10 X 10 chapel on a knoll above the beach at Monks' Lagoon in honor 

of the feast of the Meeting of the Lord, to which feast the original chapel at Monks' Lagoon had 

been built in the late 1820s or early 1830s. This chapel was very important in the development of 

our life at Monks' Lagoon. It provided us a place to pray which we had built with permission. 

Around this chapel our monastic life on Spruce Island began to grow. When I arrived Riassaphore- 

monk Andrew (Wermuth) was then alone at Monks' Lagoon. We spent that spring arranging our 

monastic life. 

Immediately after my arrival we received a large anonymous donation. With this money 

we resolved to begin the restoration of the cell of Archimandrite Gerasim, which was rapidly 

sinking into the ground. Monk Ioasaph had already discussed the strategy and method of repair. 

That Lent we would fast until about 2:00 o'clock while chipping the frozen earth out from under his 

old cell. We worked on our hands and knees on the frozen volcanic ash digging holes in which to 

set piling. As we made progress and began to raise the cell, we felt great consolation: the monastic 

legacy at Monks' Lagoon would not disappear, and our efforts could overturn decades of neglect. 

We thought: "Did anyone else have any use for Archimandrite Gerasim's cell and monastic labors?" 

Soon after Pascha, Monk Moses and Novice Timothy arrived. We steadfastly continued 

our daily prayers at the small Meeting of the Lord chapel and devoted the bulk of our efforts to 

restoring Archimandrite Gerasim's cell. We celebrated the Divine Liturgy about four times a week, 

baked prosphora, built some small log and earthen cells for ourselves, enlarged the gardens, cleared 

the trail to St. Michael's Skete, and caught fish to help feed ourselves. At this time I experienced 

tremendous personal growth. Some restlessness that I had felt in my soul was gone. I was able to 

devote myself in prayer, labor, even in pastoral work. I grew to love Alaska even more. I had a very 

rustic cell, but I utilized my time well and helped to prepare for publication letters of Archimandrite 

Gerasim. Some of these were included in the book Abba Gerasim: and His Letters to His 

Brotherhood, and others appeared in The Orthodox Word. This was an important project for me 

which I only finished later in Platina. It involved extensive research into people and places of the 

local islands about whom little written record has been left. It gave me a more endearing love for 

the local Orthodox people and all the hardships and disappointments that they have experienced.  

In September three more monks and novices arrived from the St. Herman of Alaska 

Monastery. Our monastic life grew more stable and guests were able to benefit and participate. In 

November, 1996 Abbot Herman visited. He gathered Monk John, Monk Andrew and I. He strongly 

reiterated his conviction that we had the blessing of St. Herman to establish monastic life at Monks' 

Lagoon. He emphasized that Monks' Lagoon belonged to St. Herman to do with as he saw fit. That 

no one else would bother and no one else cared about monastic life at Monks' Lagoon. It was up to 

us alone. This was a challenge and we did feel motivated. He then gave Monks John and Andrew 

instructions to begin cutting down the trees just north of the old beach house (an earlier attempt to 

build a monastery in Monks’ Lagoon). We were to begin building an entirely new monastery 

edifice. Eventually we would seek the proper occasion to tear down the old beach house and extend 

this new monastery building right over where the beach house now stands. We spent that winter 

gathering materials, hauling logs, sawing lumber, drawing plans, and placing footings for 

construction in the spring. We were growing close as a monastic community. We learned to work 

well together, to respect one another, to bear one another's burdens. Our life had little outward 

consolation, yet we were happy to have the opportunity to live there and serve St. Herman in 

whatever way we could.  

That winter there were at times more than ten of us at Monks' Lagoon. We ate in common, 

shared cells, crammed into the church together, and labored hard side-by-side. Monk John did much 

of the logistical work and for this reason was often in Kodiak. He began planning an 

educational/vocational program for young men which eventually became the St. Innocent's 

Academy. We did not communicate well. I did not appreciate his efforts and how he worked. I had 

almost nothing to do with this program, in fact a serious problem developed in that Monk John 

became the funnel for our communication and orders from Abbot Herman. It was very hard to tell 

what was being communicated. Our isolation at Monks' Lagoon and this mode of communication 

heightened my growing distrust for decisions being made by Abbot Herman and, in fact, any 

direction that began to come from Forestville. Not only had some unfortunate choices been made at 

Monks' Lagoon, not only was our relationship with the Church totally unacceptable, but we were 

receiving some very confused signals about our life and future at Monks' Lagoon. We were being 

censured by other monastics and close friends of the monastery for distrusting Abbot Herman if we 

dared to question any decision or topic. I am sure that my distrust was noticeable. I was absent for 

about six weeks that summer. During that time Monk Paisius stayed at Monks' Lagoon to oversee 

our monastic life. Construction on our new monastery building proceeded rapidly. 

Upon my return we began to put the roof and tower on the new monastery coenobium or 

residence. In November an eviction notice was brought from the Ouzinkie Native Corporation 

(ONC) and presented to us. We were ordered to vacate the premises by May 15, 1998. A series of 

articles came out in the local papers, eventually court hearings were arranged, and a resolution was 

set forth by a judge in Anchorage. The case was dropped; the judge ruled that the monastery 

building would not be torn down but that the monks were not to live at Monks' Lagoon without the 

expressed permission of the ONC.  

My heart was heavy all during that spring. The impending eviction colored our lives 

considerably that winter and spring. However, we put up the dome on the top of the new monastery 

building on the feast of the Three Hierarchs in 1998 amidst absolutely beautiful, calm weather, such 

weather being quite rare at that time of year. We continued to make the monastery habitable and at 

the same time started to stockpile our supplies on St. Nilus Island. There was a lot of public support 

for us from the Kodiak community at large. 

We left Monks' Lagoon on May 15, 1998 for St. Nilus Island (a fifty-acre island one half 

mile south of Spruce Island). We had received permission from the owners to stay there, acting as 

care-takers. In May we began construction on a church dedicated to St. Nilus of Sora on the Island. 

Monks Andrew, Adrian, and I used the timber we had milled at Monks' Lagoon and ordered more 

from local sawmills. Still stinging from our eviction from Monks' Lagoon, we put our effort into 

carving out a new life for ourselves on St. Nilus Island. Monk Martyrius returned from Mount 

Athos in June; I left for Russia with Monk John that month on a research project. Monk Martyrius 

spearheaded the completion of the chapel and the raising of the dome in the spring of 1999. 

