Report on the Horrific Tragedies and Revealing Events which Occurred in HOCNA After They Abandoned the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

These are taken from the notes of R. M., made during a conversation with Father Spyridon Schneider on April 22nd, 1997. Some are statements of Father Spyridon Schneider and are recorded as accurately as possible. Supplemental information has also been added.

+ We [Fr. Spyridon speaking] were all herded into a schism [against ROCOR] like a bunch of sheep. We were all following Fr. Panteleimon who was a very charismatic type of leader. Terrible things have happened throughout the schismatic group since their break.

+ In his own parish of St. John the Russian in Ipswich, Father Spyridon asserts that spiritually speaking, the first thing that changed for him was the rapid deterioration of the Church life into numberless arguments and theological debates without the participants behaving in a Christian manner.

+ Father Spyridon said that he found that his own prayers, including the prayers of Confession and Exorcism, became just empty words that had no effect on people. In one case, a man battling with depression had always been helped by his exorcisms, but this no longer was the case. Nothing spiritual worked anymore.

+ Saint Nektarios parish in Seattle had 200 people or more for feast days and Pascha, while on Sundays the church was always full. After the schism, feast days and Pascha only brought 85 people and Sunday Liturgy only brought 25 to 35 people.

+ Many horrible tragedies also occurred, and the following is a partial list of them. These can hardly be considered coincidences.

+ HOCNA priest George Macris, after his wife died of cancer while in ROCOR, having just become a HOCNA priest, had an affair with one of his parishioners. He then left the priesthood and married her. He died one year later.

+ HOCNA priest Michael Henning fell away from the Orthodox Faith, divorced his wife, and remarried.

+ HOCNA priest Martin Brokenleg, having seduced several of his parishioners, left his wife. After this, his mother was badly crippled in an automobile crash.

+ HOCNA priest Nicholas Liberis has a long-standing adulteress relationship with one of his parishioners and continues to serve.

+ HOCNA deacon Barsanouphios Graham destroyed his marriage by pressuring his wife to consent to separation, after which he left her and went to Holy Transfiguration Monastery.

+ HOCNA deacons Barnabas and Barsanouphios while returning from Fr. Panteleimon's Skete in Maine in a pickup truck were arrested for vehicular homicide, when a piece of plywood which they had not tied down flew out of the back of their truck on the highway, and into another vehicle that was following. The wood beheaded the driver, who was a father driving his family, all of whom were also injured. This occurred during Holy Week. After this, Father Barnabas left the monastery, while Father Barsanouphios still serves as a deacon.

+ HOCNA priest Patrick Ranson of Paris, France, traveled to Athens to celebrate Archbishop Auxentios' nameday, where he had a head-on collision, killing himself and one of his children.

+ The HOCNA bishop, Photios of Paris, took the widow of HOCNA priest Patrick Ranson as his mistress, soon after married her and left his episcopate.

+ On one day when Father Panteleimon landed in Jerusalem, on the very same day, his own mother was burned alive in a fire in her Detroit home.

+Two HOCNA nuns in Athens, Greece, were burned alive in the home of their Abbess Maria.

+HOCNA Abbess Maria's daughter, Kalliope, collapsed dead after she arrived back at her burning home in England, when she learned that her cousin had been killed in the fire.

+ Matushka Nina Kochergin, Fr. George Kochergin's Matushka, on the Feast of Pentecost, was seriously injured in a traffic accident.

+The HOCNA Hieromonk Justin, who was bishop-elect, after examining the accusations, fled from the monastery and fell away from the Orthodox Faith by joining World Orthodoxy.

+The Schema-monks and deacons Barnabas and Lazarus left the monastery, and admitted their complicity in Fr. Panteleimon's homosexual acts.

+The Schema-monks Tikhon, Benjamin, Prodromos, Symeon, Sava, Daniel, and others left the monastery.

+The Schema-monks Peter and Paul, who were of Japanese origin, left the monastery due to the sexual perversity of Fr. Panteleimon and the brotherhood. One was seduced by Fr. Panteleimon himself, while the other found male homosexual pornography in the deacon Fr. Andrew's closet. He cut out the pictures and, before the liturgy, pasted them underneath the icons on the iconostasion in the church. Thus, he showed he had learned of their sexual perversity and that they were not truly worshipping Christ, but their own passions. After he did this on two separate occasions, he left the monastery.

+The Schema-monk Elias, twin brother of their 'Bishop' Moses, left the monastery. Before he left, he could not convince his brother that life in the monastery was but a blasphemy, because both were involved sexually for many years with Fr. Panteleimon. He wrote a letter, however, confessing his and his brother's sexual life with Fr. Panteleimon. He shared this letter with other monks who thereupon left the monastery.

+The Schema-monk Joseph read the letter of Schema-monk Elias and confronted Fr. Isaac with a demand for an explanation. Fr. Isaac admitted to him that Fr. Panteleimon had 'this problem'. Fr. Joseph thereupon left the monastery, realizing that Fr. Isaac had lied to him for many years since the accusations surfaced in 1986.


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