His Holiness

                                                                                                                                                        Benedict XVI

                                                                                                                                                   Supreme Pontiff

                                 Explanation of our activity

1)     Why do we write about the crisis in the Church?

The Catholic Church and Christianity in general are in a great crisis nowadays. Through the ideology of the historic-critical theology (HCT) one has cast doubt on the most fundamental truths of the Catholic faith, on the Divinity of Christ, on the supernatural character and inspiration of the Holy Scripture, on the primacy and infallibility of the Pope etc. Practically all Catholic theological faculties have built into their curriculum the ideology of HCT and propagate false respect for paganism (buddhism and hinduism are said to be ways to salvation too, which is a heresy). Mission has been practically excluded! The hierarchy of the Catholic Church support or shelter this teaching or they are silent for fear of this whole antichristian system inside the Church!

Under such conditions in the Catholic Church one practically cannot spiritually live and breathe! Everyone who has a true and living Catholic faith is exposed to psychological pressure and persecution. That concerns above all the students of theology.

Our personal experience: We carried out a successful and vital mission in Ukraine through spiritual recollection. Within two years about 20 000 people took part in it. Many of them experienced deep conversion and changed their way of life. However, the reaction on the part of hierarchy was that the Congregation for the Oriental Churches (COCh) commissioned the General Superior of our Order (OSBM) to deprive us of perpetual vows and to dismiss us from the Order (see personal letter of the General Superior B. Koubetch to the superior Carlo M. OSBM dated 4th January 2005). Card. Husar along with the OSBM leadership then passed our personal data to the state bodies of Ukraine and demanded our deportation (see the letter of Card. L. Husar Lvov 6th August 2004 N. P-399/2003 and in the present time a new letter: Kiev P-08/210 dated 23rd April 2008).

2)     Why do we not settle our situation with the Apostolic Nuncio I. Yurkovych, but write directly to the Holy Father?

In the beginning we turned in person to the Apostolic Nuncio I. Yurkovych several times but we saw that he not only was not willing to help us but even joined with those who attempted our liquidation. We were witnesses to the conversation of the Apostolic Nuncio with the Provincial Superior OSBM wherein he talked about us but did not notice that we were present. His secretary treated us quite dishonestly.

We asked the Apostolic Nuncio for help in the matter of an illegal request for our deportation from Ukraine filed by Card. L. Husar. The Apostolic Nuncio I. Yurkovych did not even want to accept our letter with the copy of the letter of Card. L. Husar to the state authorities. He said that he did not want to know anything about it! Why did he do so? Because he has fear of the liquidation machinery and its whole system within the Church, which, regrettably, he himself is thus a part of.

3)     Why do we write publicly to all cardinals, bishops and believers?

a)      We, and not only we, have personal experience that the letters sent to the Holy Father do not reach him at all. By means of sending open letters we have some hope that the Holy Father will be acquainted with their contents through some of the cardinals or bishops.

b)      That cardinals and bishops may realize what the factual state of the Church is and that they are co-responsible for it along with the Holy Father!

c)      Owing to their post some cardinals and bishops are isolated in a certain manner and cannot perceive actual problems. However, the one who wants to follow Christ truly suffers much from injustice and totality of the apostate system inside the Church. Therefore it is necessary to provide true information about this state of the Church.

d)      That common believers may learn to distinguish between the Church, which is the mystical suffering Body of Christ, and the visible hierarchical structure of the Church, which is comprised of sinful and weak people and is often no instrument of the Holy Spirit at all.

-         That through false obedience to heretical superiors the believers not lose the saving faith and eternal life.

-         That the people of God not lose faith but remain faithful to Christ and His Church.

4)     What we are doing is neither against God’s Word nor against God’s or canon laws

In the times of the Old-Testament Church, before the Babylonian captivity, the people of God were in a similar situation to the one we can see in the Catholic Church nowadays. It was a state of general apostasy from the living God and His laws, which became manifest above all in syncretism with pagan religions and in the abuse of authority by the Church hierarchy! God sent prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, ... who publicly convicted the hierarchy, the secular power as well as the people of God of their sins. Nevertheless, they were not converted, so God let all Israel be exiled to Babylon and the holy city of Jerusalem be ruined!

Quotation: Jer 1:10.17-19 (cf. Ezek 2:3-8)

“See, I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”

“But you, dress yourself for work; arise, and say to them everything that I command you. Do not be dismayed by them, lest I dismay you before them. And I, behold, I make you this day a fortified city, an iron pillar, and bronze walls, against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, declares the LORD, to deliver you.”

Ezek 3:17-19: “Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Whenever you hear a word from My mouth, you shall give them warning from Me. If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, in order to save his life, that wicked person shall die for his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, or from his wicked way, he shall die for his iniquity, but you will have delivered your soul.”

The Church is built on the apostles and prophets (cf. Eph 2:20). Not only on the apostles but also on the prophets. A bishop cannot say to a prophet: “Stop convicting me of my sins and prophesying here!”

Bishops are chosen by the Holy Spirit and by people. If people do not make space for the Holy Spirit, bishops are chosen merely by people. For it is impossible that the Holy Spirit would choose to the post of bishop a heretic, a liberal, a homosexual etc. as we are nowadays witnesses to it. However, the prophet is not chosen by people but by God Himself! The essence of the prophetical service is that the prophet is to watch over the apostolic teaching (God’s law), to encourage, exhort and reprove the people of God, i.e. even bishops if they deviate from the evangelical sincerity. The prophet is watched and tested by confrontation of his teaching with the teaching of the Holy Scripture and Tradition. If the hierarchy (bishops) exclude the prophetical office from the life of the Church by liquidating so-called undesirable people, the consequence will be self-destruction of the Church and then God’s punishment or “Babylonian captivity”.

In Christ,

+ Eliáš Dohnal OSBM

+ Metod?j Špi?ík OSBM

+ Markian Hitiuk OSBM

+ Samuel Oberhauser

                                                                                                                                       Pidhirtsi, 12th June 2008

Address: Monastery OSBM, 80660 Pidhirtsi, Brody district, Lvov region, Ukraine

www.community.org.ua