An old email I wrote to Fr. Gregory in 2014

See previous post: Beware of Euphrosynos Cafe
https://startingontheroyalpath.blogspot.com/2025/01/beware-of-euphrosynos-cafe.html

Folks,

I'm working on getting all of Fr. Gregory's emails out of my old gmail account.  I expect to eventually put together the email record of my reconciliation with Fr. Gregory...  how it came about, thanks to Nathan Lewis who thinks he is a prophet, and he had not confessed this to Fr. Gregory — at least not clearly.  When I tried to tell Fr. Gregory about Nathan's prelest, he jumped down my throat saying I was being a trouble-maker again.  This re-opened an old wound — painful as it was, it was needed.  That story will have to be for another day, or, actually another year at the rate I'm going.  A couple of years ago I started archiving Fr. Gregory's emails beginning with the most recent email and working back.  It has taken me this long just to get back to November 2014.  I think our reconciliation was before Pascha 2013, maybe 2012... so I have a ways to go yet.

In the meantime tonight I made it back to November 2014, and I found this email from Fr. Gregory, which is his response to a complaint I still had — I was trying to tie up loose ends in our reconciliation.  By writing out my complaint to Fr. Gregory, I had inadvertently made a contemporaneous report about Suaiden's copycat blog.  It is a very personal email, I hesitate to post it, but I'm going to share it anyway.  Because... it was over 10 years ago, and I'm really the only one who is going to be embarrassed or hurt by it.  I hate knowing that Suaiden will see it — not that anything I said will come as a surprise to him; but that he uses (abuses) any personal information he gets for his narcissistic purposes.  Not for any good.  Nothing humbles him.  It is one of those situations: "Everything you say can and will be used against you."  And if it can't be used against you "as is," then it will be twisted so that it can be used to hurt you.  So, I brace myself for his revenge.

The most amazing thing!  I had forgotten all about Maria trying to censor me.  What was she thinking?  She not only censored the livin' daylights out of ECafe -- LOOK!  She tried to censor me, too!  Utterly amazing.  Unbelievable.  It is not a joke.  I had forgotten all about this.
Suaiden launched his imaginary blog war shortly after I posted a cut-paste of this article:
http://genuineorthodoxchurch.com/1983Encyclical_against_OldCalendarEcumenism.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20220122052707/http://genuineorthodoxchurch.com/1983Encyclical_against_OldCalendarEcumenism.htm

This post is found in the RRb Archives folder, a pdf file named: 2014.07 RRb
Over time I had posted a number articles on this subject, to which I applied the label: Jurisdictional Ecumenism.  I'm thinking now to collect those posts into a folder and add the folder to my Shared Library.

Now.   Here is some history concerning ECafe and Suaiden:

 

A note concerning our past strife
Fr. Gregory <frgregory@sjkp.org>
Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 4:33 PM
To: Joanna Higginbotham <joannahigginbotham@gmail.com>

Oh my!  Sauiden and his ilk are best ignored altogether,

I really don't think I "sided" with anyone in your conflict with Ambrose, and still don't.  This is clearly an area of what the Church calls "theologoumena" -- pious opinion.  The Scriptures are remarkably silent and/or ambiguous, and the Church fathers express a wide variety of opinions from the earliest days.

I regret, perhaps, having somehow indicated (even if privately) that I was concerned about your bellicose propensities (I've got some myself, but 70+ years have somewhat tempered them), and continue to pray for your discretion (and mine!).

Above all, I love you and hold you in my prayers!

Fr. Gregory+
frgregory@sjkp.org




On Nov 8, 2014, at 4:13 PM, Joanna Higginbotham wrote:

Dear Father Gregory,
Father Bless.

You are aware of Suaiden trying to open a blog war with RemnantROCOR
blog last August.  I believe I successfully managed to stay out of it.
The few RRb posts that could conceivably be even remotely considered
as answers to Suaiden's attacks were posts I would have posted
anyway<  even if a Suaiden's antiRRb did not exist.  This shows that
Suaiden can neither intimidate me nor cause me to engage with him.  I
never entered his boxing ring – he was in there punching at an
imaginary me.  He truly believed we were engaged in a blog war.

In high school my son was jumped and beaten by a gang.  I pressed
charges against the leader of the gang.  The defense kept trying to
call it a fight, as if the two had each willingly entered a mutual
scuffle.  But it was not a fight.  It was an attack.  Still, everyone
in town and at the school kept calling it a fight.

