Green Patriarch

Dylan Pahman: Climate Change, the Green Patriarch, and the Disposition of Fear

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Source: Acton Powerblog | Dylan Pahman

Patriarch Bartholomew

Today at First Things’ On the Square feature, I question the tone and timing of Patriarch Batholomew’s recent message on climate change. While I do not object to him making a statement about the subject in conjunction with the opening of the Warsaw Climate Change Conference, his initial reference, then silence, with regards to Typhoon Haiyan while other religious leaders offered their prayer, sympathy, and support to those affected, is disappointing. I write,

While other religious leaders offered prayer and tangible support, all that has come from the Phanar is an environmental statement. Hurting people need practical and pastoral help, not politics.

An additionally troubling aspect of the problem comes from his clear implication that the typhoon was caused, or at least intensified, by anthropogenic climate change, using this tragedy to advocate for a political cause through a disposition of fear:

This week — even as the world mourns the tragic loss of life in the unprecedented Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippine Islands — political leaders have converged on Warsaw, Poland, in yet another anticipated meeting on climate change. Concerned citizens throughout the world are hoping and praying for prompt and practical results.

I wonder sometimes about the disposition behind connecting a natural disaster that has resulted in the loss of over 10,000 lives with a call for political activism.

That is, care for and cultivation of the creation are divine mandates. In this sense all Christians ought to be environmentalists, as his All-Holiness has pointed out in his extensive work on the subject.

On the other hand, as commands from God, we must not only look to the form but the motivation of our actions, “for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

In their recent monograph Creation and the Heart of Man, Fr. Michael Butler and Andrew Morriss outline three biblical and patristic dispositions of those who serve God: “those of a slave, a servant, and a son.”

Abba Chaeremon offers an excellent summary in the Conferences of St. John Cassian:

If then any one is aiming at perfection, from that first stage of fear which we rightly termed servile (of which it is said: “When ye have done all things say: we are unprofitable servants,”) he should by advancing a step mount to the higher path of hope — which is compared not to a slave but to a hireling, because it looks for the payment of its recompense, and as if it were free from care concerning absolution of its sins and fear of punishment, and conscious of its own good works, though it seems to look for the promised reward, yet it cannot attain to that love of a son who, trusting in his father’s kindness and liberality, has no doubt that all that the father has is his…. (emphasis added)

Notice that Abba Chaeremon outlines a progression of motivation, from fear of punishment for wrong (a slave), to hope for reward for doing good (a paid servant), to love alone (a son).

Regarding the first disposition, Butler and Morriss write, “The analog among environmentalists is the fearmongering language of crisis, catastrophe, apocalypse, global disaster, total destruction, cataclysm, and so forth, of which we often read.” The problem with this: “We acknowledge that fear can be a powerful incentive for action, but actions based on fear, because they are founded on emotion and not on clear reasoning, tend toward the irrational and are therefore untrustworthy.”

Thus, messages that focus almost entirely on the negative affects of poor environmental stewardship, such as the Patriarch’s recent message, run the risk of over-focusing on fear, endangering “clear reasoning,” as evidenced perhaps by his neglect of sympathy for those who suffer from this great devastation.

“We prefer that our witness not be a slavish one, borne out of fear,” Butler and Morriss write, “but a hopeful one grounded in a better rationale. The Orthodox should therefore reject the tendency toward apocalyptic rhetoric among many environmentalists.”

In His All-Holiness’s defense, not every message of his takes such a fearful posturing, but this is a worrying trend. Far better than acting out of fear of disaster — or even hope for the fruits of a cleaner, healthier earth, (which is not entirely absent from his message) — would be a return to advocating for love for God and for God’s creation.

As St. Isaac the Syrian wrote,

What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation. For this reason, such a person offers up tearful prayer continually even for irrational beasts, for the enemies of the truth, and for those who harm her or him, that they be protected and receive mercy. And in like manner such a person prays for the family of reptiles because of the great compassion that burns without measure in a heart that is in the likeness of God.

At best, I think the Green Patriarch’s environmental activism comes from “one [who] cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation.” I only wish that the injury and sorrow of those created in God’s image would take priority for him and that such all-embracing love would be the Patriarch’s focus rather than a disposition of fear.

