Orthodox Church in America

WAPO: Metropolitan Jonah goes to Washington

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Met. Jonah

Source: Washington Post | Julia Duin | Sunday, March 20, 11:13 AM

They appeared at the edge of the crowd on the Mall, a group of men seemingly out of a distant century. Their heads were crowned with klobuks, the distinctive headgear of Orthodox clergy. Sporting black cassocks and untrimmed gray beards, with golden icons dangling from their necks on long chains, these visitors stood out among the crowd clad in jeans and winter coats. The man in their center carried a bejeweled walking stick.

Metropolitan Jonah, 51, leads the Orthodox Church in America, the second-largest Eastern Orthodox body in the United States. He was there to rally the huddled masses waiting in the freezing air to begin the March for Life, the annual demonstration protesting the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide. His aim was to boost Orthodox participation in political issues. But his efforts to change the OCA would spark a ferocious reaction from his own bishops one month later. At issue is the very nature of Orthodoxy in the New World.

The tensions began with Jonah’s surprise election as head (or “metropolitan”) of the OCA in late 2008. The new leader, who is the first native-born convert to head the church, wasted little time instituting change. He put word out to his bishops and seminarians that their presence was expected at the March for Life, held every January. It was time, he would later tell a reporter, for the Orthodox “to step out in the public square” on a number of social concerns, including abortion. To encourage such stepping out, Jonah also decided to move the offices of the OCA from its isolated Syosset, N.Y., chancery to St. Nicholas Cathedral in Northwest Washington.

On the morning of the march, Jonah preached an uncompromising Gospel at the cathedral. “We need to see and call things what they are and not in some disguised politically correct language,” he said, dressed in resplendent gold brocade vestments, his salt-and-pepper beard making him appear like an Old Testament prophet. “Abortion is the taking of human life.”

[…]

Read the entire article on the Washington Post website.

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OCA summarizes Met. Hilarion’s visit

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Note (from the release): “Metropolitan Hilarion affirmed the Russian Orthodox Church’s commitment to uphold its granting of autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in America in 1970,” said Father Alexander Garklavs after the meeting. My question: While I welcome the affirmation, does the Church that grants autocephaly actually have the power to rescind it? I wouldn’t think so. The granting of autocephaly is not conditional. If it were, autocephaly would be something other than independence.

HT: Byzantine TX

Metropolitan Hilarion

SYOSSET, NY (OCA) – On Tuesday, August 31, 2010, His Eminence, Metropolitan Hilarion [Alfeyev] of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church, and permanent member of the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate, concluded his three-day working visit to New York at the invitation of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah of All America and Canada.

A member of the Board of Trustees of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary, Crestwood, NY, Metropolitan Hilarion was to have concelebrated the Divine Liturgy with Metropolitan Jonah at the school’s Three Hierarchs’ Chapel on Sunday, August 29, but was unable to do so due to illness. [Earlier reports that he was to have attended a meeting of the seminary trustees were incorrect.]

On Monday, August 30, Metropolitan Hilarion visited the Chancery of the Orthodox Church in America. Joining Metropolitan Jonah in welcoming him were His Grace, Bishop Tikhon of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania; His Grace, Bishop Michael of New York and New Jersey; Archpriest Alexander Garklavs, OCA Chancellor; and Archpriest Leonid Kishkovsky, OCA Director of External Affairs and Interchurch Relations. Also present were Archpriests John Behr and Chad Hatfield, Dean and Chancellor of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary respectively, and Priest Alexander Rentel, Secretary of the seminary’s Academic Council.

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From the OCA Strategic Planning Committee:

How the self governance of the OCA has benefitted Orthodox Christians on this continent

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Fr. Michael Oleska, dean of St. Innocent Orthodox Cathedral in Anchorage, Alaska, writes that self-governance of the church also has an important practical dimension: corrupt bishops can be removed through the combined action of priests and laity. Self-governance in other words provides an essential check and balance that is lacking in the monarchical model of the episcopacy that emerged under submission to the Ottomans on the Byzantine side, and under submission and dependency on the state on the Russian side.

