It took way too long for the Bulgarian archdiocese to do anything about him.
Actually, I admired the Bulgarian Archdiocese, once they had received detailed and credible information, for immediately deposing him and referring the matter to the Alaska State Police.
It can take a while for enough information to be obtained, and safeguarding can always be improved, but the decisive nature of the actions of the bishops was correct - in retrospect, yes, perhaps they could have acted more quickly, although we also have to consider the small size of the Bulgarian Archdiocese, the fact they have only two bishops, the language barrier, and other factors (by the way, if memory serves, he was under the Bulgarian churches that are not part of the OCA, as opposed to those which are a part of the OCA; this created another complexity insofar as Alaska is predominantly OCA territory and far removed from those parts of the country with substantial ethnic Bulgarian populations.
That being said, yes, in retrospect, action should have been taken more quickly, also in retrospect the man should not have been ordained, but alas, one thing we presently lack in North America that I feel should be implemented is a system of safeguarding that spans multiple jurisdictions (ideally something implemented and coordinated at the level of the
Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America would be ideal, with additional warning systems so that if someone tries to do what the disgraced schismatic hegumen Panteleimon of Holy Transfiguration Monastery did, which was to leave ROCOR and found a schismatic Old Calendarist Jurisdiction when ROCOR began probing the (as it turned out, credible, accusations of sexual misconduct against novice monks that had been made), so that at least Old Calendarists can be warned; whether or not they heed that warning is another issue unfortunately (conversely, we probably could extend our safeguarding system in cooperation with the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrians, since there is some overlap and sometimes people move between these churches and the Eastern Orthodox, and there are of course those people who under the ecumenical agreements between the Antiochian and Syriac Orthodox Church and the Greek and Coptic Orthodox Churches of Alexandria, might be married to someone from the other church, since arrangements were made to facilitate precisely that, and consequently, risks can occur which would impact all groups; additionally, since Eastern Catholics sometimes join us and since deposed EO clergy sometimes become Eastern Catholics, coordination with them would also be desirable.
I don’t see this as an area where cooperation with the non-Orthodox should be avoided, because we want to avoid ordaining people who are a potential threat to our community.