The problem with Suaiden's imaginary war was that people call it a
blog war.  I did post the link to Minas' satire blog, with the warning
you advised, and I wrote beside the link "caution: satire".  That
surely was taken as evidence, by some who knew about it, that I was
indeed engaged in a blog war.  But if you look, I have links there to
all English-speaking Sister Church member's blogs without
discrimination.  Whether I agree with them or not, (and some of
Hudson's blog makes me cringe).  The link list is in alphabetical
order.

I've said nothing in my defense publicly.  Last week the Milan synod
moderator, Maria, and chief censor of ECafe had the nerve to ask me to
end the war by deleting my posts which offend Suaiden.  What she means
mainly are my posts that warn and explain about jurisdictional
ecumenism and the vigante Milan synod.   She said the blog wars are
turning away potential converts from her ECafe forum.  My answer to
Maria was this:

I know nothing about any blog wars except maybe what plays in
Suaiden's imagination.  I carry on as always whether Suaiden is here
or there or nowhere.

Another private answer I've had to give is about your private email to
Nathan that he posted publicly.  What I've said is that you did write
that and at the time you did feel that way, but you no longer see
things that way – that you would not say that today – that our strife
has been healed not just with mutual forgiveness, but also with
clearer understanding.

I hope you could say something similar.

A particularly damaging part of the email is where you use the word "war":

 "Before setting her sights on you, she engaged in a war with
[another parishioner]… If I thought it would do any good, I would
issue a “cease and desist” order.”

Suaiden uses this quote to show that I have a history of getting into
wars with fellow-Orthodox.  Father, I deserve this public humiliation
which I believe God has allowed for my penance.  Punishment sure fits
the crime and I accept it and love Him for it, even though I don't
like it.  I can ignore what the public thinks, but what you think is
important to me.  So I want to make sure you understand, at least
somewhat, in retrospect, how I see it.

Without my going to check to see if I saved any of the emails, here is
how I remember it today:

ROCOR Refugees blog.  Ambrose was a member.  Reader Daniel either
posted or commented something showing his support for Fr. Seraphim
Rose's teaching on creation in "Genesis, Creation, and Early Man".
Ambrose, a PhD liberal, already had a prejudice against Daniel, a
high-school-graduate conservative with a writing style definitely not
appreciated by many (as you know, firsthand).  Ambrose responded to
Daniel's post/comment with negation and contradiction.  Ambrose showed
no condescension to Daniel's inferior education.  I refused to publish
Ambrose's comment and he got mad and tattled to you.  Since Ambrose's
comment sounded scholarly to you, and is in agreement with your
creation ideas, and because he is a man, and because he was answering
Daniel, and because of the memory of our previous strife, maybe also
some other causes – you sided with Ambrose in his complaint against
me.

First, I was unwilling to contradict Fr. Seraphim Rose.  Soon later I
established the blog policy that there will be no contradicting Fr.
Seraphim Rose.  Second, Ambrose's tone with answering Daniel, was one
of superiority and confrontational.  You could not see it when you saw
it out of context.  But I saw it in context.  In context of Ambrose's
general dislike of Daniel as well as what Daniel had written.

Ambrose started sending me alarming email messages, accusing me of
causing a scandal because I continued to post things from Fr.
Seraphim's book or things that related to it.  I suggested to him that
he write Kalomiro's answer to Fr. Seraphim's letter to Kalomiros that
today is titled: Patristic Doctrine of Creation.  I offered to publish
this if he wrote it.  But I'm unwilling to turn the RRb into a debate
platform for Orthodox Evolutionists to argue with Fr. Seraphim.
Ambrose kept submitting his comments anyway.  It was like he was
fighting for his life, not some "other perspective".

Kalomiros never answered Fr. Seraphim's letter that is today titled
"Patristic Doctrine of Creation".  And I believe that if Ambrose did
try to write that missing answer, that, in studying Fr. Seraphim's
letter, Ambrose would come to see Fr. Seraphim's perspective.
Ambrose seems to base his whole philosophy on one thing he says is a
misinterpretation of something in St. Basil's Hexæmeron.  Fr. Seraphim
addresses that – if Ambrose would go look.  But, I think he is afraid.
There is something going on that is not obvious.

I say you were unfair with me in siding with Ambrose, but I understand
why you would have been distrustful of me and quick to assume "history
repeating".   And, yes, I deserved that.  But I hope you see me more
clearly now.

Kissing your right hand,
Joanna

p.s.  What happened to Suaiden's blog war?  It appears he has very
reluctantly succumbed to peer pressure and closed the worst of his war
blogs.  In the past he cyber-attacked somebody in Canada where the
police got involved and there was a restraining order taken out
against him.  So, it takes quite a bit to get him to stop anything.

--
"An evil faith and a false church is arising."
(Bishop Theophan the Recluse †)

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