Administration

Dear Readers,

The discussion on the OCA turmoil flared up on the AOI Observer where I let it run for a few days and then declared a moratorium. A major reason I imposed the break was that emotions ran very high and facts were in short supply — usually a recipe for even more unpleasantness. Another reason is that I really don’t like to discuss jurisdictional problems of the Church unless absolutely necessary. Each jurisdiction has problems, each jurisdiction is responsible for dealing with them, and usually it is best to let the people responsible for them just work it out.

I said it would think about the moratorium for a few days and come to a decision about what to do. I have decided that discussion on this topic is permanently closed.

The emotions are running high, people obviously have very strong opinions that are passionately held, but short of facts and definitive statements by the leaders, including Metropolitan Jonah, the discussions on AOI Observer will inevitably devolve into conspiracy theories, conjecture, endless repetition of points, and so forth.

I am imposing a cooling off period. I am going to shut down the comments on the three +Jonah threads for a week or so (other threads remain open). I also need time to decide if I want the Observer to continue in this unplanned trajectory as an alternate voice to OCANews.org.

Other venues exist, ocatruth.com for one for those who want another information and analysis site. For those of you who want to discuss this issue, you can got to monomakhos.com, George Michalopulos’ blog.

One other point. Tone and content are important elements that contribute to the success of the Observer. Right now the tone and content are degenerating, not because we don’t have quality contributors, but because of the passion driving the discussion. Is that a bad thing? Not always but it is difficult to manage. Since my rules for contributing are very liberal (you have to show respect and move the discussion forward), they require that the contributors police themselves. That’s hard to do with the volatile topic we are discussing.

So we are taking a break. It will give us all time to cool down, reconsider the arguments, prevent some friendships from getting strained, maybe even get our minds and hearts ready for Liturgy on Sunday.

Fr. Hans Jacobse

Last month (January, 2011), the number of monthly visits topped 30,000 for the first time.

During 2010 AOI Observer traffic tripled to over a quarter million visits in 2010 (265,165 visits).

Clearly AOI Observer is filling an important niche thanks to the many commentators that make the Observer a place of rich discussion and information. The numbers indicate that the Observer has many lurkers as well. We are grateful to the lurkers too!

Thank you readers and contributors!

In my spare time (not much really) I help out in the background with other things. Right now I am working on a website for “Orthodox Mission in Pakistan.” You didn’t know there was an Orthodox Church in Pakistan, right? Neither did we until recently. Pakistan has one Orthodox priest recently ordained and under the Patriarch of Constantinople, Metropolis of Hong Kong. Fr. John needs our help (his wife was a teacher in a Roman Catholic secondary school but was fired when Fr. John was ordained.) A few of us a working to help him and my job is building the web site.

Don’t think that his circumstances hold Fr. John back though. This man preaches, teaches, and baptizes. He reminds me of Fr. Daniel Byantoro, the Muslim who converted to Christianity, then become Orthodox, and started building the Orthodox Church in Indonesia. You can read his story on the Friends of Indonesia website.

I need someone to take some images of documents and transcribe them into .doc format. It’s not much work, probably 45 minutes to an hour, but I just don’t have the time. Can anyone help me? They are needed for the new site.