Bishop Gabriel Letter To Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver

THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OUTSIDE OF RUSSIA
75 East 93rd Street,
New York, NY 101 28
tel: 21 2 534-1601 fax: 212 426-1086
Gabriel, Bishop of Manhattan

Secretary
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver
932 Legislative Office Building,
Albany, New York 1 2248

Dear Honorable Speaker Silver!

1 am writing to ask that New York State halt the wind "farm" planned for Jordanville by a Spanish company, Iberdroila, represented by Community Energy, its Pennsylvania subsidiary, because of the destructive impact this wind "farm" will have on Holy Trinity Monastery, the world spiritual center of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. To allow this to happen would be a sacrilegious travesty, a disgraceful act unworthy of any state or nation that calls itself civilized.

The name of "Abroad" for the Church stems from the fact that "Abroad" stands for the millions of exiles, clergy and faithful, who fled Russia to escape persecution, and often execution, in the early 1920s after the assumption of power by militant, atheistic Communists. The very survival of pure Christianity in Russia was at stake, and to insure that it would survive and return with the eventual end of Communist rule, no matter how long that took, the hierarchy of Russian Orthodox Church Abroad kept the faith and the flame alive, first in Central Europe and then, with the rise of Hitler and the specter of war looming, to refuge in the United States of America, the bastion of freedom.

Thus some 70 years ago, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad established the Holy Trinity Monastery and the adjacent Cathedral, the seat of the Metropolitan Laurus the First Hierarch, in Jordanville i n southern Herkimer County. Here amid this beautifully bucolic and quiet landscape the Church built the spiritual center that has drawn pilgrims from the Russian diaspora, hundreds of thousands of them, fiom this country, Canada, Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, and Australia, to this sacred ground. This sacred ground includes a seminary that grants degrees approved by the New York State Board of Regents as well as the Convent of St. Elizabeth for nuns. I also must note here that Holy Trinity has served as a unique beacon for emigre Russian culture in "the land of the fiee and home of the brave." Many Russian families have been drawn to the Jordanville area. They include doctors, teachers, writers, musicians and composers; among them the son of Shostakovich and Mstislav Rostropovich, the great conductor and cellist who recently died in Paris.

What are we to believe about civilization and respect for religious institutions, spiritu values and moral values, if New York State supports his destructive wind project?

Our serenity, our peace of mind, our grounds for worship of the Divine will be subsumed by a project that cannot even begin to compare to the values that we represent, except that in this case subsidized cash and quick buck are all that matter. Instead of civilization, we are faced with industrial barbarism.

Yes, we are very much aware of the threat of global warming. But at what frivolous cost does the state seek to arrest global warming? The returns fiom this Jordanville "wind farm" are pitifully small, in fact negative.
At best, given the vagaries of the wind, the project will supply electricity to 16,000 homes.

And for this a rich religious and cultural heritage must be sacrificed on the altar of mammon? To a cause that is far more greed than green? To what end?

I came to Jordanville in 1980 to study at Holy Trinity Seminary, which, as mentioned above, is located on the grounds of the Monastery. Having spent eight years there I not only received a theological education, but also came to know many of the monks closely, including the abbot of the monastery Archbishop Laurus (now the metropolitan).

Life at the Monastery helped me to not only understand more thoroughly the Christian Orthodox faith, but also the importance of the Monastery itself, as a spiritual center for all the Russian Orthodox faithful, who fled the terror of Soviet Russia, and found freedom in western Europe, the US, Australia, Canada and South America.

I am a son of such immigrants, and am very grateful that Holy Trinity Monastery exists and continues to attract pilgrims and the faiffil from all comers of the world. Having completed my studies, I lectured at the Seminary and then a few years later was tonsured a monk at the Monastery and ordained a deacon. A short time after, I was chosen to become Bishop of Manhattan, and was also consecrated to the episcopacy in Jordanville in July of 1996.

Since that time I have resided in New York City, but despite my busy schedule, I have always made an effort to regularly visit that the small town in Upstate New York that I call my home away from home.

As bishop of Manhattan, I oversee over 80 parishes in our diocese. Thousands of new immigrants from Russia have now become members of those parishes as well as citizens of this great country. Having become members of our Church, they have also become regular visitors and pilgrims of Holy Trinity Monastery. Needless to say, the erection of Wind-turbines in Jordanville would produce a profound negative effect on their future visits to the Monastery. Undoubtedly, the appearance of Wind-turbines in and around Jordanville would represent a tragedy not only to the beautiful surroundings of that particular area, but also, the continued existence and significance of the Monastery, which would-suffer-immeasurably.

I urge you to do everything in your power to stop this from happening.

Gabriel
Bishop of Manhattan