O, our beloved Sons and Daughters, abiding in the Fatherland and in the Diaspora!

Having gathered in the Holy Transfiguation Skete, in Mansonville (Canada), in the Sobor of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, we desired to share with you a feeling of extreme gratitude for God's mercy, as a result of which, alone, we now exist as the true Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, the successor of the 1000-year-old Russian Orthodox Church.

The tempest that has assailed our Church for over ten years, now, was unable to destroy Her with its first blows. But, in October 2000, a critical moment occurred, when the ecclesiastical barque was drawn into a swift current, rushing headlong in the direction of inevitable perdition. Then did [our] most-merciful Lord stretch forth His hand and preserve our Church, with Her faithful sons and daughters, keeping Her safely upon Her blessed route.

Let your hearts not be dismayed that there is discord in the Church. It was already thus in the 4^th Century, when St. Basil the Great wrote: "The dogmas of piety are perverted; the statutes of the Church are violated; the lust for dominance on the part of men who fear not the Lord forces them to strive for positions of leadership… The entire Church is destroyed." In his homily concerning the Dread Judgment, St. Ioann [John] of Shanghai said that during the end-times "many bishops will become untrue to the Faith; and, in justification, they will point to the resplendent state of the Church. Sincerity of confession will vanish. Men will become habituated to apostatizing from righteousness and [yield] to the sweetness of compromise and sin."

The Lord called upon each man to worship God in Spirit and in Truth, to love righteousness and to hate iniquity.

Anyone who desires to bear witness to Christ in Spirit and in Truth cannot do so otherwise than in the free Church of Christ. He cannot bear witness to Christ in Spirit and in Truth in the bosom of a false ecclesiastical organism, such as the Moscow Patriarchate is, for example, which takes its beginning from a false ecclesiastical organization and, to this very day, continues to abide in falsehood, in accordance with the natural laws of heredity. In its pretence, the Moscow Patriarchate supports the present governmental authorities [of the CIS] in all of [the latter's] political plans and designs; prays together with all the religions of the world; recognizes the [Roman] Catholic church as a sister-church; does not react to the growing immorality in the country; applauds the soviet anthem, and tolerates the mausoleum upon the Red Square of the capital. Only the absence of a Christian culture in Rus', as a consequence of such destructive theomachy, can explain the yet continued existence of the Moscow Patriarchate to this day.

Despite all this, the Synod, under the leadership of Archbishop Lavr [Laurus] declares that «the unity of the various parts of the Russian Church already exists among Orthodox Russians, both in the homeland and in the diaspora», [thus] openly declaring union with the Moscow Patriarchate.

They who find refuge aboard our Ecclesiastical Barque are all those who have forgotten about their personal well-being, for the sake of Divine righteousness and service to Christ. Those who think only of their own situation deprive themselves of a place in our Church.

In consequence of a decision by the Sobor, our Church must soon fill up her numbers with yet three more archpastors in Russia, who, through God's mercy, will serve as an example to be emulated, instructing the people in the true Faith and setting up new good shepherds.

May the blessing of the Lord be upon the suffering Russian people abiding both in the Fatherland and in the Diaspora, and upon all of you. Amen.

+Metropolitan Vitaly, First-Hierarch of ROCA

+Archbishop Varnava [Barnabas]

+Bishop Sergii

+Bishop Vladimir

+Bishop Varfolomey [Bartholomew]

Mitred Protopriest Veniamin Zhukov [Benjamin Joukoff], Secretary of the ROCA Synod of Bishops