Imagine my surprise and delight to read of my "astounding ignorance" proclaimed in the letters [TLC, Aug. 5].

The authors make several unwarranted assumptions which fan the flames of their ad hominem invective. As I wrote about carefully sorting through boxes of old financial records [TLC, June 17], I mentioned saving things that were of appropriate historical interest in our parish archives, which the authors of the letter seem to have overlooked. What were shredded (I still believe, appropriately), were old bills and receipts, time sheets, canceled checks more than a decade old, and redundant and insignificant correspondence, reports and letters. Simply because papers are put into a cardboard box and stacked in a church closet does not make them historically significant.

To assume from my article that I "gleefully violated every premise of historical stewardship" is a hysterical over-reaction. It is to argue that one should never separate the wheat from the chaff, and that no one (except historiographers and archivists) is capable of determining what should be saved for posterity and disposed of appropriately. St. Alban's Church conscientiously maintains complete parish archives, and nothing could be farther from the truth than to think that I, with a "cavalier attitude" randomly destroyed or advocated destroying, our parish history.

To quote from A Guide for Parish Archivists, by the Rev. Canon Robert G. Carroon, archivist of the Diocese of Connecticut and signatory to the letter to the editor, "The ultimate responsibility for the records of a parish belongs to the rector or vicar." I would hope that I, as well as others who have this charge, would take it seriously and prayerfully. I would also add that if there is any question about what to save and what to recycle, one should seek out further assistance from diocesan archivists or historiographers, or the local historical society.

(The Rev.) Erik Larsen

St. Alban's Church

Simsbury, Conn.