: GENUINE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF AMERICA lal P.O. Box 3177 ~ 29020 County Road 187 ~ Buena Vista, Colorado 81211 cons PHONE: (719) 395-6395 -— vEAx: (719)395-9376 | His Eminence, GREGORY, ARCHBISHOP OF DENVER AND NORTHERN AMERICA July 1/14, 2017 ‘The Unmercenary Healers Kosmas and Damian ‘To the President of the Synod of the Old Calendar Church of Romania, Metropolitan Vlasios and the Holy Synod Dear Metropolitan Vlasios, My name is Archbishop Gregory, and I visited your monastery two weeks ago and was greeted by Bishop Glykyrios and Father Cyprian. [want to express my gratitude for the hospitality which they showed to me and two of my priests from Bulgaria. Bishop Glykyrios showed us much care and hospitality along with Father Cyprian, who was our guide in visiting other shrines in Romania for one day. Thave been following the history of the Romanian Church ever since Metropolitan Kallistos visited you in the 1980s, along with the hapless Metropolitan Cyprian. You probably don’t remember me, but I met you in the Synod building of the Russian Church Abroad in the 1990s when you came to New York and entered into communion with the Russian Church Abroad. Many events have happened since that time, most of them very unfortunate. We witnessed the falling away of my Church (the Russian Church Abroad) and the history of the Old Calendar Romanian Church, all because of the ecclesiastical union with the deposed hierarch Metropolitan Cyprian, The union with Metropolitan Cyprian has caused E-Malt: AGREGORY@GOCAMERICA.NET www:DormitionSketeorg — tucorthodoxy:infothe destruction of the Russian Church Abroad, and ushered in its union with the Moscow Patriarchate. The union with Metropolitan Cyprian has also caused a dark mark on the Old Calendarist Church of Romania. In talking with Bishop Glykyrios and Father Cyprian, [ realized that you and your bishops know that the Greeks were using you, were deceitful, and Thope now you realize chat they wanted you to be in union with them to conceal their many unlawful actions. am writing you to encourage you to correct all the mistakes of the past, so that when we stand before Christ we will not be judged for having been in communion with schismatic and heretical hierarchs, The Romanian Church does not need the Greeks. The Romanian Church can bea light of true Orthodoxy if its history with the heretical hierarchs of the Cyprianite Resistors can be purged. Bue the history of the Church tells us that such a ching can only be done by repentance to those bishops who have not succumbed to heretical doctrines--in other words, to those bishops who have remained pure in their confession and have not jeopradized their apostolic succession. I'm sure you know that Metropolitan Vitaly, after being in communion with the Cyprianite Synod for eight years, at last condemned them as heretics, but unfortunately did not repent of having been in communion with them. Metropolitan Vitaly just proclaimed that he is restoring himself and his Church, after eight years in heresy, to true Orthodoxy. Unforcunately this type of thinking is Cyprianive, which says that you can be heretical and still be part of the Church. Metropolitan Vitaly did not truly repent, and therefore his Church perished into a multitude of schismatic groups fighting each other, even though they all have the same stigma on them. Such a situation should not be duplicated by the Romanian Old Calendar Church. As hicrarchs, we are obliged, no matter how dificult itis, o maintain our Orthodoxy for the sake of our salvation and for all the people underneath us. You and your Synod, having realized that you were in communion and union with the condemned, the deposed and anathematized Metropolitan Cyprian, have an obligation to find bishops who are truly Orthodox, with a pure confession and an unbroken apostolic succession, and to come to them in repentance to be restored and then to break communion with all schismatic and heretical so-called Orthodox groups. Your union with Cyprian of Greece was a mistake. Your union with Kallinikos of Athens is a mistake. He received the Cyprianite bishops, who himself was in schism from the Church. He received heretical Cyprianite bishops withoutrepentance. We never heard of any repentance from the Cyprianite bishops. They never said, “We were wrong in our belief Their belief was anathematized by our Church many years ago. Where there is no repentance, there is no forgiveness. They are still in their sins. Our Holy Church has its apostolic succession from the Russian Church Abroad, When they entered into communion with the Cyprianite bishops, Russian bishops in Russia, who belonged to the Russian Church abroad, broke communion with Metropolitan Vitaly in 1994. ‘They condemned the union with Cyprian, and in 2001 Iwas ordained by them as bishop, and clevated to Archbishop in 2004, We consider ourselves the genuine remnant of the Russian Church Abroad, although we have very few Russians, mostly Americans, Greeks, Bulgarians and. Congolese. I write this letter to encourage you to finally break communion completely with the Cypriantes and be in communion only with Orthodox hierarchs who are true confessors in this evil time. With much love in Christ,