Read my full essay at First Things here.

Patriarch Bartholomew Coddles Environmental Extremists

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– Taking care of the environment involves more than clean air, clean water, recycling and the other factors that we usually associate with responsible stewardship. It also involves ideas about the economy, human relationships, structuring communities, the meaning and value of work, the value of the unborn and aged and so forth. Every environmental program incorporates ideas about these factors even if they are not explicitly stated.

In order to think clearly about environmental care, we have to look past the surface and examine the ideas that make up any environmental program. We have to ask ourselves do the programs promote human flourishing or impede it? Are trees and animals valued at the expense of the human person? Is man a blight on the earth who should be restricted from meaningful work and prosperity, or is his role as steward of creation a blessing to it?

Below is an essay written for AOI by an anonymous author (I agreed to withhold the author’s name) that describes the ideas of presenters at Patriarch Bartholomew’s recent two-day Halki summit. I find the choice of speakers troubling. You may too. The speakers proceed from premises inimical to our Orthodox moral tradition — especially the precepts that protect human flourishing and freedom.

As always, comments are welcome.

By Anonymous

Sometimes Orthodox Christians develop a sense of inferiority when they compare themselves to the Roman Catholic Church. When we contrast the actions of the Holy See to those of the Ecumenical Patriarch before this week’s United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development it is easy to see why. The Papal delegation issued a statement putting the human race at the center of creation. The Patriarch of Constantinople however, hosted a conference praising environmentalist extremists and population control advocates.

Before Rio+20, the Vatican’s permanent observer mission to the UN issued a position paper reminding the global negotiators that, “Human beings, in fact, come first.” The papal delegation charged the world’s leaders to adopt “a way of life which respects the dignity of each human being” and promote “technologies which can help to improve its quality.” Mankind represents the crown of creation they argued, and the world’s leading economies should assure that technological progress continues to serve mankind’s well-being.

The Phanar took a different approach. It hosted a two-day conference on the island of Heybeliada, co-sponsored by Southern New Hampshire University. Its PR material referred to the “Halki Summit” as “a distinguished group of activists, scientists, journalists, business leaders, theologians, and academics” committed to inducing “healing environmental action” through “a fundamental change in values as manifested in ethics and spirituality.”

In his keynote address, His All-Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew I said, while he had “witnessed the positive changes over the last decade,” he remained “deeply frustrated with the stubborn resistance and reluctant advancement of earth-friendly policies and practices.”

The Ecumenical Patriarch, Metropolitan John Zizioulas, Archdeacon John Chryssavgis, and other clergy alternately spoke with and heard from a panel of environmentalist polemicists such as Bill McKibben, James Hansen, and Jane Goodall.

Bill McKibben author of the book, Maybe One, encouraged his readers to have, at most, one child In his book, McKibben implied our likeness to God is most reflected by our use of contraception. He wrote that mankind’s “ability to limit ourselves…makes us unique among the animals.” He went on to belittle the traditional concept of the Deity and man’s place in the created order:

And though it galls the apostles of technology, this idea of restraint comes in large measure from our religious heritage. Not the religious heritage of literalism and fundamentalism and pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die. The scientists may have drowned the miracle-working sky gods with their five-century flood of data. Copernicus and Darwin did deprive us of our exalted place in the universe…

According to McKibben, “this older, deeper, more integral religious idea” – which he traces, appropriately, to Yama, the Hindu god of death – survived:

In this long tradition, meaning counts, more than ability or achievement or accumulation. Indeed, meaning counts more than life. From this perspective, Christ’s resurrection is almost unnecessary: it is his willingness to die, to impose the deepest limit on himself for the sake of others, that matters (emphases added).

It is telling that McKibben received one of two prizes from The Nation Institute, the institutional arm of Nation magazine, in 2010. The other went to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards. Why was he elevated by the Phanar?

McKibben suffers for his beliefs – as misguided as they are. He spent days in jail for leading the demonstrations that single-handedly killed the Keystone XL Pipeline – which would have created between 20,000 and 250,000 jobs in the midst of a flatlining economy – a move the Halki Summit described as a “courageous act of ‘civil disobedience.’”