Abbess Brigid, then living with a number of sisters at St. Michael's Skete on Spruce Island 

had been alienated from Abbot Herman for some time. She had been seeking to move the sisters to 

a more stable location, one less affected by choices made by others which could abruptly impact the 

life of the nuns under her direction. When she was asked to move to St. Nilus Island by Abbot 

Herman in January, 1999, she left for Kansas City, Missouri with several other sisters. One nun 

returned to Wildwood, California. Nun Neila, inspired with the obedience given by Abbot Herman, 

to move to St. Nilus Island, took up residence on the small wind-swept island, while the monks 

returned to St. Michael's Skete. Nun Nina was sent that month from the St. Paisius Abbey to join 

Nun Neila on St. Nilus Island. They have both remained there ever since. Negotiations began and 

the St. Nilus Island was purchased from the Irwin family in 2003. Today there are four sisters there. 

Departure from Alaska 

I left in June, 1998 with Monk John for Moscow. We did research in Moscow and then in 

St. Petersburg at the State Archives. We also made several side trips: to Optina, St. Sergius Lavra to 

pray at the relics of St. Innocent of Alaska, and to visit a well known singer, Hieromonk Roman, 

who was living in the woods about thirty miles from Pskov. When I returned to the U.S. in 

September I was asked to come back to Platina. I was needed there. 

Second Pilgrimage to Georgia 

In late 1998 I reestablished contact with the Georgian Orthodox Church. I was invited by 

Bishop Nikoloz of Bodbe to join him on the St. Nino's Way pilgrimage in July, 1999. My second 

pilgrimage to Georgia brought entirely new depths to the relationships that I had established in 

1991. Furthermore, they were crucial to the direction of our monastery and my close friends—as 

well as to my experience of the Church. My interactions, conversations, the Church services and the 

whole of what I observed there provided the final strength that I needed to lead our brothers back 

from schism and into the Church. 

I joined St. Nino's Way on July 2, 1999 in the cathedral city of Urbnisi, the site of an 

important Church council in 1102. We journeyed on foot each day from town to town so as to reach 

Mtskheta on the eve of the feast of the Twelve Apostles, the patronal feast of Svetistskohveli, the 

patriarchal cathedral. This was a missionary pilgrimage of prayer, a forty day procession at the 

beginning of each summer, following the path that St. Nino took to bring the Christian faith to the 

people of Iberia. This was the eighth year of the St. Nino's Way. Along the route Bishop Nikoloz 

preached many times a day, sometimes to the participants, sometimes to a crowd of faithful 

gathered in church, other times at an improvised movie theatre, around the dinner table, or stopping 

in a village for a glass of water. Every few days there were baptisms en route. 

These were very blissful days. I had no responsibilities. The bitter-sweet experience of our 

life on Spruce Island was distant. I was with people whom I loved and who loved me—who were 

offering their lives to God in missionary service to their neighbor.  

Collapse: Return in September of 1999 and unraveling of Abbot Herman's escapades. 

After returning from this beautiful pilgrimage to Georgia in 1999, I was asked by Monk 

Dorotheus to visit the St. Paisius Monastery in September. There he informed me of some very 

grave problems that concerned Abbot Herman. This began a whole series of visits to Forestville in  

the fall and winter of 1999 to resolve how we were going to deal with Abbot Herman and as well 

how to address the larger question of our untenable situation regarding the Church. It was now 

crystal clear that we were in schism from the Church primarily because Abbot Herman was a 

fugitive from ecclesiastical justice, from accountability to his bishop. He had found a compromised, 

uncanonical bishop who really could not in turn question Abbot Herman or hold him accountable. 

The people involved in these discussions at the time were primarily Priest Michael Oyer, Priest 

Philip Tolbert, Monk Dorotheus, Abbess Michaila, Nun Xenia, Monk Paisius and at times a few 

others. (They deserve my respect by virtue of the leadership that they showed and their willingness 

to assess the breadth of our predicament). Priest Michael Oyer and Priest Philip Tolbert represented 

tacitly twenty other priests who were connected to the Christ the Saviour Brotherhood. 

Gradually we understood that our main task was to return to communion with the Church. 

This was the real issue. At the time we were not ready to think clearly on this subject. We had all 

sorts of baggage that we had inherited: the portrayal of people in the canonical Orthodox Church as 

simply desiring recognition, the purported spiritual bankruptcy of SCOBA, the danger of ―slick 

Orthodoxy,‖ the indispensability of the Old or Julian Calendar, and modernism as the ultimate 

plague of the Church, etc. This is what Abbot Herman had drilled into us over the years. 

In an important sense I was very fortunate. I had established and maintained contacts with 

the Orthodox Church in Georgia and in Russia, I had been on pilgrimage to Mount Athos, and I had 

friends in other jurisdictions such as Hieromonk Jonah, who had recently established a monastery 

several hours away at Point Reyes. But we had had so much negative reinforcement against 

canonical Orthodox jurisdictions that very few people would hear about joining one of them. It 

should be noted that this was still eight years before a reunion would take place between the 

Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate. Our personal sympathies were 

with the former but we also had been influenced to see them as enemies or adversaries who would 

treat us as a cult, with the goal of dividing us and humiliating us. We did not see the Moscow 

Patriarchate as an option due to the limitations imposed by the Tomos of Autocephaly, restricting 

the number of Patriarchal parishes to forty. By entering the Moscow Patriarchate at that time we 

would have been in outright ideological opposition to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. The 

other Orthodox churches were for the most part on the New Calendar, and so we did not want to 

consider them as options for our home in the Church.  

Jerusalem Patriarchate 

In the autumn of 1999 we were considering the possibility of petitioning to be received 

under the Jerusalem Patriarchate. Their representative in the United States, Priest George Jweniat, 

assured us that they would welcome us, that it might take time, but that since they were on the Old 

Calendar and were traditional, we should consider this. This option presented the possibility to keep 

all of our monasteries and parishes under one bishop. Priests Michael and Philip were regularly in 

contact with priests of the Jerusalem Patriarchate. We kept meeting with Father George Jweniat 

regularly that winter. 

