True Life in God and Vassula Ryden

Lawsuit against Infovassula.ch:

the whole story

    

As reported previously, I have been the object of a lawsuit initiated by the Foundation for True Life in God and Vassula Ryden. The cause was dismissed by the judge for technical reasons in January 2012, and since then I have been exchanging letters with TLIG's Belgian lawyers. I was in fact waiting to see if the matter could be settled before reporting again. But since the Foundation for TLIG has recently issued a partisan conclusive statement regarding this whole matter, I have decided that the moment has come to give you the detailed account of what happened and set the records straight.

  

1. The Patriarchate of Constantinople's document

On 16 March 2011, the Patriarchate of Constantinople published on its website an announcement on Vassula Ryden. In the matter of hours, the information had been picked up by numerous websites, most of them Orthodox, who provided translations of the document (which was written in ancient Greek) and referred to it as a formal excommunication of Mrs Ryden. I reported the information on my website mentioning that several Orthodox websites seemed to consider it an excommunication.

I then tried to confirm that interpretation. Unfortunately, my previous attempts to obtain information directly from the Patriarchate or their local representatives had always been in vain. So I contacted a Swiss Orthodox person who had in the past correctly informed me regarding similar matters. This person read the French translation of the document (http://orthodoxologie.blogspot.com/2011/03/enfin-declaration-concernant-vassoula.html) and considered it to be an excommunication because of the way it was formulated, confirming what many Orthodox websites were also saying. So, on 24-25 March 2011, I modified the article on my website in order to affirm that the document was a formal excommunication of Mrs Ryden.

An ongoing discussion had started on the web regarding the nature of the document. Some said that the document was not signed and had no value, in spite of the fact that it had been published on the Patriarchate's official website. Others mentioned translation problems, which I brought to the attention of the English translator of the document, who addressed the matter on his blog. The TLIG websites remained silent, exception made of an article by Fr. Abberton which only stated cryptically that the document "was not what it seemed", without further explanations.

On 14 April 2011, I read a discussion on Wikipedia mentioning detailed canonical arguments that made me question the nature of the document as being a formal excommunication of Mrs Ryden. This is how I reported this information to my English speaking contact list:

As you know, last month the Patriarchate of Constantinople issued an announcement condemning the teachings of Vassula Ryden. The news was immediately picked up by Orthodox blogs and referred to as an excommunication of Mrs Ryden. Although to this date I have seen no official or public comment from Mrs Ryden or her main website, some of their objections to the document have become known.

The main ones regard the translation of the original decree in Greek. Those objections are addressed in an article of the Mystagogy blog (http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2011/04/my-translation-of-decree-against.html).

Yesterday however, I have been made aware of objections of a canonical nature, regarding the procedure that should be followed to excommunicate a person from the Orthodox Church. Although I am not a Canon Law expert nor an Orthodox, I consider those objections reasonable. (…) 

So, in the light of this new information, I have decided yesterday to edit the article on the decree in accordance to the above remarks, and refer to it as a "condemnation" (Read the complete text here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/infovassularyden_english/message/34 ).

 

So I modified the article and headed it with a bold red "Important note" referring to the objections regarding the document not being an excommunication.

Finally, on 21 May 2011 (a month after I had corrected the information), the Foundation for TLIG issued a statement saying that the Patriarchate's document was not an excommunication, but an accusation of heresy. I incorporated this new information in the website, reproducing the main parts of the statement, which I also translated into French in Spanish, since the statement was not available in those languages (and still isn't up to this date).

I considered the matter closed. But a few months later, in July 2011, I received a letter from TLIG's Belgian lawyers announcing their intention to sue me for having damaged the honour and reputation of Mrs Ryden and her Foundation (I have already reported in detail on these events in a previous article: http://www.infovassula.ch/thenarrowdoor.htm)

 

2. The Lawsuit

The TLIG Foundation had chosen a large law firm based in the UK with offices all over the world. Apparently they were suing me in Belgium because towards the end of March 2011 – while I was convinced that the Patriarchate's document was an excommunication – I had written about it to the Belgian Bishops. Someone linked to the Diocese of Namur had given a copy of my mail to the TLIG organization.

I live in Switzerland, so it was an extra difficulty to have to go defend myself in another country. On the other hand, I cannot say it was a complete surprise. A person who had left the TLIG organization some years before and who had been privy to some internal matters,  had told me that for years they had been looking for a way to sue me because of my website.

During the Summer/Autumn of 2011, while waiting to know if they would go on with the lawsuit, I took some important decisions. The first one was that I would not take a lawyer. I would face the whole matter as I handled the website: with faith and trust in God. I would do my best with my own limited means, which were way below the resources of an organization such as TLIG.

