Comment was sent to the editors of ROCANA.ORG

The following comment was sent to the editors of ROCANA.ORG:
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The long quote from Fr. Michael Pomazansky has been completely misunderstood by the author of the article recently posted on the rocana.org website. It is quite clear that Fr. Michael was writing about relations between local churches and about differences and divisions that may occur between local churches for a variety of external reasons, such as occurred between Constantinople and the Bulgarian Church from 1872 to 1945. But Fr. Michael was not writing about divisions and schisms within a local church, such as are currently being fomented within the ROCA. Certainly divisions between local churches are most unfortunate and always lamentable; but it is precisely divisions and schisms that occur within a local church that are highly destructive and are universally condemned by the canons and the fathers.
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Our clarification:
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The quote from Fr. Michael was not at all misunderstood. It is obvious that he speaks ​of relations between local churches. The quote was intended to demonstrate, that the visible breaking of intercommunion does not necessarily mean that the Church is divided on a spiritual, mysterious level. The commentator juxtaposes divisions between local Churches and divisions within a local Church, and concludes that the former are lamentable, but less grave than the latter, which is condemned by the Holy Fathers. Such juxtaposition is artificial, while the conclusion is unfounded. It is enough to say, that the present-day concept of a national local Church, self-sufficient and self-contained, is quite recent, and did not exist in the time of the Fathers. How will the commentator then support his claim? 

For the Fathers, local Churches were churches of provinces, rather than that of nations, since all of them were under the same Roman Empire. In the time of the Fathers, unlike our time, the idea of the universal Church was quite real. Divisions between local Churches happen very rarely, and usually are initiated by the primates, while exhortations of the Fathers against schisms are intended for ordinary people. That’s why these exhortations deal with divisions within a local Church, and not because divisions between two Churches are less grave. The truth is that the Church is one Body, so the greater the part of the Body that is severed, the greater is the impact on the whole Body. However, not all divisions can be named a schism in the canonical meaning of the word, as this is the case in our situation; also Metropolitan Agafangel is solely accountable for this split. Both points have been explained elsewhere in the section “Questions and Answers.”

As for the local Russian Church, let us not forget, that it has been kept captive by sergianists for 89 years. Those who managed to escape the heresy are divided into many “splinters.” Thinking of the Odessa Synod as being like a local Russian Church is the most lamentable misunderstanding.