A few weeks before Great Lent, I traveled with a group of Christ the Savior Brotherhood 

priests to Jerusalem. It was not so much a pilgrimage as an effort to influence a decision by their 

ailing Patriarch Diodorus and those who surrounded him to receive us into the Jerusalem 

Patriarchate. Our group consisted of the Priests Stevan Bauman, James Robinson, Patrick Tishel, 

Philip Tolbert, and Michael Oyer and the layman Thaddeus Hardenbrook. Fr. George Jweniat 

joined us there in Jerusalem. We met with Metropolitan Timotheos, Metropolitan Alexios and later  

separately with Metropolitan Cornelios, who was the most frank, honest and clear bishop with 

whom we spoke. He stated clearly that he disagreed with receiving parishes in the United States but 

was quite pleased with the verbal and pictorial accounts of what we represented.  

Georgia—Third Pilgrimage 

At the end of this trip to Jerusalem traveled to Georgia for the week before Lent in search 

of further counsel on these matters from the bishops that I knew there. I also treasured the idea that 

the Georgian Church might be willing to receive us (monasteries and parishes as well). I was with 

Bishop Nikoloz almost the entire week. While there I met with the ailing Metropolitan Konstantine, 

Metropolitan Daniel, Bishop Dimitri (who said, "Don't bother with Jerusalem, come to the Georgian 

Church"), Bishop Grigol, Bishop Isaia, and others. 

Meeting with His Holiness Patriarch Ilia II 

I was able to speak privately with His Holiness Patriarch Ilia II and Bishop Nikoloz 

together. I discussed the predicament of our brotherhood. I stated that we were under a non- 

canonical bishop. I explained to him why we went to Jerusalem and what we had accomplished 

there. I explained that I expected to wait a long time to hear from Jerusalem and that there would be 

little resolution (which is one of the main reasons I came to Georgia). Patriarch Ilia II said first of 

all that it was unfortunate that we had actually requested formally and in writing to be received by 

Jerusalem. He stated that because of that petition he could not act upon any request from us. I 

explained that there were not only several monasteries and sketes involved but also about twenty 

parishes throughout the United States. He was quite clear. He said that it could have been done 

differently. Because of this, he stated, the Patriarchate of Georgia could not really do anything at the 

present time. He asked a series of questions about canonical issues, about the number of clergy, why 

we were under Pangratios in the first place, etc. He asked about our monastery: who were the 

priests, who ordained them, and why we had submitted a letter from Metropolitan Pangratios to 

Metropolitan John, when the former was not canonical in the first place? He asked if there was 

anyone under suspension, ban, or defrocked in the monastery? When I mentioned that Abbot 

Herman had been defrocked, he asked that regardless of whether or not he is retired, is he not still a 

member of the monastery?  

His Holiness was straightforward, very clear; he quickly focused on all the problems from 

various angles. He said that it was very unfortunate that we had complicated our own position and 

that we need to be very patient as these matters are usually not resolved very quickly. He asked us if 

we had turned to the Russian Orthodox Church. I mentioned that I had learned that they were 

hampered by the statutes of the Tomos of Autocephaly. Patriarch Ilia then said that he had spoken 

to Patriarch Bartholomew and had told him that he needed to start receiving communities on the 

Old Calendar, for he thought that this was the best solution. He did not say that he would not or 

could not help. He expressed his own serious reservations about the Jerusalem Patriarchate. He also 

asked if this group of priests realized that they would need to be ordained. Throughout his talk he 

was very kind, even tempered (which is his hallmark), he asked questions that flowed one after the 

other. He used a phrase that Metropolitan Cornelius had used as well in Jerusalem, obman, 

―cheating others,‖ specifically in regard to attempts to exercise the priesthood outside the Church, in 

schism, or to pose as bishops and priests. I gained enormous respect for him for his clear, candid, 

and pastoral response. I also had seen such great evidence of his pastoral work. I know that he has 

continued to pray for us. He prayed for our return to the Church. He has continued to guide us by 

blessing his fellow hierarchs to keep in contact with us and visit us.  

I did not return with any quick solution, but I knew what we had to do.  

Return from Schism 

One of the most sorrowful events of my life took place during Holy Week, 2000. I 

traveled at the end of Lent to Spruce Island. I informed Abbot Herman that not only his monks and 

nuns but a large group of priests who had been his spiritual children were formally requesting him 

to step down as abbot, to stop serving the Divine services and to return to California to take up 

residence outside the St. Xenia Skete at Wildwood, California, to cease offering spiritual counsel, 

and to lead a life of repentance and reclusion. It may be hard for those who read this to understand 

how difficult that experience was. I had to communicate this to a person whom I had hitherto 

regarded as my spiritual father, to whom I had hitherto shown obedience, to a person who had set 

himself above the law, above the Church, and above the censure of the Church. The problem was 

that we did not have a bishop. I felt that I had no one to whom I could turn. We had been fooling 

ourselves for years, lying to ourselves and to others, enabling our former spiritual father to stand on 

his own pedestal and continue his divisive work against the Church. We returned together from 

Alaska during Holy Week to the St. Herman of Alaska Monastery. We arranged for him to live in a 

cell outside the gates of the St. Xenia Skete in Wildwood, California. 

Now our task was to return to the Church. Our idea at the time (that is, in late 1999 and 

early 2000) was to keep our group together, to be received into some Church or diocese that would 

include all of us as we were. By April we already knew that this would not work, that the Church 

administers itself geographically and hierarchically, and not ideologically. Ultimately, this was the 

practical implication of the ecclesiology of Abbot Herman, that the Church presents Herself to the 

world ideologically. Therefore there were certain issues, not dogmas, which are to be non- 

negotiable and for which we have to stand: the Old-calendar, monasticism, the zealot movement, a 

tsarist political world-view, etc. We were to be irreconcilably opposed to those who did not hold 

these positions or who presented the Orthodox Faith without these elements. 

At the beginning of Holy Week I sent a registered letter to Metropolitan Pangratios 

informing him that I was ceasing to serve, that I would return his antimension to a priest of his 

choosing, that I could not recognize him as a bishop, and that I was seeking to be received back into 

the Orthodox Church. Our monastery would be without a priest until we were received back into the 

Orthodox Church. The response was amazing. It must have been an answer to everyone's prayers. 

Pangratios sent out instructions suspending everyone. Many ―priests‖ ordained by him were very 

upset with me because now they had to deal with this major problem immediately, not gradually. 

