unity

A report from the regular session of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, held May 5-7 in New York, discloses a plan to form a joint commission with the Orthodox Church in America to discuss issues that have kept the Churches apart. HT: Joe. The report says:

It was also decided to form a commission to study the relationship with the Orthodox Church in America and to hold joint meetings to discuss the sources of the division between the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and the American Metropoliate. Included in this commission are Bishop George, President; Archimandrite Luke (Murianka); Protopriest Alexander Lebedeff, Secretary; Protopriest David Moser and Priest Peter Jackson. The commission is to study and present findings on the reasons for the division and to evaluate the mutual accusations, and propose methods of healing the separation.

In a stinging rebuke to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America issued a call for a unified American Church and rejected any path to unity that would mean “we surrender the freedom we have embraced as American Orthodox Christians to a patriarchate still under Islamic domination.” The video here records his sermon on April 5 at Pan-Orthodox vespers at St. Seraphim Cathedral in Dallas.

Although he did not mention him by name, the Metropolitan was responding to a speech given March 16 at Holy Cross School of Theology by the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr. Elpidophoros Lambriniadis, chief secretary of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In the speech, Fr. Lambriniadis was critical of calls for unity by both the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese and OCA and asserted that “submission to the First Throne of the Church, that is, to the Ecumenical Patriarchate” is the proper mode of unity for American Orthodox Christians.

To such a suggestion, Metropolitan Jonah said: “I would submit that, if we wanted a pope, we would be under the real one.”

He asserted that a Church dedicated to the conciliar process does not ignore the voice of the laity or the priests. The metropolitan spoke of Old World hierarchs “who are ignorant of our saints and who refuse to recognize the sacrifice of so many of those who have come before us in Christ to establish the Gospel here.”

During his sermon, Metropolitan Jonah repeatedly cited the sacrifices that Orthodox Christians have made for more than 200 years to bring the Gospel “in its wholeness” to North America. But this sacrifice, he says, is devalued by Old World hierarchs who believe that they are the only criterion of Orthodoxy.

“We can’t allow our Church to be controlled by people who have no appreciation of our culture and have to bow to the Turkish Islamic authorities,” the metropolitan said.

He concluded with an affirmation that the Church of the Apostles exists in America, in the Orthodox Church “now here in our midst. It was planted by our fathers in the faith generations ago on this continent and it has grown and borne fruit. And it subsists out of our common, sacrificial commitment to Jesus Christ. So let us give thanks to God for our unity. Let us give thanks to God for our diversity. And let us affirm to our bishops that they might tell the churches of the Old World that there is an American Orthodox Church. Leave it alone!”

The American Orthodox Institute has published a new paper on Orthodox unity by George Michalopulos that examines the historical usage of the title “metropolitan,” the role of the metropolitan in Church administration, and the “crucial” pastoral duty defined in the Divine Liturgy as “rightly dividing the Word of [God’s] Truth.”

In “E Pluribus Unum: One Church From Many?” Michalopulos takes it a step further. He offers a “sketch” of how an American Orthodox Church might be structured along traditional lines. In a unified American Orthodox Church, for example, the Archbishop of Washington would be the primate of the American Church and also carry the title of Patriarch.

Rather coincidentally, AOI published “E Pluribus Unum: One Church from Many?” just a day after the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr. Elpidophoros Lambriniadis delivered his speech “Challenges of Orthodoxy in America And the Role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate” at Holy Cross seminary. The Ecumenical Patriarchate sees unity as “submission to the First Throne of the Church, that is, to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.”

In sharp contrast, Michalopulos offers a very particular vision:

… bishops, priests, theologians, and laymen must request an independent unity that is free of foreign constraints. This first phase of unity may proceed on several different fronts. The bishops who make up SCOBA can certainly meet more regularly and request the convocation of an all-American synod. Priests on the local level can meet with their counterparts regularly and receive from their parish councils the resources necessary to consolidate operations. Cities that have bishops can request that the resident bishop serve as the president of the local Orthodox ministerial association. Laypeople must likewise apply their talents and experience to the cause of unity. Lawyers will be needed to help draw up diocesan incorporations. Accountants and financiers will be needed to assemble strong, enduring, transparent financial structures. Medical doctors and bioethicists can be appointed as permanent advisors to and members of episcopal councils, advising bishops about the ethical implications of current and developing medical technologies. The demand must be from the “bottom up” as much as from the “top down.” The universal call for unity cannot abate.