The activist discussed his courage with Dr. James Hansen, a former NASA scientist turned Chicken Little who once said global warming skeptics of “are guilty of crimes against humanity.” He suggested President Obama tax the price of gasoline to “$4/5 gallons again.”

Hansen exposed his view of mankind when he endorsed Time’s Up, by Keith Farnish, a blurb Farnish has written he never solicited. The book set a modest goal: “Getting rid of civilization.” “Industrial Civilization may have produced new and innovative ways of human disease,” Farnish wrote, “but at the expense of tens of millions of other animals each year.”

He suggested that to facilitate the creation of a world with “no cities, no paved roads, no pylons, no offices or factories” that “[n]ot having children could be a very useful strategy.”

Other speakers also shared the priorities of the Green Left.

Jane Goodall, the famed primatologist, called the Catholic Church “quite a major problem” in her quest to impose population control.

The clergy also heard from Pratrap Chatterjee, a political and economic radical who heads an organization known as “CorpWatch,” which describes itself as a project of the George Soros funded Tides Center.

Other distinguished experts included a public radio host and the former CEO of a yogurt company.

Why is the Ecumenical Patriarch shrouding an ideology that demeans the dignity of mankind? Why is he using his moral authority as chief shepherd of the New Rome to sanctify anti-life ideas?

One day we might see the Pope and the Patriarch meeting at a UN Climate Conference on opposing sides, one standing with Al Gore and Paul Ehrlich, the other waging a lonely campaign to uphold the value of human life.

Then, faithful Orthodox Christians will find themselves united with the See of Rome, if only until the close of the summit.

Christian Environmentalism that ‘Costs me Nothing’

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By John Couretas

In his June 18 keynote address at the opening ceremony of the Halki Summit in Turkey, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew looked forward to the start of the Rio +20 United Nations Conference on Sustainability, June 20-22. He noted that attendees at his environmental gathering were “deeply frustrated with the stubborn resistance and reluctant advancement of earth-friendly policies and practices.” He called for greater sacrifice and personal responsibility (emphasis added in the quote below):

Permit us to propose that perhaps the reason for this hesitation and hindrance may lie in the fact that we are unwilling to accept personal responsibility and demonstrate personal sacrifice. In the Orthodox Christian tradition, we refer to this “missing dimension” as ascesis, which could be translated as abstinence and moderation, or – better still – simplicity and frugality. The truth is that we resist any demand for self-restraint and self-control.

[ … ]

Each of us is called to draw a distinction between what we want and what we need, or – more importantly – what the world needs. Greed and gratification reduce the world to a survival of the fittest; whereas generosity and gratitude transform the world into a community of sharing. We are invited to pursue a way of sacrifice – not a sacrifice that is cheap, but a sacrifice that is costly. As King David once said: “I will not offer to the Lord my God a sacrifice that costs me nothing.” (2 Samuel 24.24) We must be prepared to make sacrifices – material and financial – that are genuine and even painful. And in this regard, whether we like it or not, more is demanded from the rich than from the poor.

Speaking of cheap, this latest statement – in light of the actual environmental praxis of the Phanar and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in America – is an exercise in cheap moralizing and empty Church-speak. For starters, the Halki Summit was held in the historic Halki Palace Hotel, “one of the oldest and finest hotels in the vicinity of the Princes’ Islands,” and which features satellite TV, mini-bar, laundry service and Jacuzzis in nine of the suites. So you can take a nice warm bubble bath while contemplating how “simplicity and frugality” will help avert a global environmental catastrophe. Then take a drink poolside and join in for some bracing conversation about how Summit attendees can “bring the global environmental discussion to a new and richer place.” Indeed.

At the same time, Bartholomew’s American church is preparing to gather in Phoenix for the 2012 Clergy Laity Congress, July 1-5. It is meeting at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa for five days. Yes, a luxury resort in the Sonoran desert in the middle of July. Abstinence? The Marriott features four acres of swimming pools. Can’t swim? The Spa’s steam, sauna and whirlpools might do the trick, or the facial and massage services which start at $330 and ratchet up to $481, for the “total indulgence” package which gets you the “Too Sexy for Your Shoes Pedicure.” Make your reservations now, presvyteres!

