Sorry, I didn't mean to say that the 1974 Sobor made explicit use of the term Royal Path, or that they were consciously promoting a certain ecclesiology. What I meant is that the non-committal ecclesiology that was espoused at the 1974 Sobor, and which Fr Seraphim Rose called the "royal path", is not the same as the "ecclesiology of resistance" promoted by Met Cyprian. The 1974 Sobor claimed not to have the authority to condemn another local church, but because of this non-judgment it did not definitively say whether the ecumenist local churches were inside or outside the Church. As we know, individual bishops in ROCOR held different opinions on the matter. Met Cyprian and the SiR, on the other hand, have made it a point of doctrine that local churches that have not been condemned by a Pan-Orthodox Synod, even if they have adopted heresy, are definitely still in the Church.

You make a good point, however, that this concept of the royal path is rather slippery. We see evidence of this in the history of ROCOR, of course, when the failure to formulate a coherent ecclesiology in 1974 led to official adoption of SiR ecclesiology in 1994. But it appears to me that many in ROCOR were and are still unclear about the subtle distinction between the respective positions of 1974 and 1994, which has led to the confused attitude towards the SiR ecclesiology now on the part of the ROCOR-A. And not only within ROCOR, but outside it as well.

Theologically speaking, the distinction rests on whether you believe that separation from the Church only occurs upon a formal condemnation by a competent Synod, or whether you believe that the function of a formal synodal condemnation is the recognition of a separation that has already occurred. According to the former view, adoption of heresy of its own accord does not result in separation from the Church; according to the latter, it does. I believe the latter rather than the former is correct, which is where I differ from the SiR. If it is true that the absence of a formal condemnation entails that a heretic is still in the Church, then it follows from the ROCOR's failure to condemn the ecumenist churches in 1974 that the ROCOR still believed them to be in the Church. If the absence of condemnation does not entail that a heretic is still in the Church, then the failure to condemn the ecumenists in 1974 does not imply that ROCOR still believed them to be in the Church.

Excellent essay, Fr Joseph! I think there's just one thing I would add about the "Royal Path" doctrine. It appears that the Rocor remnant blog assumed that Royal Path-ism is the same as "Cyprianism", i.e. the doctrine of the SiR. But I think Fr Steven Allen showed quite convincingly that Royal Pathism, which was most coherently expounded at the third All-diaspora Sobor of 1974, was different from the teaching of Met Cyprian of Fili. Essentially, the 1974 Sobor declared that the Russian Church Abroad had no authority to pronounce anathema on another Local Church. However, it refused to say explicitly whether or not the ecumenist Local Churches were still in the Church. Cyprianism, on the other hand, as I understand, says explicitly that Local Churches remain in the Church until condemned by a Pan-Orthodox Synod, regardless of whether or not the Local Church has fallen into heresy. The difference is subtle, but significant, and it's important because I get the impression that the ROCOR-A follows this older Royal Pathism, not the teaching of Met Cyprian.

I imagine Justin and Nebojsa have heated discussions about just how intrinsically violent Islam is. The anti-war arguments operate on very different assumptions whether we are speaking about our ventures in the Balkans or the Middle East.

I hope everyone went to read Christopher Ketcham's article from Counterpunch, which Justin links to in his discussion of Carl Cameron's reporting of the Israeli connection on Fox News. I'm thinking in particular of the NJ Israelis seen celebrating on the morning of the attack. Crucially, they were seen celebrating before the second plane crashed, meaning they already knew that they were seeing a terrorist attack at a time when everyone in the public media was still assuming it was an accident. Now, it would be even more interesting to know whether they had arrived in time for the first crash with their film equipment, since that would be even more significant for the following reasons.

The article I think proves that Israel had some kind of knowledge of an impending terrorist attack, which it may have shared to some extent with the CIA, but not the FBI which had the responsibility to fight terrorism on the home front. That is bad enough for American-Israeli relations (and CIA-FBI relations). However, the article doesn't show us any more evidence than that the Israelis knew that something was going to happen soon; they did not necessarily know when and where exactly. If the NJ Israelis had arrived on the scene to film their celebrations after the first attack, but before the second attack, then this would be compatible with a scenario in which the Israelis, already in place to survey the Muslim terrorist suspects, saw the first crash, knew at once what was happening because of their prior suspicions, and rushed to film the event. Note that they would NOT know that the attack would occur at that specific time and place. They just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

The problem then is the narrow time window for that scenario to work out. The first plane crashed at 8.46am, the second at 9.03am. So in all, if they were innocent of the knowledge of this particular attack, they had less than 17 minutes to learn of the event, contact each other and meet at that spot, having gathered all the equipment they needed to film the event. How plausible is this? I don't actually know. It depends when exactly they were spotted by the neighbor.

Ketcham is almost certainly right that few sensible people will try to tackle this question, not least because those Israelis are now unavailable. The implications for the other scenario are pretty dire: if they had arrived on that rooftop to film the event before or just around the time the first plane crashed, they must have known the time and the place, which means Israeli foreknowledge was on a whole other level than what Ketcham's article can safely prove. Leaving aside the accusation that Israel actually planned or actively aided the attack, the second scenario would mean that Israel basically wanted this attack to happen. Netanyahu's careless remark that the attacks were 'good' for Israel would take on a whole new meaning.