TOC-PC

On December 14 (NS), Metropolitan Raphael (Motovilov) of Moscow (of the TOC-R) sponsored another meeting with “Bishop” Gregory Lurye, the most prominent representative of the Russian Imyabozhist sect, this time in a more formal setting, along with other name-worshippers.

The theme of the meeting was, somewhat ironically, “What is True Orthodoxy?”

After reading from a variety of papers, the meeting was “friendly”, according to the official website of the TOC-R. After a friendly exchange of gifts, Archimandrite Adam, in charge of external relations of the TOC-R, was simply gushing. “By the results of last conference, I can to tell without disguising my joy that at the least, the program’s objectives were reached one hundred percent, namely – we found a common ground,” he said.

Gregory Lurye (sometimes spelled as “Lourie” in English) is a former priest of ROAC who was deposed for heresy and glorifying suicide among Russian youth. After his deposition, he found two deposed ROAC Bishops, convincing them to make him “Bishop of St Petersburg”. Lurye’s reception of communion at Holy Transfiguration Monastery in 2011 precipitated a split in the HOCNA, where the majority of the parishes fled to the Synod of Archbishop Kallinikos of Athens.

Metropolitan Raphael’s Synod is currently in communion with the American Metropolia, which has become increasingly insistent in its condemnation of the heresy of name-worshipping, as well as the Synod of the Patristic Calendar in Greece, which– according to Metropolitan John of New York– has condemned the heresy anew in Synod, although no formal statement has appeared in print on their part that we could confirm.