ANEXO C: Relatório da reunião do Padre Michael e do Bispo Ortodoxo, Monsenhor Auhustyn

(publicado inicialmente no Angelqueen nos Estados Unidos)

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/apologia/vpost?id=994266&trail=42

During my recent visit to Lviv I met the Russian Orthodox Archbishop. This was subsequently reported on the Internet as 'dialogue.' Since there has been some postings about this I thought that I should tell anybody who is interested about the meeting.

It was in order to get some Old Slavonic copies of the Psalms that we visited the Russian Orthodox bookshop in Lviv. Since Vatican II is is now difficult to get copies of anything in Church Slavonic. The Russian Orthodox have these books and they are very handy; so we went to buy them. Seeing that we were foreigners the woman in the bookshop wanted us to meet the bishop. She insisted that it would only take a minute and that the bishop would like to meet us. We agreed. The bookshop is very small, really a kiosk, and the church and bishop's office are close by. We were taken up the stairs and into the bishop's antechamber. We first met an Orthodox priest who acted as a secretary.
He wanted to know who we were. It is the second time I had been in that room.

The first time was a couple of years ago to visit a nun whom we knew. She had been a Catholic nun in Ukraine but because of Vatican II and the confusion of Ecumenism she felt it was possible to leave the Catholic convent and join an Orthodox one; this is the sin of apostasy. She is a very intelligent person and has written several books etc. I wanted to visit her to see if she had anyone at all who was keeping contact with her since she committed her apostasy.

So I said to the priest on this occasion that we knew this particular nun. He in turn got her to come and visit us. She was slightly hostile at first because she had received a letter from us inviting her to return to the Catholic Church.

We talked together with the priest and nun for some time. They wanted
to know how we lived here on Papa Stronsay and what our ideas were. Then they offered us a cup of tea and cakes. Our Ukrainian brother explained that we couldn't have anything to eat because we were fasting as it was our Lent. That caused alarm. 'What do Catholics fast?' The nun explained that Catholics do not fast. (That was perhaps her idea of Catholics.) When they heard that we fasted they wanted to know how we fasted and what we eat; being bi-ritual we follow the Byzantine fasting which was quite a shock to them. Here we see that the Vatican II discipline gives scandal not only to Traditional Catholics but also to the schismatics. This is a cause of Oriental Catholics deciding to join the schismatic Orthodox.

Then the bishop came.

We went through double doors into his office and sat down. He also wanted to know what we believe, how we live, what we follow. We told he we believe that the Russian Orthodox should be converted to the Catholic Church as was the policy of the pre Vatican II Church and the practise of Bishop Charnetsky. He listened quietly. He slightly peaked later when I told him that we did not agree with the Vatican giving the icon of Our Lady of Kazan to the Patriarch of Moscow; [that was when he stood up and waved his arms a bit and said it belonged to them and why should the Vatican not give back what was not theirs etc....]. We let that pass; he knew what we thought. Then he concluded that we Traditional Catholics had more in common with them than that Vatican does. He talked about only believing the Pope to be first among equals and proceeded to wind the conversation up giving us each the gift of a bar of Lviv's famous chocolate. He then wanted to have a photo taken with us. As we waited for the camera it was explained that the bishop's medals -those displayed and hanging in rows on the right side of the Wall-rug (over 20 of them) were awareded to him by his Church; and those arranged on the left side (another20 or so) were his civil awards. Then we were shown the photo of the bishop piloting a jet during the time that he was doing his Military Service and he told us that that he was a parachutist. Here our Brother Louis Marie replied that he too had been a parachutistist when he did his French Military service. Then to everyone's amazement the bishop suddenly seized him in a Russian bear hug exclaiming in a loud voice: Only parachutists know what it is to be alive!' [That must be a comment on how often Russian parachutes open!] Then he told a Russian parachutist's joke about the parachutist asking his commander what happens when falling if the second parachute doesn't open; to which the commander said, with an optimistic tone, that he would have the joy of free falling for the rest of his life! Br Louis had another in the French version about being told to keep his arm up in the air to save his watch. The atmosphere had changed quite suddenly he was very friendly. Then the
priest arrived back with the camera and the photo was taken and we were given each a packet of paper icons. When we came out through the bishop's double doors the nun nodded as we left the ante-room for the corridor and thence to the street and the snow. That is the sum of it:

A visit to a bookshop for a few Psalm books in Old Church Slavonic. We met the Russian Orthodox Archbishop of Lviv and we told him what all Catholic priest would have told him before Vatican II. He knew our position and our intention for his soul and the souls of all those who followed him. He had heard a different story in Moscow the week earlier when a Vatican delegation went to wish the Patriarch of Moscow a happy Name day without telling him that they wanted the Russians to convert to the Catholic Church.

As for us we continue to pray that the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph over Russia converting her to the One True Church!

Fr Michael Mary, C.SS.R.