They had not yet explained to their flocks that Pangratios was not a bishop by any stretch of the 

imagination. They had hesitated because of the repercussions that this would create. Because we 

had declared that he had no episcopal authority, he insisted on exercising what he did not have. It 

was actually ludicrous, and most people involved understood this quite clearly. May and June 

passed slowly, painfully. We had to field questions from the faithful and beg them to be patient. 

Many people felt that we had been dishonest with them. There is some truth to this. We were trying 

to make some substantial change for quite a while and had not been able to provide a solution. In 

our criticisms of other dioceses and parishes we ourselves ended up being the imposters.  

The nuns in Forestville had developed very good relations with Priest Milos Vesin in 

Chicago and through him with the Serbian Orthodox Church. However, we had not considered the 

Serbian Orthodox Church seriously at that time. In late July, 2000 we met with His Grace Bishop 

Jovan of the Serbian Orthodox Church at the St. Sava Camp in Jackson, California. Protopresbyters 

Janko Trbovic and Petar Jovanovic were present and served as translators. He made a few simple  

statements which greatly moved us. First of all he calmed our fears that the Church was not in the 

real estate business. Secondly, he stated several times that the Church's concern was for the 

salvation of our souls. This he placed as the key criterion. We were very impressed by the principles 

upon which he based his statements and replies. We learned that he had entered the monastery at 12 

years of age and therefore understood us and monasticism. 

Around the same time we arranged to meet with Archimandrite Nikolai Soraich in San 

Francisco. I was quite pleased with the meeting, I felt that his statements and answers were 

satisfactory but in our discussions with other clergy afterwards there was very strong resistance to 

the OCA. One priest went as far as to say, "I feel from them a mean and acquisitive spirit." This 

seems to me primarily a reflection of what we were taught by Abbot Herman as a residue of the rift 

between ROCOR and the OCA. 

I traveled to Eugene after Labor Day and met with a representative of Bishop Longin, 

Archpriest Milorad Loncar, on September 6, 2000. He recommended that since we already had 

initiated contact with Bishop Jovan and that since we were a monastery within the territory of the 

Western American Diocese that it would be best that we pursue talks with Bishop Jovan. He argued 

that since we already had been invited by Bishop Jovan to visit Los Angeles when Metropolitan 

Amfilohije of Montenegro would be there, then we should go and submit our petition to Bishop 

Jovan at that time in the presence of Metropolitan Amfilohije. If Metropolitan Amphilohije were to 

give his approval, then everything would proceed smoothly.  

Reception into the Serbian Orthodox Church 

Hieromonk Damascene and I met with Metropolitan Amfilohije and Bishop Jovan in 

Alhambra at the Diocesan office on October 2, 2000. Metropolitan Amfilohije looked like an 

Athonite monk who had just emerged from his cell. In fact that day he told us his own stories about 

Elder Paisios of the Holy Mountain whom he had known well. We showed them our ordination 

documents, the statistics of the brethren of the monasteries, the incorporation papers of our 

Brotherhood of St. Herman of Alaska, etc. We explained the circumstances that had led us into 

schism. We discussed the present status of Abbot Herman. We presented our monastery typicon. 

We brought copies of our publications and pictures of our monastery. We spoke until late afternoon. 

We asked to be received into the Serbian Orthodox Church. 

The nuns from the St. Paisius Abbey were to come the following day with their close 

friend Priest Milos Vesin from Chicago. He served as translator for them and already knew 

intimately of their struggles and problems. They actually scheduled a specific date to be received 

into the Church, October 23-24, at the St. Paisius Monastery in Forestville, California. It had not 

been clear to me that at that very time the two bishops had resolved to receive us. Otherwise we 

would have scheduled a date then and there. In any case it took place on our patronal feast of St. 

Herman of Alaska on November 27-28, 2000. This was confirmed by Episcopal decree #656 of 

November 15/28, 2000.  

Election as Abbot 

Back in 1983, I had already assumed the responsibility for the formation of the New 

Valaam Monastery upon Abbot Herman's departure from Alaska. I was very young at the time. 

Nevertheless, I was entrusted with the day to day running of our monastic community on Spruce 

Island during the absence of Abbot Herman until September 1986, when I returned to the St. 

Herman of Alaska Monastery. Since the disbanding of our St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood in 

Platina during the spring of 1984, our monastery had been in steady decline. With the arrival of 

people interested in the monastic life, I was needed at the St. Herman of Alaska Monastery to help 

the monastery function as a cenobitic community. With the formation of the St. Paisius Monastery 

in Forestville, California in 1991, the responsibility for the day-to-day administration of the St. 

Herman of Alaska Monastery became my main responsibility as Abbot Herman had settled in 

Forestville. This continued until January, 1996 when I was sent to Alaska again with the intention 

of forming a more cohesive monastic brotherhood on Spruce Island, now as both a priest and a 

monk. I remained there in Alaska until June, 1998. By that time we had already been evicted from 

Monks' Lagoon, and had settled on St. Nilus Island. I was directed to return to the St. Herman of 

Alaska Monastery. It was not clear to me exactly why, but at the time I assumed it was because our 

efforts at Monks' Lagoon had come to an end. Abbot Herman was then very involved in missionary 

and educational programs centered at the St. Paisius Abbey and therefore he wanted me to 

administer the monastery in Platina. 

When I returned from the Republic of Georgia, Abbot Herman had ceased being able to 

administer any of the communities with effectiveness. Soon I was called upon from all sides to 

provide leadership. It was something that I felt very awkward about doing. However, in my travels 

and through the relationships I had formed, I had some very clear ideas about how wrong our 

"positions" were and how desperately we needed to make some fundamental changes. These were 

changes that Abbot Herman was both unable and unwilling to make because they would have 

required him to accept accountability to the Church which he had been avoiding for fifteen years. I 

was very surprised by the trust that not only the monks placed in me but also the nuns and fellow 

pastors of parish communities. In 2000 when our communities were received by His Grace Bishop 

Jovan of Western America, it was a foregone conclusion that I would be elected abbot. Nonetheless, 

Bishop Jovan had the brothers elect me. He elevated me as Abbot on November 28, 2000.  

