http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=6963

Former Russian bishop in Britain deprived of his office and monastic orders

Moscow, February 24, Interfax – The Holy Synod of the Constantinople Patriarchate deprived former Bishop Basil (Osborne) of Amphipolis of his holy and monastic orders as the latter decided to marry.

Three and half years ago, this person attempted to split the Russian Orthodox Diocese in the British Isles.

Early this year, Bishop Basil petitioned the Patriarch of Constantinople to grant him lay status “to enable him to have a family home with the possibility of marrying again.”

Bishop Basil (Osborne) was born in 1938 and married in 1962. Metropolitan Antony of Sourozh ordained him a deacon in 1969 and a priest in 1973. Following his wife’s death in 1991 he was consecrated a bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate Sourozh Diocese (Great Britain) in 1993. On July 30, 2003, shortly before Metropolitan Antony passed away, he was appointed an administrator of the Sourozh Diocese.

In 2006, Bishop Basil decided to leave Moscow Patriarchate for Constantinople. Some clerics of the Sourozh Diocese followed him and thus complicated situation in the Diocese and in Moscow-Constantinople relations as the latter accepted Russian without a letter of release.

In response to Bishop Basil’s actions, Patriarch Alexy II retired him “without the right to go to another jurisdiction” Some months later in June 2006, the Russian Church Synod forbade him from celebrating divine services.

In 2007, to avoid further temptations among Orthodox believers of British Isles and to preserve church peace, the Moscow Patriarchate granted him a letter of release so that he could join the Constantinople Patriarchate.

The same year, some clerics of the Sourozh Cathedral who supported Bishop Basil claimed their right over cathedral ownership. In course of legal proceedings, the British Prosecutor Office and the Supreme Court confirmed the Sourozh Diocese ownership as it acquired the Dormition Cathedral from Anglicans in the 1970s.

In fall 2009, the Constantinople Synod satisfied Bishop Basil’s request for retirement.

Bishop Basil requested and was granted a return to the lay state by his Synod in order to marry. He did not marry and get defrocked as a punishment as the above implies.

The offical statement from the Ecumencial Patriarch's Russian Exarchate:
http://www.exarchate-uk.org/Exarchate/Archbp_Gabriel_letter20Feb2010.pdf

Dr. Osborne was laicized and defrocked at his own request, but nonetheless, his decision is sad. Monastic vows and the episcopal ministry are serious things and turning away from them is not a neutral matter.

This is deeply distressing news. May God grant Dr. Osborne grace on his newly chosen path, and give him everything needful, both body and soul.

Grace and peace,
Sbn John

Now there is a kernel of wisdom to meditate on for the balance of Great Lent. May God grant many years to His servant, Abp Gabriel, and to the former bishop, Basil.

In Christ,

Bob

In 1979-1980, when I was a student in Oxford, I was blessed to have Nicolas Zernov as my primary tutor. I regularly attended the Orthodox parish in Oxford and I knew Fr Basil Osborne, who was the parish priest there for the Russian community. Like Nicolas Zernov, but for perhaps different reasons, he discouraged my conversion to Orthodoxy.

I must say that I find that oddest thing about this decision to marry being taken by the former Bishop Basil is that he is 72 years old.

Fr David Straut

I thought it was impossible to dispensed from the full monastic state in Orthodoxy (ie small or great schema). It is possible to get out of the Rassaphore rank.

What monastic rank was Bishop Basil?

I have been led to believe that marrying after taking the small or great schema incurred lifelong excommunication.

Father Bless,

What an odd thing! I can not wrap my mind around why a pastor would discourage someone from converting to Orthodoxy if the had that proper intentions. If Orthodoxy is the "True Church," should not all be apart of it if they choose to? I guess it was a different time and England must have certainly been a different place.

Glory to God, it seems as though you recieved different advice elsewhere!

Kissing your right hand,
Michael

Dear Michael.

The Lord bless you!

My favourite memory of Nicolas Zernov: I had just finished a half hour monologue about how I felt I needed to leave the Episcopal Church (which three years before had begun ordaining priestesses) and join the one True Church, the Orthodox Church, and Nicolas said to me, "Twenty years ago, a young man was sitting in the same seat you are now, saying many of the same things things you are saying to me now, and I will say to you now what I said to him then: 'Remain an Anglican and make the Anglican Church more Orthodox.'" With a twinkle in his eye, Nicolas then said, "That man who was talking to me then was Timothy Ware."

To be fair to Fr Basil Osbourne, he was not coming from the same direction as Dr Zernov. Orthodoxy in England three decades ago was still very ethnic indeed. There were no mixed language services then, for example. Fr Basil had seen too many converts to Orthodoxy either leave the Church in discouragement a few years after their conversion, or assume a false identity as pseudo-Russians or pseudo-Greeks to fit in to the Orthodox Church. He believed neither was healthy, so he discouraged conversion and made to process very difficult to winnow the wheat from the chaff. I remained interested in conversion, but did not have the time then to go though Fr Basil's process, so I simply attended Orthodox services in England, later converting when I returned to America.

Fr David

Dear Father David,

Bless.

Thanks for an interesting post. I love the anecdote about Met. Timothy Ware. I am impressed that you studied at Oxford! Did you study theology there?

Respectfully,
In Christ,
Alice

Same here concerning his age. At first I thought I had misread the date of his birth. I suppose it's true when they say one must always keep watch as certain passions die only once we are six feet under.

Dear Alice,

The Lord bless you.

My Prebytera and I were there for one year of study in Theology at Wycliffe Hall, the Evangelical Anglican Theological College in Oxford. But it had been arranged for both of us to have Nicolas Zernov as a tutor in Eastern Orthodoxy. It was a wonderful year. Our first daughter was born in Oxford in March of 1980.

Fr David

My Aunt Kathleen married for the first time at age 65; she was then a retired schoolteacher. She and her husband had a good number of remarkably happy years; unfortunately both are now dead.

Fr. Serge

Your Aunt Kathleen was not a nun, was she?

Fr David

I have great pity for the former Bishop Basil who has been laicized at his request, apparently so he can "marry again". I didn't realize he was a widower. It seems that church politics, that great scourge and ugliness on the body of Christ, must have mutilated something in him. He's in his early 70's. And he wants to seek solace in marriage? Believe me, I don't judge, but just what was done to him that he should seek this as a balm to his wounds?

At the very least for the sake of the season (Great Lent) could we please refrain from judgemental(and the forgoing comments are judgemental whether represented as such or not; lets be honest)comments about the now fmr. bishops marriage? He made an honourable decision to take a wife, he was upfront and honest with the rest of the community of faith about what he felt he was called to do at this point in his life and it is before his own master that he will stand or fall.