OPEN LETTER TO THE BOARD
OF THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL AND TRIUMPHANT

Wednesday, September 03, 2003

Dear Presidents, Members of the Board of Directors and Council of Elders,

     Please consider this letter as an official reply to the Urgent Report from the Presidents dated September 1, 2003 signed by Lois Drake.

     We regret that her letter refers to unreliable facts and doubtful statements particularly concerning "the organizer in Dnepropetrovsk".

     In fact, the "organizer in Dnepropetrovsk" is actually all three members of the Board of Dnepropetrovsk Study Group, who made the decision to cancel the plans of Summit University in Ukraine.

     It was a "surprise" for us on Thursday evening, August 28, 2003 to learn of the situation in Moscow. But we learned of the situation not via "the influence by one of the board members in Moscow" which you have told about. In fact we learned about this situation unexpectedly when Natalia Y., the member of our group, called to Alexandra Sh. in Moscow to find out about her friend. At the end of their conversation Alexandra told her that the next day Ketino L. would be dismissed from the Board of Moscow Study Group, because of the personality cult.

     That evening, August 28, 2003, all of the three members of the Board of Dnepropetrovsk Study Group gathered. We analyzed the facts we knew first-hand about the long-running opposition to the Moscow Group from a few Moscow Keepers including Alexandra Sh. We also discussed the negative view of the Moscow Group held by some Church staff in America that we knew of first-hand. It was obvious for us that the Board of the Church had plotted the dismissal of Moscow Board long before their trip. We also discussed concerns about the unprofessional approach towards the organization of Summit University in Russia and Ukraine, particularly the poor quality of the publications prepared for the class and the pressure upon us to pay for the coming of seven people instead of the original two. We then made a decision to cancel the Summit University Class in Ukraine.

     On our own inclination we called to the "organizer in Tuapse" asking them to take their stand and support the leadership of Moscow group. We asked for their support to be as much as Muscovites had supported all of the groups of former USSR and every Keeper of the Flame personally, as much as they supported all of us both spiritually and physically, day by day, answering our countless questions and requests, helping us with our problems and troubles, financing our groups, to say nothing of their key mission of publishing the Teachings in Russian, making outreach and holding the spiritual balance for the whole land. We reminded them that the Moscow group was the Heart of the Teachings in Russia and it was important to defend our heart from physical dividing and destruction. Their answer was "no, let all be done by God's will" and it was their free will and no-one had a right to interfere with it.

     So please notice (and we would stress it) that we have received the information about "dismissal of Ketino" not from Ketino or any member of Moscow board but from another person. Nor Ketino, nor any other members of Moscow board appealed to us to support them even by prayers, though they knew that united Ukrainian Keepers were a significant power.

     The first thing "the organizer in Dnepropetrovsk" did next morning was their letter to Olga P-va with the information of canceling the plans of SU in Ukraine and asking to resend the air-tickets of the team for their traveling to Ukraine in order to reimburse the expenses of Dnepropetrovsk members.

     Let me remind you that "the organizer in Dnepropetrovsk" had purchased the tickets for the whole of your team and translator (altogether seven people) and arranged visas for two people of your team at their own expenses and not at the expense of any other member's donations.

     If American Keepers want to know how their donations are used for the purposes of Summit University classes, please let them know that those funds are used for the accommodation of their leaders in five-star hotels, they "do not want a cheap hotel. If it has to cost more - it's OK", such was their written requirement. So the living cost of one person exceeds 170 US$ per day which is more than one month's wages for us. And there were seven people. When we first heard about SU in Ukraine we were told the cost would be just 300 US$ for us plus some expenses for air-tickets within Ukraine, as there were only two people planned to come and all major expenses were to be covered by the main Class in Tuapse.

     In the early morning of August 29, 2003, we told the Moscow Board of our decision and they sent us their e-mail letter "Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse" which was very realistic from the legal point of view. It was also very realistic from the point of view of our own personal experience of persecutions against us due to the perceived link between us and the banned organization called "White Brotherhood", of some criminal investigations against our members, of putting some of our members into the mental hospitals on the grounds of their beliefs in Teachings. We decided to send this letter promptly to our friends in the USA with the hope that with God's help and by His Grace we all could change the situation and manifest God's will.

     Lois Drake claims in her letter that you "have consulted with many individuals and legal professionals both within and outside Russia and have researched to the best of your abilities any potential dangers to your members in Russia or the traveling team" and found not those dangers. We all wish it were so. But the attorney-at-law with 15 years experience, who is the one of the members of Dnepropetrovsk team, declares that the Moscow Board has manifested a miracle using its legal organizations at the same time that authorities are trying to find religious cults and dissolve immediately all the "suspicious entities" and to bring trial against their members. We can only say that the letter of Moscow board "Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse" gives a true picture of the legal situation in Russia. And in preparation for our class the "organizers" had to take extraordinary measures to secure that entire event and all the people involved.