There were many things to which I now had to accustom myself, specifically to show 

accountability to a bishop, and to a bishop that expected accountability. He expected to be informed 

of what took place in our monastery, when we left the monastery for any significant length of time, 

and with whom we were serving. At first we felt a little hampered but as we saw that the Church did 

not consist merely of our individual activity, we felt that an immense weight had been taken from 

us. This awareness has helped us to understand what constitutes the Church. 

Since that time I was supported by the brothers of our monasteries with inward and 

outward obedience, with respect and self motivation. I have seen our community grow stronger and 

all of the monks mature. Our liturgical life is now consistent, not sporadic. The Divine Liturgy is 

celebrated peacefully, the brothers receive Holy Communion regularly, yet also with preparation. At 

the direction of Bishop Jovan we took steps to prepare some of the monks for the possibility of their 

ordination to the priesthood. When I severely broke my ankle on July 4, 2002, the monks took over 

an increased responsibility for every aspect of our monastic life. By God's Providence at that time 

Bishop Jovan transferred Hierodeacon Hilarion to our monastery. On February 14th, 2009 he was 

ordained to the Holy Priesthood by His Grace Bishop Maxim. When I left the St. Herman of Alaska 

Monastery in 2009, I appointed him to be the next abbot as stipulated by our by-laws. He was 

confirmed and then elevated by Bishop Maxim. 

In 2001 I began to make regular pastoral visits to Spruce Island in my capacity as abbot to 

oversee the monks and as a priest to celebrate the Holy Mysteries. Except for a year and a half 

hiatus following the time that I had shattered my ankle, I have visited Spruce Island every six or 

seven months since 2000. Usually I arranged a two-week stay and focused on celebrating the Holy 

Mysteries both at St. Michael's Skete and at St. Nilus Island. I began to do this according to the 

counsel of Bishop Jovan. 

Just before Great Lent in 2001, we were contacted by our ruling Bishop, His Grace Jovan, 

to contact Archimandrite Nikolai Soraich. He requested our help to stabilize the conditions in the St. 

John of Shanghai Monastery in Point Reyes Station. At the time I was not aware of the extent to 

which Archimandrite Nikolai had divided the community or driven some of the monks away. 

Nonetheless, in hindsight his request proved to be very providential, for it supplied the catalyst for a 

renewal of the relationship between Hieromonk Jonah (now Metropolitan) and our monastery. I 

think that everyone has benefited enormously. In July 2006 after a long search the St. John of 

Shanghai Monastery moved to a location across the valley from our monastery. We now have 

regular contact and pilgrims often split their visit between the two monasteries. 

After being received back into the Serbian Orthodox Church, great work still loomed 

ahead of us. We had been helping and overseeing several missions for a number of years and had 

direct responsibility for the faithful in Chico, Reno, and Redding. After we had been received into 

the Church, we arranged for the faithful in these missions to be received as well. However, we did 

allow them to consider what would be best for their missions.  

The well-being of the Chico mission was complicated by the fact that Riassaphore-nun 

Sophia headed the mission there. Bishop Jovan directed that it must be a mission parish under the 

Bishop, and that she should find a monastic community in which to live. This was very upsetting to 

her and the entire community went through many changes. Eventually the community was received 

into the Serbian Orthodox Church. It later closed because of the existence of a healthy OCA mission 

that had been started in Chico in the late 1990's. When the OCA priest in Chico retired in 2005, 

Hieromonk Damascene and I were invited regularly to serve there from 2005 to 2008. 

The Redding mission presented its own problems. First of all the experience of the faithful 

was limited to life outside the Church. We had to explain to them how we had originally defrauded 

them of being members of the Church. We had instilled in them and others a bizarre dichotomy 

between "World Orthodoxy" and "True Orthodoxy." Finally in 2002 Bishop Jovan assigned the 

Priest Michael Boyle to their community and our involvement rapidly diminished.  

I was involved in the St. John the Baptist community in Reno from 1987–2004. Between 

2001 and 2003 I served there as a priest every few months.  In April 2003 Bishop Longin ordained 

the Priest James Barfield for the St. John the Baptist Mission. Afterwards I have been only remotely 

involved with pastoral questions.  

Arrival of Bishop Maxim in July, 2006 

His Grace Maxim was enthroned as Bishop of Western America on July 30, 2006. Bishop 

Longin who had been the administrator of our diocese for four years had only been able to visit the 

monastery on a few occasions. Bishop Maxim brought with him unique gifts and background for 

this task: his experience in the life of the Church as the son of a priest, as the spiritual son of Bishop 

Atanasije (Evtich), his thorough education in Athens, and his life as a monk of Tvrdos Monastery. 

Very broadly educated, knowing five languages, endowed with musical and artistic talents, he came 

ready to serve the Church. His youth and good health have enabled him to visit regularly all of the 

parishes in our diocese and our monastery. He keeps his eye on our monastic life, he inquires about 

the brothers' well being, he has involved us in diocesan work and examines carefully what we 

present to him for his blessing, whether it be a publication or a request to serve or travel 

somewhere. This has given us a further education in the Church and what a bishop is. Bishop 

Maxim asked us to assist with the translation and editing of two volumes of articles by his own 

spiritual father, Bishop Atanasije Evtich, entitled Christ: the Alpha and the Omega and Emmanuel: 

The Only Begotten and Firstborn among Many Brethren. 

As a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church I have taken part in the National Sabors of the 

Serbian Orthodox Church which were convened in Los Angeles in 2003, in Detroit in 2006, and in 

Canton in 2009. 

Brazil, Ecuador, and South America 

In 2002 we received a request from His Grace Bishop Mitrophan through our own bishop, 

His Grace Longin, asking if a Brazilian Hieromonk, Abbot Pedro, could come and stay at our 

monastery to become acquainted with the monastic life. He arrived in September of 2003 with no 

knowledge of English and very little knowledge of the teachings of the Orthodox Church. He did 

not speak Spanish either, although he could understand much of it. During this time period I had to 

seriously revive my Spanish in order to communicate with Abbot Pedro. I had used Spanish only 

In February, 2006 I received a letter from Jacobo Quintero Touma of Guayaquil, Ecuador. 

very sporadically over the previous twenty years. This reawakened my thoughts about the Orthodox 

Church in Latin America. It was painful to hear of its desperate plight. In this letter he briefly 

related the story of their mission and asked if we knew any Orthodox bishop who would be willing 

to help them. He had been on a pilgrimage to St. Anthony's Monastery in October, 2005 and had 

been given by Abbot Paisios the necessary information to contact me. Abbot Paisios did this 

knowing of the grief experienced by the Orthodox in South America in the Ecumenical Patriarchate. 