No wonder the Colorado River is drying up. Patricia Mulroy, a board member of the Water Research Foundation, which promotes the development of safe drinking water, told Smithsonian Magazine that people need a “fundamental, cultural attitude change about water supply in the Southwest. It’s not abundant, it’s not reliable, it’s not going to always be there.” Maybe the patriarch, who has held environmental cruises on major rivers such as the Danube and the Amazon, could hold his next summit on the Colorado. A raft would work better than a cruise ship there.

Speaking of “self restraint and self control,” recall that on his 2009 visit to the United States, the patriarch shuttled to and fro on a private jet. When he gathered with bishops and priests of the Ecumenical Throne at the Limani Restaurant in New York to toast Archbishop Demetrios, was that an example of the ascesis we’re being lectured about now? At Limani, you can get a nice cowboy ribeye for $48, or Canadian caught Halibut — steak-cut and charcoal grilled – for $35. Add Greek fries or horta for only $9.

Perhaps the patriarch can send a message to the Leadership 100 gathering in 2013 and remind the wealthy benefactors that “more is demanded from the rich.” They’re meeting at the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach, Fla. The Ritz-Carlton is a favorite of this group (Laguna Niguel and Naples, in recent years), but they broke the mold in 2010 when they met at The Hotel del Coronado near San Diego in 2010.

Now, everyone understands why a church gathering needs a certain basic infrastructure to do its work: central heating and air conditioning, wireless Internet, refrigeration and modern sanitation, ready access to emergency medical care. But there’s a long stretch from basic necessities to the luxury spa in the desert or on the Florida beach.

The patriarch prayed at his summit in Turkey that those gathered with him, the “exceptional assembly,” would “explore ways and means to bridge the unacceptable gap between theory and practice, between ideas and life.” May his prayer be answered.

The False Promise of Green Energy [VIDEO]

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Economist Andrew Morris on Patriarch Bartholomew’s ideas on sustainable energy: “[H]e’s asking the wrong questions.”

Source: Acton Institute Power Blog | HT: Koinonia

For PowerBlog readers, we’re posting the video from Andrew Morriss’ April 26 Acton Lecture Series talk in Grand Rapids, Mich., on “The False Promise of Green Energy.” Here’s the lecture description: “Green energy advocates claim that transforming America to an economy based on wind, solar, and biofuels will produce jobs for Americans, benefits for the environment, and restore American industry. Prof. Andrew Morriss, co-author of The False Promise of Green Energy (Cato, 2011), shows that these claims are based on unrealistic assumptions, poorly thought out models, and bad data. Rather than leading us to an eco-utopia, he argues that current green energy programs are crony capitalism that impoverishes American consumers and destroys American jobs.”

Morriss, an Orthodox Christian, begins with a quote from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople, the Istanbul, Turkey-based hierarch. Bartholomew said this in response to the March 2011 tsunami in Japan and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster that followed:

Our Creators granted us the gifts of the sun, wind, water and ocean, all of which may safely and sufficiently provide energy. Ecologically-friendly science and technology has discovered ways and means of producing sustainable forms of energy for our ecosystem. Therefore, we ask: Why do we persist in adopting such dangerous sources of energy?

“The Ecumenical Patriarch and I don’t see eye to eye on this,” Morriss said. “I think he’s asking the wrong questions.”

Also see the PowerBlog post “Green Patriarch: No Nukes.”

In his book, Morriss and his co-authors warn that “the concrete results of following [green energy] policies will be a decline in living standards around the globe, including for the world’s poorest; changes in lifestyle that Americans do not want; and a weakening of the technological progress that market forces have delivered, preventing us from finding real solutions to the real problems we face.” Many of those lifestyle changes will come from suddenly spending far more on energy than we’d like. Green technologies mean diverting production from cheap sources, such as coal and oil, to more expensive, highly subsidized ones, like wind and solar. These price spikes won’t be limited to our electricity bills either, the authors argue. “Anything that increases the price of energy will also increase the price of goods that use energy indirectly.”

