BANNING OF FATHER OLEG VOKHMIANIN

As mass media have reported, on 5 May of this year, by order of Bishop Nikon of Ekaterinburg and Verkhotursk, books by well known twentieth-century Orthodox theologians archpresbyters Alexander Schmemann, John Meyendorff, Nikolai Afanasiev, and Archpriest Alexander Men were confiscated from the library and students of the diocesan ecclesiastical school and burned in the schoolyard. After this three priests of the diocese were required to denounce the heresy of the above-mentioned writers, confirming this by oath before the cross and gospel. Two of them complied, but one, Fr Oleg Vokhmianin, refused, as a result of which he was banned from the ministry. We publish the corresponding decree, which hardly has any canonical basis.

Russian Orthodox church, Moscow patriarchate Decree of the Bishop of Ekaterinburg and Verkhotursk

6 May 1998

To priest Oleg Vokhmianin

For the sake of the integrity of the church, for violation of your clerical vow given before the throne of the Lord, promising "to observe the doctrines of the faith and to teach others under the guidance of the Holy Orthodox church and the holy divine fathers," for persistence in error and adherence to new teachings that oppose the traditions of the holy fathers and do not have the approval of the full plenitude of the Orthodox church, and for stubborn refusal to facilitate the elimination of dangerous and heretical errors, unequivocally expressed before the ruling bishop himself and members of the ecclesiastical consistory, as of 5 May 1998 you are banned from clerical ministry for life, without the right of bestowing blessing and wearing a cross, robe, and cassock.

+Nikon, bishop of Ekaterinburg and Verkhotursk

(tr. by PDS)

Russian text at http://www.glasnet.ru/~stphilaret/451faren.html