Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy was written from 1996 to 1998 by Fr. Victor Potapov, rector of Saint John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, DC. Fr. Victor is the 4th rector of the parish, which was founded by the Holy Hierarch Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco in September 1949. Since its founding, Saint John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral has served as a bright lamp of the true light of the Orthodox faith both to Russian and Eastern European émigrés fleeing Communist persecution in their homelands as well as to a steadily increasing number of converts of all nationalities to Holy Orthodoxy. The history, iconography, and architecture of Saint John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral, as well as a wealth of teachings on the Orthodox Faith, are available in both the English and the Russian languages on the cathedral's website, http://www.stjohndc.org.
The connection of the cathedral parish of Saint John the Baptist to Orthodoxy in China is an old one, dating back to the parish's founding by the Holy Hierarch Saint John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco. Born in the Kharkov province of Russia in 1896, the Holy Hierarch attended the Poltava Military Academy and the Kharkov Imperial University School of Law. After he and his family fled Russia following the civil war there, they emigrated to Yugoslavia where the Holy Hierarch graduated from the Belgrade University Department of Theology in 1925. The Holy Hierarch was tonsured to the monastic rank with the name John in 1926, and was afterwards ordained to the rank of hierodeacon and then hieromonk. Saint John Maximovitch was assigned to the Diocese of Shanghai in China in May 1934, where among many other labors of love for the Orthodox faith he established the cathedral church dedicated to the Surety of Sinners Icon of the Mother of God which stands to this day. Saint John Maximovitch also established and inspired other churches and hospitals in Shanghai, as well as an orphanage to serve orphans and needy children. The Holy Hierarch himself gathered up ailing and starving children from the streets of the Shainghai slums. With the coming of the Communists to power in China, the Holy Hierarch and his flock fled to the Philippine Islands. During a trip to Washington DC in 1949 to lobby for legal permission for Russian émigrés to enter the United States, Saint John Maximovitch founded the community of believers which was to become Saint John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral. In 1962 Saint John Maximovitch was appointed to the San Francisco cathedra, where he erected the majestic cathedral in honor of the Mother of God "Joy of All Who Sorrow" and where he endured many accomplishments and many tribulations and sorrows before his repose in 1966. The relics of the Holy Hierarch Saint John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco were discovered to be incorrupt in 1994, and that same year he was glorified as one of the Holy Worthy Ones of God.**
Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy clearly explains the Holy Orthodox Faith, the deviations from it that have been introduced into Christianity by other confessions, and the impediments that these deviations place into the way of those truly seeking salvation. Combating the profound spiritual relativism of our time that has permeated even all of Christianity, Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy shows that adhering to the Holy Orthodox Faith as it has been preserved in the Orthodox Church is necessary for all peoples and all nations who wish to be saved. May the Lord Jesus Christ grant great blessings and perseverance in this Holy Orthodox Faith to the one who has written this work, to those who have labored with sincere love to make it available to Chinese readers, and to all who read it.