I replied to Jacobo in Spanish (to his surprise) and asked for detailed information so that I could 

compile a report and submit it to my bishop, at that time Bishop Longin. On the basis of our 

correspondence I submitted an initial report to Bishop Longin. I then asked his blessing to make a 

trip to Guayaquil and assess the actual circumstances of their mission.  

A new, interesting, and challenging chapter in my own life began. I journeyed to 

Guayaquil in late June, 2006 and stayed there for two weeks. I became acquainted with the people 

and the culture and shared with them introductory instruction about the Orthodox Faith. I baptized 

several people who had been prepared by Jacobo through a period of catechism. Upon my return I 

compiled a report to His Grace Bishop Mitrophan, to whose diocese the South American parishes 

actually belong. 

In October, 2006, I traveled to Recife, Brazil to participate in their ―Orthodox Theological 

Week.‖ I had been in close contact with the clergy and faithful in Northeastern Brazil since before 

Abbot Pedro had arrived in September, 2003. I met with the clergy and faithful, discussed their 

problems, asked about their needs, visited their missions, and told them that we would try to help. I 

also discussed with Archpriest Alexis Pena Alfaro (an El Salvadoran national and native Spanish 

speaker) the possibility for him to visit and serve in Guayaquil in his position as dean of the South 

American parishes of the Serbian Orthodox Church. I visited northeastern Brazil again in late July, 

2008. This was entirely a pastoral visit. I also visited Caruaru in the Pernambuco State and gave 

lectures there. Leaving Recife I visited Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, and met with one family and 

one priest there. 

I made my second missionary trip to Guayaquil in late January, 2007. At this time I served 

the first wedding of two converts to the Orthodox Faith in Guayaquil in early February. My third 

visit to Guayaquil took place in November, 2007, again in June, 2008, July of 2009, and in May of 

2010. 

Pilgrimage to Serbia: February, 2009 

I arrived in Belgrade on February 17, 2009 for what proved to be an amazing pilgrimage. 

It left a very deep impression upon my heart and soul. I visited many monasteries, including several 

in Kosovo. I had been prepared by my monastic life and eight years of interaction with the clergy 

and faithful of the Serbian Orthodox Church. I was accompanied most of the time by Iguman 

Mihailo of Fenek Monastery who had stayed with us in both Platina and Alaska for four months. I 

spoke several times at the theological faculty and had two television interviews. I spoke with a few 

bishops, specifically His Eminence Metropolitan Amfilohije and Bishop Irinej of Bachka. I was 

extremely edified by the life of the faithful, the monastics and the bishops. I was humbled to 

experience the life of the Serbian Orthodox Church, to receive the blessing of His Holiness 

Patriarch Pavle, and to receive the love and trust of the Serbian Orthodox people. It highlighted 

what a great blessing has been poured out upon us since the time that we returned through 

repentance to the Serbian Orthodox Church. I am humbled by their witness, by their suffering, and 

by their love. I give thanks to God for how He has shepherded us through His Church. 

St. Vladimir’s Seminary 

I came to St. Vladimir’s Seminary full of prejudice. It has been a very rewarding and 

challenging experience. Originally Metropolitan Jonah asked me to study for one year. However, at 

the end of one year I saw how little I really knew. I saw how deficient my own formation was. 

Therefore I received a blessing to continue my studies for another year. During my second year I 

grew to value what the seminary was offering: an in-depth critical study of what we actually 

believe, what the Church teaches and what it is our task as pastors to proclaim to the world. 

Academically I have been seriously challenged, especially in the area of writing essays with an 

argument and a coherent presentation of a sustained theological argument. I would state that Canon 

Law, Patristics, Bioethics, Contemporary Church History (Orthodox Christian Identity), Iconology, 

New Testament, and General Hermeneutics have been the key challenging courses. In none of these 

areas did I have adequate preparation. At the present time I know where to turn and to whom I 

should turn for answers. I have benefitted above all by key faculty response and challenge both in 

class and in principle. On the basis of these two years I understood that to finish a third year and 

complete the entire course of the Master of Divinity degree would truly present a well-rounded 

preparation for continued ministry in the Orthodox Church. 

Summer in Western Alaska 

In the Summer of 2010 I had the opportunity to travel through 35 villages and towns in 

Western Alaska primarily by boat and small plane. In many of these villages I was simply a guest 

and witnessed the life of the Church as an outsider. In about ten of these villages in some capacity I 

ministered, either to serve the Divine Liturgy or Vespers, celebrate a baptism, hear confessions, or 

to serve a funeral. Such an experience of the Church in this remote region was a rich educational 

experience. I caught a glimpse of whom the flock consisted. In many of these villages I was 

introduced as a candidate for the episcopacy. While I was treated respectfully and asked to respond 

to questions, I did learn quite a bit about the people, their manner of life, their church customs and 

culture. It gave me a good indication of what my responsibilities might someday be. Only the 

extreme southwest of the diocese, a few communities in the Prince William Sound and the Pribiloff 

Islands was I not able to visit. 

  

Educational data: 

Pedregal Elementary School: September 1967-June 1972. 

Malaga Cove Intermediate School: September 1972-June 1973. 

Palos Verdes USD Marine Biology Summer School: June-July 1973, June-July 1974. 

Ridgecrest Intermediate School: September 1973-June 1975. 

Rolling Hills High School: September 1975-January 1978. 

University High School: January 1978-June 1979. 

University of California, Irvine September 1978-June 1979. 

University of California, Santa Cruz 1979-1981. 

[New Valaam Theological Academy 1981-1983, 88-91. 

St. Paisius Missionary School 1992-1995, 1997. 

St. Vladimir's Seminary Summer Institute, 1994. 

Clergy Seminars in the Serbian Orthodox Church from 2001 to the present.] 

Currently enrolled in St. Vladimir’s Seminary August 2009 to present. 

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/seej4yhhi0nc/?&v=c&th=137f12f441f27654

June 2012

From: oregdan@hotmail.com

To: oregdan@hotmail.com

Subject: FW: Sharing for those who have time to read this all: the life journey of (former) Platina Abbot Gerasim (Eliel)-would-be, OCA new bishop?

Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2012 13:56:42 -0600

 "Biographical Sketch", of (former abbot of Platina Monastery), Gerasim (Eliel):...now a candidate to be made

an OCA bishop:

http://dosoca.org/files/esc/Gerasim.BiorevisedMarch14_27_2009.pdf 

....which yields us, a lot of more recent times history of the formerly-ROCOR Platina Monastery, and valuable testimonies about Fr. Seraphim, plus the problems of former-abbot, Herman Podmoshensky, etc.

***The main value of this biographical sketch, is...the history of Platina Monastery of recent years, from

about 1980 onwards, till now....( and also of the chaotic divided condition of Orthodoxy in America, and the world!!!)-

From: oregdan@hotmail.com

To: oregdan@hotmail.com

Subject: Sharing for those who have time to read this all: the life journey of (former) Platina Abbot Gerasim (Eliel)-would-be, OCA new bishop?

Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:00:28 -0600

(This negative comment appears to be a criticism of him, by a member of the OCA, ( a 'Nina', or a 'Rebecca Matovic'?, whoever either of them are?), suggesting that he may be..perhaps....unqualified.. to be made an OCA bishop?)...and about which specific OCA  matter, I personally have nothing,  to express my  opinion about., I cannot give such an  opinion. 

But for those who have the time to read his own composition of his own life-biography (the link given below), a MONUMENTAL work!

-one learns many things about him, and the various Orthodox influences that he encountered., and about the tortured history of the Platina monastery, at least from when

he arreived there, up to the present time..

As far as I know, most if not all, of what he says here is the truth, only as seen through his own eyes. Others have somwhat different slants on these events and people.

Plus, for anyone unfamiliar about the actual history of the Platina monastery, this honest  work reveals a lot of valuable and truthful information (!!!)

I personally knew most of those persons he encountered in his Orthodox  life journey., at least here on the west coast, though I might give a different interpretation of some of them, as my personal experiences with them, especially with Herman Podmoshensky, were not exactly what he witnessed..

One needs to devote an hour or two, to read and digest it all.

Rd. Daniel Everiss

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Category: Historical information about the fall of former ROCOR Platina Monastery,

and also criticisms of 'Gordon-Gerasim Eliel', to be .... consecrated as a new OCA bishop, etc.

WHY should we....... care?

Because this factual accounting, tells us a lot of truth, about what actually happened to OUR St. Herman of Alaska, Platina monastery, in northern California, co-founded by our saintly Fr. Seraphim (Rose) and, a monastery once  the pride and joy of our Russian Church Abroad, but brought down to destruction by it's former rebellious abbot, Herman Podmoshensky, who is still alive, unrepentant, but in poor health & wheel-chair bound, living in a mobile home owned by the monastery, down the mountain from the monastery, in  the tiny town of Platina & cared for by monastery brothers.  He still legally owns the monastery property! but recognizes no living bishop, 'only St. John Maximovitch in Heaven'.

From all that I personally know of all of this, MESS, and I unfortunately know too much!,  this account is exactly the truth, sad to say.

Rd. Daniel Everiss  

Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2012 08:00:51 -0400

From: 

Subject: Fwd: tangled web

From: "j.mceachen" <jmcea@optonline.net>

To: "j.mceachen" <jmcea@optonline.net>

Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2012 8:20:29 PM

Subject: tangled web

Speaking about this book length 'Biographical Sketch' by  'Gordon-Eliel'- Abbot Gerasim" (link is below)- 

Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive!

Sir Walter Scott

This is a muddled, confusing, even narcissistic, self-serving autobiography. I have never read anything like it. But the below analysis, done by a lifelong Russian Orthodox man formerly of Ansonia, CT, is only a slightly less confusing summary.

Stop the railroad in the DOS (i.e. the OCA's 'Diocese of the South')

After reading the lengthy Biographical Sketch (above,) updated by Abbot Gerasim

(Eliel) on June 6, 2011 AND reading that the DOS Episcopal selection committee has
decided to submit only one name for consideration, I came away disappointed in
the person reflected in the Biographical Sketch. Clearly, the interaction
between the Holy Order of Mans (HOOM), Christ the Saviour Brotherhood, St.
Herman of Alaska monastery at Platina, CA, the long time abbot of the monastery
Fr. Herman , aka Gleb Podmoshensky, and of course, the primary person of interest,

Abbot Gerasim, aka Gordon Eliel, is extremely complex and confusing. Abbot
Gerasim's lengthy biography did little to make it easier to comprehend the
various plots, sub plots, characters and actions involved.

This chronological summary may make things easier to understand.

1968. HOOM founded by Earl Blighton. Discussion of the cultish beliefs of HOOM
are for another time.
1969. St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood founded by Gleb Podmoshensky (later
Fr.Herman) and Eugene Rose (later Fr.Seraphim).
1970-May. Fr.Pangratios Vrionis pleads guilty to counts of sodomy and one
count of corrupting the morals of a minor.
1970. Pangratios deposed by the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.
1974. Blighton dies.
1978. Vincent Rossi assumes control of HOOM.
1978. Jonestown massacre in Guyana . Over 900 cult members dead in mass
suicide/murder.
1979. Gordon Eliel enters the University of California, Santa Cruz.
1980. March 25. Eliel received into Orthodoxy at the St.Nicholas Russian
Orthodox (Moscow Patriarchate) in San Francisco.
1981. July 28. Gordon Eliel arrives at St.Herman monastery, Platina, CA
(ROCOR). He came to visit and stayed . He did not return to UCSC.
1982-Prior to. ROCOR makes charges of moral improprieties against Fr. Herman.
1982. Fr. Seraphim Rose dies.
1983- Spring. Fr.Herman, Eliel, and others from the Platina monastery attempt to
take over Monk's Lagoon in Alaska. They are rebuffed by OCA Archbishop Gregory
and Fr.Joseph Kreta.
1983- Late. Vincent Rossi, of HOOM, meets with Fr.Herman (Podmoshensky).
1986- Early. Fr.Herman (Podmoshensky) accepted under the omophorion of Bishop
Benedict, aka Samuel A.Greene, into the Archdiocese of Vasilopopulis under
Metropolitan Pangratios Vrionis. No Orthodox church recognized Pangratios as a
bishop and his diocese of Vasilopoulis as being canonical.
1988. July 12. ROCOR deposes Fr.Herman.
1988. HOOM "converts" to Orthodoxy under deposed and non-canonical Metropolitan
Pangratios.
1992. Novice Eliel is tonsured a monk by deposed priest Herman. Valid or
invalid??
1993. Winter. Monk Jonah goes to Russia under the auspices of the Valaam
Society, which is a part of the Christ the Saviour Brotherhood, to work on
Russky Palomnik.
1994. Dec.19. Monk Gerasim Eliel is ordained a deacon by Metropolitan John in
St.Petersburg, Russia.
1994. Dec. 23. Monk Deacon Gerasim is ordained to the priesthood by Metropolitan
John in St. Petersburg, Russia.
1999. Fr.Benedict Greene is indicted for child abuse. Benedict left the
Archdiocese of Vasilopoulis and was received into ROCOR in 1991 as a priest.
1999. Metropolitan Pangratios' criminal record is made public via the Internet.
2000. Holy week. Podmoshensky forced to step down as Abbot of the Platina
monastery.
2000. Nov.27-28. Platina accepted into the Serbian Orthodox church.
2000. Nov. 28. Fr. Gerasim (Eliel) elevated to Abbot of the Platina monastery.
2009. Fr.Gerasim moves to the OCA presumably at the request of his old friend
Metropolitan Jonah .