I am very grateful to two associations which inform about new religious groups and cults (in Belgium and in Switzerland) who were very helpful, in particular a Belgian based association, who gave me a free legal assessment of my situation.

I also decided to make the whole matter public by writing about it on the website. I received a lot of mail of support as well as gestures of an incredible generosity. One parish priest phoned me to tell me that the parish council had decided to collect money to help me with my legal fees. I explained that I was going to represent myself and that therefore there weren't going to be legal costs I couldn't face, but that I did count on their prayers. A French person who lived near the Belgian boarder wrote to me offering me her guest-room during the time I would have to be in Brussels for the trial. People offered Masses and prayed for me. And it made a great difference. The Eucharist was an essential part of my days, and even in the most difficult moments, I was reminded in prayer that I should not be afraid but have trust.

 

In the meantime, TLIG's lawyers had sent me letters asking to know who my lawyer was and telling me that if I did not present myself at the audience of 6 January 2012, they would request the court to judge in absentia. I assured them that I would be present.

But the week before the audience, I received a very different letter from them, saying that it was not necessary for me to go to Brussels, that I just had to agree on a "schedule of conclusions". That the judge would not be judging the case that day and would not hear pleas. I wondered why they hadn't mentioned this before and if there was something they weren't saying. The legal documents I had received at home specifically requested my presence at the audience. Plus my husband and I had already paid our bargain airplane tickets as well as our discount hotel room, and neither was refundable. So I ignored the letter.

When we arrived at the tribunal, TLIG's lawyer was already there and tried again to make me agree on a "schedule of conclusions". I told her that I wouldn't agree to anything that was not decided in the presence of the judge. I was told again that I would not be allowed to present arguments in this audience.

When our case was called, the lawyer started by complaining about my attitude, but was cut short by the judge, who told her that there were serious procedural problems with their case, because they were requesting an injunction and could not include damages. But since I was there and if I agreed, the judge was willing to let the case be reintroduced that same day and proceed immediately with a full hearing. The TLIG lawyer had to pay the legal fees for the reintroduction of the case and I was asked to sign a "voluntary appearance" form. Two hours later the hearing took place and focused mainly on why I had written that Vassula had been excommunicated and if the way I had corrected the information could be legally considered as a retraction. The judge assured us that she would make a decision before the end of the month and she kept her word.

 

3. The case is judged inadmissible

The Judge's decision was however a dismissal of the case. According to the motivations given by the Judge, the case was totally outside the competence of that jurisdiction and presented a series of procedural problems that could not be overcome. As a consequence, the legal costs were assigned to the plaintiffs (the Foundation + Mrs Ryden). This meant that we were all being sent back to square one.

 

4. I accept to publish a formal retraction

Towards the end of February I received a letter from TLIG's lawyers, saying that their clients would be willing not to reintroduce the case before another judge if I accepted a limited amount of requests, which consisted mainly in the publication of a retraction with a copy of it sent to the Belgian Bishops.

I decided to accept their offer for two reasons. First of all, during the hearing the judge had considered that this case could have easily been solved outside the courts and that I should have tried to get to an agreement with them in spite of the untruthful allegations and threats they had made in their first letter to me. Secondly, the judge had acknowledged that I had corrected the information and published the Foundation's statement, but considered it "difficult" to decide if it was the equivalent of a retraction.

So, on 27 February 2011 I accepted to publish a retraction (which I wrote myself) and offered to keep it on-line until February of 2013, although a friend warned me that no judge would have ordered it for such a long time, especially taking into account that I had corrected the information 10 months ago. I sent a copy to the Belgian Bishops. Although it was not requested, but as a sign of goodwill, I also decided to remove from two articles some comments I had made for which the TLIG Foundation had protested.

I thought that would put an end to the matter, but I was wrong. I continued to receive letters from the lawyers requesting me to recognize in my retraction that I had committed misconduct that had caused a grave damage to their clients' reputation. Misconduct in this case implies a lack of diligence and indifference towards the consequences of one's acts. In the case of slander (which is the term used by the Foundation in their declaration) it implies a malicious conduct, aggravated by wilful misrepresentation with the intentional purpose of causing harm. My way of acting – which is documented - cannot in any way be considered misconduct.

 

5. The Foundation's conclusive statement

Since I refused to acknowledge neither misconduct nor damages, the TLIG Foundation found a way around it by simply affirming that I did and falsely suggesting that I had recognized being guilty of misconduct and slander, and that was the reason why I published the retraction, as you can read in their conclusive statement (http://www.defending-vassula.org/orthodox-falsedeclaration?lang=en). And for the record: I didn't present apologies but did express regrets. Some people who read the statement also thought that the retraction was the result of a court order, which is not the case. The Foundation also reproduced a different text of my retraction in English, that does not match the text on my website although the design suggests that it was copied from there.

 

Maria Laura Pio

April 27, 2012