The better solution to improving America’s energy economy, the book shows, is to let the market work by putting power in the hands of consumers. But “many environmental pressure groups don’t want to leave conservation to individuals, preferring government mandates to change energy use.” In other words, green-job proponents know they’re pushing a bad product. Rather than allow the market to expose the bad economics of green energy, they’d use the power of government to force expensive and unnecessary transformation.

Morriss is also an editor of the forthcoming Silent Spring at 50: The False Crises of Rachel Carson (Cato, September 2012) with Roger Meiners and Pierre Desroches. The blurb for the Carson book notes that she got a lot wrong:

Widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement when published 50 years ago, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring had a profound impact on our society. As an iconic work, the book has often been shielded from critical inquiry, but this landmark anniversary provides an excellent opportunity to reassess its legacy and influence. In Silent Spring at 50: The False Crises of Rachel Carson a team of national experts explores the book’s historical context, the science it was built on, and the policy consequences of its core ideas. The conclusion makes it abundantly clear that the legacy of Silent Spring is highly problematic. While the book provided some clear benefits, a number of Carson’s major arguments rested on what can only be described as deliberate ignorance. Despite her reputation as a careful writer widely praised for building her arguments on science and facts, Carson’s best-seller contained significant errors and sins of omission. Much of what was presented as certainty then was slanted, and today we know much of it is simply wrong.

Morriss is the D. Paul Jones, Jr. & Charlene Angelich Jones Chairholder of Law at the University of Alabama School of Law. He is the author or coauthor of more than 60 book chapters, scholarly articles, and books. He is affiliated with a number of think tanks doing public policy work, including the Property & Environment Research Center in Bozeman, Montana, the Regulatory Studies Center at George Washington University, the Institute for Energy Research, and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. In addition, he is a Research Fellow at the New York University Center for Labor and Employment Law. He is chair of the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review. His scholarship focuses on regulatory issues involving environmental, energy, and offshore financial centers. Over the past ten years he has regularly taught and lectured in China, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, and Nepal.

Morriss earned an A.B. from Princeton University and a J.D., as well as an M.A. in Public Affairs, from the University of Texas at Austin. He received a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After law school, Morriss clerked for U.S. District Judge Barefoot Sanders in the Northern District of Texas and worked for two years at Texas Rural Legal Aid in Hereford and Plainview, Texas.

He was formerly the H. Ross and Helen Workman Professor of Law & Professor of Business at the University of Illinois College of Law and the Galen J. Roush Profesor of Business Law & Regulation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law.

Deconstructing the ‘Internal Contradiction’ in the GOA

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Andrew Estocin asks:

Father JJ, how do you see this internal contradiction playing out with regards to the riots and unrest in Greece? The GOA has never addressed the moral and social underpinnings of these problems. Is the GOA so captive to the fantasy narrative of the Greek Community in America that it is unable to engage on these issues? Athens burns but the party at the Ritz Carlton in Florida goes on. How do you celebrate Greek Independence day at the White House when your homeland is in the midst of a social and economic collapse? If 79th Street does not pay more attention it find that people will turn on the GOA leadership very quickly as being overpaid and out of touch while common people suffer. Honestly, though I wonder what the real reason is for the GOA not even acknowledging Greece’s problems. Its amazing the disconnect between the idea of being “Greek in America” vs. being “Greek in Greece”

Fr. Hans Jacobse responds:

Andrew, there is truth to the assertion that culture preserves faith, and it also true that the Hellenic ideals helped create the bedrock of Western Civilization. These facts are undeniable. Moreover, Hellenism, properly understood, does indeed foster a deep appreciation for the Greek contribution to Western culture.

What’s missing today in almost every engagement with real issues and problems however, is the Gospel — the “disconnect” as you put it. The Gospel is what shaped Greek culture, but it must also vivify every generation so that the culture can remain Christian. If the Gospel is not preached, the deep insights and knowledge conferred through the culture from one generation to the next gets reduced to folklore. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” becomes the definitive statement of what once was a very vibrant Christian civilization.

All peoples and institutions can operate on historical memory for only so long. The Communist assault on the Russian Orthodox Church showed us that it takes only one generation to cripple the Christian cultural legacy almost to the point of death. If the debilitation is the result of a slow drift as it is in Western Christendom, then it may take a generation or two longer but not much more. Look at England’s slide into moral and civic confusion since WWII. For that matter, look at our own.