     We would like you to remember also that the banned cult "The White Brotherhood" still exists in Russia and it is wide-spread in Ukraine. It's a well-known organization and is associated with fanaticism, black magic, mass self-immolations and suicides, cruel torments and violent abuses of children. The combination of the words "White Brotherhood" is ominous even for the true Lightbearers of Russia and just these words could avert them from the Teachings, if they didn't know the substance of the Teachings before. Many Keepers of the Flame are persecuted even by their relatives and neighbors on the basis of those words only. If you say aloud "The White Brotherhood" in the streets of Ukraine you'll really get "the big surprise".

     Lois Drake's letter dated September 1 stressed also the fact that "the organizer in Dnepropetrovsk said she would teach Summit University herself". In fact "the organizer" received a call at 1 a.m. on August 30, 2003, from ministers who were in Moscow. It seemed like they wanted to catch "the organizer" unaware and ask her questions. Along with the confirmation of the decision to cancel SU in Ukraine, it was confirmed also that the people would receive the teachings. "The organizer" said: "We will make the class; we have all the materials and all the opportunities to hold this class. And the people don't care who will make the lectures, as Guru Ma in fact would lead this class. We will present her voice and her teachings. She is the one who is the mediator between students and God. And it doesn't matter too much who will present the teachings, we or the ministers of the Church".

     The next two days the Keepers of the Flame from Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Uzgorod, and Jolti-vody who were going to attend Summit University in Dnepropetrovsk confirmed that they were not disappointed with the upsetting of the plans of SU as their aspiration was to receive the Masters teachings through the Messenger, to hear just her voice and feel her presence.

     We had been astonished also, when late next night the above-mentioned Natalia Y. received a proposal from the SU team to organize a new SU in Dnepropetrovsk, despite the decision of our board. We are glad we were not divided into two groups.

     In conclusion we would also like to express our concerns about the unprofessional approach towards the organization of the Summit University classes in Tuapse and Ukraine, particularly the poor quality of publications prepared for the class, i.e.:

1) the translations of the dictations and lectures into Russian are hardly edited and are of a very poor standard;
2) some of the materials that were required to be published in Russian for the class had never been published or edited in English;
3) no one dictation published in Russian for this class contains usual footnotes;
4) no reference to the appropriate Pearls of Wisdom and the dates of their issue are made;
5) the Russian translations published for the class contain great amounts of misprints,
semantic, stylistic, grammar and punctuation mistakes which distort the teachings.

     Having considerable experience of holding the quarterly conferences and other events we are also concerned about the supposed simultaneous translations of the live lecturers for the SU class and we declare that it is impossible for the translators attending to make good enough simultaneous translations of complicated teachings and mysteries, to give all the precious details of teaching and therefore not distorting the purity of teaching itself.

     We declare also that these poor publications and simultaneous translations mentioned above will harm the purity of the Teachings and will have great negative influence on the consciousness of people. We are used here to a much higher level of preparation, translation and presentation of the teachings.

     We would also like to comment that the Board of Moscow Group always kept high standards of teachings, high standards of conduct and defended the purity of the Teachings itself. And it was really not easy to go with them on the High Path. But the problem was not in those people but on the Path itself. And "numerous complaints" are the complaints about difficulties on the Path, on the requirements to be vigilant and diligent, to be pure and a true chela of the Masters keeping the high standards for the whole life.

     Dear Presidents, Members of the Board of Directors and Council of Elders, you have created the dangerous situation in Russia, provoked division between members of the Mystical Body of God on earth and defied the Spirit of the Teachings itself with your policy supporting deception, rumors, gossip, condemnation and judgment. You didn't want to know the Moscow Board by their "fruits" and didn't care about those "fruits" either. You came several days ago and you'll go away in several days. You didn't help us all of those years nor by counseling, nor by ministration. You didn't answer us even when we asked to hold the world-wide vigil for Russia on occasion of terrorist acts and the war in Chechnya. We never burdened you with our financial matters, though the mission of disseminating the teachings is supposed to be our common mission. All of those years you had been sending all of our questions and problems to Ketino as "to the regional leader". And what and whom did you leave instead?

     Our prayers now are for the defense of publications and dissemination of Teachings in former USSR, for the strengthening of those who fight for Truth and Freedom, and the Freedom to obey the Guru within.

     As beloved El Morya said in his dictation on Easter Sunday, April 19, 1992 (PW, V.35 # 19), Let "your presence in the Church be a Light of comfort, of brotherly and sisterly love in the name of Jesus. May you become the fullness of your Holy Christ Self in manifestation".

The former Board members of the Summit Lighthouse Study Group of Dnepropetrovsk

Olga Prokopenko
Alexandra Tolmatskaya
Viacheslav Burleigh