I realize that there were other significant occurrences that happened in this
time period but the above are the most pertinent to this discussion.

From the above, we can see that Fr.Gerasim Eliel did not exactly observe proper
Orthodox order and canonical practices in numerous instances including:

1. He served with suspended Abbot Herman from 1983 to 1988.
2. He served with deposed Abbot Herman from 1988-2000.
3. He served in a schismatic and non-canonical monastery from 1983-2000.
4. He was tonsured a monk by a deposed priest.
5. He was ordained to the priesthood by a foreign bishop who was acting on false
information provided by a deposed priest. Monk Gerasim was aware of all this.
6. He committed a criminal act by breaking into and entering an Alaskan
monastery church illegally.

Some of the "irregularities" are obvious on its face. However, I think some
additional comments are in order.

Novice (Eliel) exercised very bad judgement during Great Lent 1984 (p.16-17 of
the biography) when Eliel learned about the suspension of Abbot Herman for
disobedience.
Apparently, Herman was charged with sexual improprieties by ROCOR but the
sentence was mitigated to a suspension for disobedience. On p.17, Fr. Gerasim
says…….
"all of the monks who remained at the monastery left for Medford, Oregon".

Well, not all. Eliel and Monk John stayed.

Fr. Gerasim further states…"We were very confused about what to do".

QUERY: Why was Eliel confused? The other monks were not "confused". It was a
no-brainer. The other monks took the only reasonable and honorable route and
left the schismatic and non-canonical monastery. Eliel stayed in schism.

If Fr.Gerasim was confused and didn't know what to do in a case with such a
seemingly simple resolution, how can we trust Gerasim's discretion when faced
with the inevitable problems that he would regularly encounter in the
performance of his duties as Diocesan Bishop?

Eliel's ability to think rationally is shown again in his agreement to be
ordained by a metropolitan six thousand miles away. In December 1994, when the
ordination took place, Monk Gerasim was serving under a deposed priest in a
non-canonical jurisdiction, headed by a deposed Metropolitan not recognized as a
bishop by any Orthodox church.

Fr. Gerasim skims over this canonical irregularity by admitting…..
"Afterwards, Abbot Herman and Archimandrite Innokenti (Veniaminov) had persuaded
Metropolitan John of St. Petersburg to perform the ordination of several monks
of our monastery. THEY HAD OBVIOUSLY BLURRED THE REALITY OF OUR MONASTERY'S
CANONICAL STATUS AND THAT OF OUR `BISHOP'" ( Caps are mine).

What a clever way of saying that they lied to the Metropolitan so that the
ordination was performed under false pretenses. Invalid ordination??????

Is this the kind of conduct we can expect from a newly consecrated Bishop
Gerasim?

In discussing the turmoil caused by the disclosure of the criminal record of
Metropolitan Pangratios in 1999, Fr. Gerasim says on p. 27……
"It was now crystal clear that we were in schism from the Church primarily
because Abbot Herman was a fugitive from ecclesiastical justice, from
accountability to his bishop."

Unbelievable. Hello. Anyone there? It was crystal clear years ago that the
monastery and it's members were in schism. No amount of rationalization can
alter that.

Is Fr.Gerasim really suitable to be Bishop of the Diocese of the South?

The two primary scriptural references that are generally cited to illustrate the
desirable qualities of a bishop are found in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:7-9.
Look what Timothy says.

"A bishop then must be blameless, ……of good behaviour----not a novice, lest
being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.
Moreover, he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he
fall into reproach and the snare of the devil."

St. John Chrysostom said…."every virtue implied in this word. The bishop's life
should be unspotted so that all should look up to him……"

Several questions to ask…

1. Is the record of Fr.Gerasim blameless?
2. Does he have a proven record of "good behaviour"?
3. Is his life "unspotted"?

Finally, Fr.Gerasim's record of jurisdiction hopping must be considered. He was
brought into Orthodoxy by a priest in the Moscow Patriarchate; shortly after, he
became a novice at the Platina monastery for years when it was under the ROCOR:
he was schismatic for many years without any bishop and finally with a
schismatic and non-canonical bishop; then when it came time to find a canonical
church in 2000, he, along with other members of Christ the Saviour Brotherhood
approached the Jerusalem patriarchate and the Church of Georgia. The OCA was not
considered, presumably because they were on the "new calendar" and were thought
of in a very bad light because of the years spent under ROCOR. And yet, after
exhibiting an anti-OCA attitude for years (see his deliberate provocations
against the OCA at Monk's Lagoon in Alaska) and holding the OCA in the worst
possible light for so many years, all it took to wrench the Abbot away from the
Platina monastery was a phone call from an old friend who apparently offered him
an entry into the OCA episcopy. Is this to be the primary qualification for the
episcopy, i.e. that he is a long time friend of the first hierarch?

In short, although I have no vote in this matter, my vote would be a resounding
..NO.

ANAXIOS.

Nicholas Skovran, Sr.
June 14, 2012.