After Archpriest Nikolai Balashov’s reaction published yesterday, the Orthodoxie.com editorial team wishes to confirm that the letter published by some Orthodox information sites and attributed to Archbishop John of Charioupolis, the archbishop of the diocese of Russian tradition in Western Europe is indeed fake. Having contacted both the Archdiocese headquarters and the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations (DECR), we confirm that this letter was not sent by Archbishop John, and that it is a