I found this group whilst checking out a site for victims of sexual abuse within the church to which I belonged. For sixteen years I was what amounts to an Orthodox Fundamentalist (yes, we have those, too), and, I am ashamed to say, during my years in monastic life, met a number of the characters on the Pokrov Perpetrators' List (in fact one of them baptised me back in the late 1970s. When I read the information on groups such as Father Panteleimon of Holy Transfiguration, Boston...and Fr. Ephriam, then compare them with known cults such as ISKCON, a pattern arises...absolute, blind obedience to the decrees of the leader or :"Elder" or "Gerontas". You do what he (haven't banged into any "she's" which I find interesting) or you go to hell (or in the case of ISKCON, I guess you stay in the wheel of Karma).

Now for the question: any idea why these groups seem to spawn things like the sexual abuse of children and other followers who have experienced abuse, like the monks at Holy Transfiguration in Boston.

Dear Ioanan:

There are probably lots of different answers to your question. I am not a mental health professional, so test what I say against your observations. Our friends at pokrov.org may be able to guide you toward additional reading matter.

There is an excellent book entitled [i:7c8d079201]'Prophetic Charisma' [/i:7c8d079201]by Len Oakes in which Oakes described how he interviewed 20 charismatic leaders of different groups and found that underneath the variety of world views, they all had some very important similarities in psychological make up--and even career trajectory.

You can read this and see if you recognize any of these patterns.

One observation made by Oakes was that the 20 leaders were socially sophisticated (in some cases quite manipulative), but psychologically they were not fully adult--they had not learned to be comfortable with their equals, could not be genuinely friends with persons who were fully adult. Instead, these leaders though adult in calendar years, retained many psychological features characteristic of childhood.

They needed to dominate and control social situations and did all they could to master the skills needed to do so.

My hunch is that persons who remain psychologically child-like may have diffculties with sex and feel afraid to have sex with persons who are mature. So they may try to suppress their own sexuality through hiding in certain religious groups and if their lonliness becomes too great, may be apt to reach for someone who feels 'safe'---and that selected person may be a child, someone who matches the true psychological age of the sufferer.

Blessings for your healing. There are relatively few Orthodox churches and monasteries in the United States, and relatively few worship as Orthodox Christians, so it is especially difficult to find people who understand the special features of the spiritual tradition in which you saw all this happen.

A very special feature of Orthodoxy is its beauty. Its especially painful when a hurtful group can use beauty to cloak an entrenched pattern of hurtful behavior.

Thing to remember is in Galatians Paul reminded people that in hearing the Gospel they had become free--and he implored them stay that way and not re-enter bondage.

One clue in evaluating an Orthodox church or monastery is whether its leader and people absorb Orthodox teaching from a wide range of theologians and teachers, or whether they cling, fearfully to just a few select authors, and a narrow interpretation.

Orthodoxy is far, far greater than a single human personality, no matter how holy and talented that personality seems to be.

My personal test in a situation is when listening to someone teach, I ask,

'After the lecture or the service, what lingers in my memory?'

'The teaching itself? Or does the personality of the teacher continually intrude?'

The best choir 'vanishes into' the liturgy--a good choir will not attract attention to itself at expense of the liturgy.

I am Orthodox, and I must say that there are not that few Orthodox churches in the United States. There are many in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and other areas where Russian immigrants settled, including Alaska. The churches can be very different. There are those that are predominantly Russian and the sermon will be in Russian, others are mostly American and the sermon will be in English. I was born in Russia but grew up in the US, and the church I finally chose is one of the American ones. It is a very democratic and friendly environment.

I was not aware of certain Orthodox communities being environments that foster sexual abuse. The Orthodox Church is known to be very conservative, in fact those clergymen who make any attempts to bring it closer to the modern man, usually get jumped on from all sides. I think it's terrible that both in the case of the Catholic and Orthodox church, the abuses committed by clergy end up causing serious damage to victims and staining the church's name...