Midwest Diocese Photos | 03.08.09 LIBERTYVILLE, IL. |

"Were those anathemas, as many suppose, condemnations? No. In a condemnation there is hatred, and a desire for revenge and destruction. Here, though, is what was being clearly confessed: The Church did not condemn, but simply separated from its midst those who did not see themselves as belonging to it, those who refused to accept its teachings. Those who do not believe as the Church teaches, are separated from it, are alien to it, are “anathema,” “set aside,” but they can always be received again, should they recognize their error and return to Orthodox teachings. It is not so much that the Church separates them from itself, as that they themselves had set themselves apart from the Church, and now the Church solemnly announces that fact." - from the reflections of Johann von Gardner, the eminent Slavic musicologist, which he wrote after attending the Sunday of Orthodoxy service in the Holy Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin in 1914.