The way out of our cultural morass and the path to ecclesiological clarity (and thus courage), is through a recovery of the Gospel. That recovery however, never happens outside of an immediate cultural context. In our case the defense of human life is that context since the question of the inherent value of life is at the heart of all our problems (Fr. Mark Hodges stated it beautifully). Put in theological terms it means that we have to reach deep into our tradition and bring forward the anthropological constructs into the modern cultural context (and the Orthodox have the most developed anthropology of any Christian communion). All the big cultural questions: sanctity of life, homosexuality, marriage, divorce, contraception, even economics deal with what it means to be a human being.

When Archbishop Iakovos went into retirement, something changed. Constantinople became the center of governance and the mission of the GOA was redefined. Apb. Iakovos had his flaws (gifted leaders often have deep deficits) but his focus was always America, as he showed when he joined Martin Luther King in Selma, Alabama. He was the first major Christian leader to endorse King, and because of him others followed suit. The King family is still grateful to the Greek Orthodox for it.

Now however, the GOA exists to defend the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and because Constantinople is weak and under siege, it must also satisfy those on whom Constantinople is dependent such as the Greek government. This fosters an excessive dependence on Greek Orthodox politicians at home who exercise influence on the State Department and other organs of American government, enough so that the violations of the moral tradition in their civic life is never mentioned. This has the effect of bolstering the secular forces that seek to undermine Christian institutions on the outside, but it also fosters a timidity, or worse, compels intimidation toward anyone who dares challenge those forces, on the inside.

That’s also why you see support of such things as global warming or other secular apocalyptic movements. Support of global warming was an attempt to counter the criticism that the social critique of Greek Orthodox Christianity was lacking. Anyone who understands how secular apocalypticism works in the larger culture however, already knew that the global warming scenario was manufactured. Secular apocalypticism always is. Its purpose is to create urgency for policies that will prevent the predicated collapse. It was just a matter of time before it was exposed as a fraud just as the Paul Erlich’s “Population Bomb” and Rachel Carlson’s “Silent Spring” were in past decades.

Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” followed in that same secular tradition. The fact that the GOA did not see that supporting Gore would come back to bite them (we warned them it would), is the inevitable result of not engaging the culture on the terms the moral tradition requires.

Improper application of the moral tradition is still a problem. In most (not all) cases when GOA leadership engages the culture, the Constantinopolitan mandate compels them to conflate Progressive ideals with the Gospel because the ideals don’t raise the ire of the politicians who need to be cultivated. This approach needs to be challenged because it provides cover for Progressive ideology that holds the values of the Christian faith in contempt and will turn on the Christian Church when it is able. The conflation will become more evident to the Greek Orthodox (and other Orthodox Christians) as the crisis between the Catholic Church and the Obama Administration draws the distinctions between the secular ideals and Christian moral values more clearly.

The GOA has some very good priests who, as much as they are able (which means escaping the notice of Bishops who enforce the mandate that Constantinople remains front and center), work hard to bring Christ to their people. They suffer though because when the conflicts come (and they do), they get no support. Some are even punished.

So to answer your question, it is very difficult to speak with moral clarity in one area without exposing moral equivocation in another. That’s the contradiction. And that contradiction exists because the mission of the GOA is muddled. When appeals to history don’t include the Gospel that vivified it (it can’t because it would offend politicians and officials whose favor the GOA needs), then the best you can hope for is folklore instead of the tradition and silence when the words of truth need to be spoken. So don’t expect to hear much substance about the riots in Greece. You will, however, see a lot of pictures of the recent conference in Florida in the next Orthodox Observer.

I want to see a strong and vibrant GOA and I want Constantinople protected. That can only occur however, if Constantinople comes under the protection of a unified American Church, and not if the American Church is subsumed into Constantinople’s defensive strategies.

Where is it headed? There are only two possibilities. Either the GOA recovers its mandate to evangelize America (Abp. Iakovos understood this, hence Ligonier), or it accedes to Constantinople. If the former happens, the GOA can grow strong and lead many to salvation. If the latter happens, then you will see deeper internal fracturing, more priests will suffer breakdowns, and more young people will leave.

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