Anyway, back to reality: the whole Honcharenko angle never ceases to amaze me. Once on this site, I was told that the ROC had no right to be out of its borders (i.e. Canada, lower 48) because the Golden Seal which granted Russia its patriarchate back in 1549 (I think) confined that church to the borders of Russia (however you define Russia –its borders were fluid, that’s what happens with empires).

Anyway, the same thing happened to the Church of Greece. It was begrudgingly granted autocephaly by C’pole in 1850 (over the protestations of the ROC I might add, who were on the side of the EP). Like the Golden Seal, Greece’s national church was to be confined to its borders as well.

BUT GUESS WHAT?!! OK, I’ll tell you: The EP conveniently forgot this little stricture in 1908 and “granted” the CoG the overlordship of all Greek parishes in North America. Now, this is really rich isn’t it? But it gets better: According to the EP’s earlier stricture against the CoG, Holy Trinity could not be canonical because it was “founded” by the CoG according to the “new historians.”

It’s not that they can’t have it both ways, they can’t have it ANYway. And of course, your own research really fills in the picture even better.

I once heard a sardonic criticism of some molecular biologist. His detractor said, “it’s not that he’s not right, he’s not even wrong.”

Anyway, not that any of this matters to ideologues. Certain folks (like Lambriniades, the whole GOA/Phanar axis, & the guy who does Mystagogy, thanks for the heads-up btw) are content to delude themselves that the Phanar is the Eastern Papacy.

I think we all need to re-read Bradley Nassif’s excellent esaay, that the duty of a bishop is to preach the Gospel.

Btw, since according to the EP line, the CoG has no business being in North America until 1908, according to them Honcharenko was uncanonical, not matter the state of his credentials.

Actually, the Greeks were not in the US prior to the Russians. Our claim to fame (I’m Greek and proud of it) is Holy Trinity parish in Neo Orleans. It was founded during the War Between the States in 1864 in land that was under Union martial law (Louisianna) in which the citizens of that state were disenfranchised.

Plus, the first priest was a Ukrainian (and we’re not really sure about his credentials) and the majority of the parish was Serbian. In addition, there was no Greek jurisdiction in the US operating at that time anyway. Although this parish was founded 3 yrs prior to SF, there was a Russian episcopal presence, administration and yes, diocese, in North America.

Canon 28 simply does not mean what they suggest it does. We who know this to be true then read their assertions about Churches not engaging in any missionary efforts beyond their canonical jurisdictions and are left scratching our heads: Did a council somehow negate the Great Commission? How is Orthodoxy supposed to spread if not by Churches sending missions outside their jurisdiction?

I am convinced that the Phanar’s interpretation of Canon 28, minted under Patriarch Meletios IV, is simply a bald faced lie. They know it has no basis in the text or subsequent history but they say it anyway, hoping that by saying it long enough it will gain gradual acceptance and become a Known Fact – - which it appears to have become in the Greek community, if not anywhere else. They do not think of it as a lie. They think of it as the Greek Church taking up for itself, an unfortunate political game which hierarchs (they probably believe) must engage in. This is very unfortunate.

Russia’s mission work here is only uncanonical if this territory belonged to another Orthodox Church. Since Canon 28 (contrary to the disingenuous assertions of the faculty of Holy Cross) did not give all barbarian territory everywhere to the EP (and certainly not “explicitly” so, as the HC faculty misleadingly asserted), then the America’s belonged to nobody and everybody. All things should be done in an orderly manner and so the Churches should coordinate and decide the authority structure here. They have not. Earlier, there is considerable evidence of widespread acknowledgment of Russian jurisdiction here, but the Bolshevik Revolution intervened.

In short, Constantinople is flat out lying. They know it’s a lie and they say it anyway because if it were to be accepted it would give them power. It’s that simple.

The arrogance involved here is astounding. The only time that I have ever encountered such arrogance is in reading certain assertions of Roman Catholics with regard to other Christians (including the Orthodox).

In fact, the whole thing is eerily reminiscent of Rome. The EP constantly referring to itself as the “Mother Church”, boasting that it deigned to bestow autocephaly on this or that Church, etc.

If there is a Mother Church it is Jerusalem. Constantinople was not at all notable before the capital of the Empire was moved there in the fourth century. Tell me again, which Apostles preached, lived or died there? It inherited primacy by default when Rome fell into heresy. It was Uniate for a period. It claims the sole perogative to grant autocephaly without any canonical basis whatsoever. Today there is no Constantinople, only Istanbul, run by secular and Muslim Turks, who may well not allow the Patriarchate to survive on their territory. This hardly justifies a place of preeminence as measured by the criterion of the Fathers who elevated it on the basis of its imperial status.

Those Greeks in the Phanar and in this country who defend this nonsense need to wake up and let it go before they cause a permanent rupture in relations with the other Orthodox. It makes them all look either delusional, dishonest or so tied to ethnocentric mythology that they can’t be trusted. There is no Eastern Pope and there is not going to be.