The past leadership of the OCA invoked this putative authority to intimidate priests and laity who refused to accept the rampant corruption that afflicted the OCA. In the GOA, the monarchical model has been imposed in greater measure ever since the Bishops were elevated to Metropolitans and the dioceses began to function as fiefdoms of Constantinople. This late development has its committed defenders as well (see: GOA Deacon responds to Dn. Eric Wheeler) although the reasoning never seems to get past the finger-wagging at those who dare challenge the implicit notion that the Metropolitans are infallible.

Fr. Michael Oleska

Somewhere in these discussions about autocephaly we should consider honestly how the self-governance of the Orthodox Church in America has benefited Orthodox Christians on this continent: and we don’t have to look back too far.

Our tragic situation in Alaska was resolved when a few clergy on the Kuskokwim River appealed to the Holy Synod of the OCA to alleviate their plight, the unkindness and insensitivity of a ruling bishop who was treating them and their culture with pronounced disrespect, imposing on them, precisely, an alien so-called “Russian” identity and trying to mold and direct them toward becoming replica parishes of his own concept of a “Russian Orthodox” ideal. The Holy Synod hesitated. Then more clergy and eventually hundreds of laity united in “one heart and one mind” emphatically expressed their desire for an appropriate investigation of the situation. There were actually two such visits, two reports, the first prepared and presented by the Chancellor of the Church, which was never received or published as the Primate refused to accept it, and the second prepared by two members of the Holy Synod, which was accepted, resulting in the “retirement” of the Alaskan hierarch.
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In Memoriam: His Eminence Archbishop Job, Archbishop of Chicago and the Midwest

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Posted 12/18

SYOSSET, NY [OCA Communications] — On Friday, December 18, 2009, His Eminence, Archbishop Job of Chicago and the Midwest unexpectedly fell asleep in the Lord.

His Eminence, Archbishop Job was born Richard John Osacky in Chicago on March 18, 1946. He completed university studies at Northern Illinois University and, after graduating from Saint Tikhon Seminary, South Canaan, PA, in 1970, he served as cantor and youth director at Saint John the Baptist Church in Black Lick, Pennsylvania. He assumed responsibilities in leading Divine Services in the prescribed manner for readers, conducting religious education and youth work, and painting icons. It was his extraordinary affinity with Orthodox youth that gained him the recognition of the Church at large.

In 1973 Reader John was ordained to the holy diaconate and consequently to the holy priesthood by Bishop Theodosius of Pittsburgh [later Metropolitan Theodosius of All American and Canada]. He was assigned to the parish in Black Lick, where he also served as spiritual director for the Orthodox Christian Fellowship at nearby Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

As a celibate priest, he maintained a zeal for the monastic life in all his endeavors. In 1975 he was made a riasaphor monk, and later was tonsured a monk in the Lesser Schema by [then] Bishop Herman in August of 1982. In November of that year he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite.

Recognizing that zeal and spirit of dedication to Church service in Father Job, the Diocese of New England nominated hieromonk Job as their diocesan bishop. The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America ratified the nomination and elected him Bishop of Hartford and the Diocese of New England. He was consecrated to the episcopacy on January 29, 1983, at All Saints Church in Hartford, Connecticut.

At its session of November 5, 1992, the Holy Synod of Bishops elected Bishop Job as Bishop of Chicago and Diocese of the Midwest. He was enthroned as Bishop of his native city at Holy Trinity Cathedral on February 6, 1993.

In his years in the See of Chicago, the Diocese of the Midwest experienced tremendous growth. This was witnessed in–but certainly not limited to–the establishment of numerous new mission parishes in the diocese.

In addition to his regular duties as the ruling hierarch of the Diocese of the Midwest, His Eminence enjoyed his long-standing and excellent reputation as an iconographer and iconologist. He was often called upon to offer lectures on this subject, and he was willing to assist and encourage other iconographers.

In recognition of his more than twenty years of “good and faithful” service as archpastor, at the March 2004 Session of the Holy Synod, Bishop Job was elevated to the rank of archbishop.

Information about funeral services for Archbishop Job will be posted as they become available.

May His Eminence, Archbishop Job’s memory be eternal!

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