As you have so aptly and frequently quoted Solzhenitsyn: words have power. As I recall, Solzhenitsyn personally seemed to revel in a notorious penchant for “flurries of words.” I made no comment as to the merit of your statement. That is your business, not mine, though I suspect it is only as “refreshingly wholesome” as its accuracy. Fairness would suggest, however, that we both suffer a paucity of truth, or at least a chosen unwillingness to admit the possibility of an alternate context.

My concern was simply to say that the “way of the internet” is “rumor” leads to conjecture, which then leaps to “truth,” which if disputed leads to “conspiracy.” And should this “truth” be unconditionally refuted, there is never a retraction or apology, just silence, and not everyone gets the memo. This “way” dangerously relies on the essential element of a lack of cohesion and sense of community to lower the threshold for truth. I was simply pointing out a demonstrated, harmful phenomenon, not criticizing your “stand.” You are suddenly “sensitive” to my comments, Abouna?

Thank you, Fr. Johannes. Both the tone and the content of your “however” are measured and refreshingly wholesome. May God bless and keep you. May God bless His Church.

There is, therefore, now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the law could not do, weak as it was in the flesh, God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh; and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in you, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

Father, bless!

Another flurry of words, but that this is not the way to treat the man still stands.

While I fully appreciate that you “don’t really want to discuss it here,” that was quite a “however” that followed. Monomakhos is censoring comments that do not fit his “story,” but I believe I should reasonably have a higher expectation of you.

Someone elsewhere is quoting an address of Solzhenitsyn:

Because instant and credible information has to be given, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumors and suppositions to fill in the voids,and none of them will ever be rectified, they will stay on in the readers’ memory. How many hasty, immature, superficial and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, without any verification. The press can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters, pertaining to one’s nation’s defense, publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: “everyone is entitled to know everything.” But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era: people also have the right not to know, and it is a much more valuable one. The right not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information.

The same action can be interpreted as “ignorant,” the “truth,” or the “last resort” in a storm, all depending on who is doing the interpreting. Opinion, upon opinion, upon opinion – which we all do not apparently agree is one’s “right” – naturally lowers the threshold for truth, leading to “information cascades” – where someone derives an opinion from the derived opinion of someone else, who has a derived opinion… – and, more often than not, results (if you believe the research) in error.

It’s your sandbox, Abouna, but my opinion is that your “on the record” belonged on Monomakhos, and has only lowered the standard here.

Dan, I am letting Monomakhos handle the ins and outs of this conflict and don’t really want to discuss it here. However, I went on record in the Chicago Tribune saying that I think the censure of Met. Jonah is a rush to judgment. I think that the decision of the Synod to releasing the letter was unjust and created a public narrative Met. Jonah should not have to deal with, although I will grant that perhaps they acted ignorantly. Their ignorance does not excuse them; it just explains why they handled it as they did. In any case, now when anyone searches for Met. Jonah’s name, the allegation of covering up a rape will come up. This is the wrong way to treat the man.

Here’s the article:

Source: Boston Herald

Bishops say church leader who resigned failed to remove priest accused of rape

CHICAGO — More than a week after a Chicago native resigned from the helm of the Orthodox Church in America, the bishops who requested the resignation now say he failed to remove a priest accused of rape.

In a resignation letter addressed to bishops earlier this month, Metropolitan Jonah “begged forgiveness for however I have offended you, and for whatever difficulties have arisen from my own inadequacies and mistakes in judgment.”

When asked at the time whether rumors of a mishandled rape allegation were true, Archpriest Eric George Tosi, secretary for the Orthodox Church in America, referred all inquiries to the news release posted on the church’s website. But this week, the church issued a revised statement.

“We have hesitated to release further details surrounding the resignation of Metropolitan Jonah as Primate of our church, this in a desire to preserve his dignity and to prevent further harm to an innocent party,” the statement said.

“We also harbored some hope that Metropolitan Jonah would show a willingness to accept responsibility for his actions and failures to act,” the statement added.

Elected in late 2008 to lead one of several branches of Orthodox Christianity in the United States, parishioners looked to Metropolitan Jonah for reforms after his predecessor retired amid allegations that millions of church dollars were used to cover personal expenses.

He insisted on amplifying the church’s voice in the public square, speaking up against abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

In the most recent statement, the church’s bishops claimed any suggestions that the resignation had to do with a political or cultural shift inside the church were untrue. Instead, they pointed to the Metropolitan’s alleged mishandling of a priest accused of raping a woman in 2010.

When the rape accusation came to Metropolitan Jonah’s attention in February 2012, the bishops said, he failed to share the information with them. He also allegedly discouraged the accuser and her relative from mentioning the allegation and arranged to transfer the priest without warning his subsequent superiors of the circumstances.

Metropolitan Jonah could not be reached for comment on Thursday, but the Rev. Johannes Jacobse, president of the American Orthodox Institute, said “there was a rush to judgment here.” He said reports indicate that Metropolitan Jonah removed the priest before the allegations came to light and the details in the bishops’ letter are wrong.

Melanie Sakoda of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, commended the Orthodox bishops for forcing Metropolitan Jonah to resign and for finally telling the truth without revealing the victim’s identity. But she criticized them for not releasing the name of the cleric or the names of the parishes where he might have worked and abused others.

“Sadly, the church’s deeply rooted pattern of secrecy in sex cases continues,” Sakoda said.

This week, bishops attributed the forced resignation and full disclosure of the details to lessons learned from the recent sex abuse scandals involving Penn State and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia and Diocese of Kansas City. They blamed Metropolitan Jonah for exposing the church to legal liability.

Fr. Johannes,

The allegations made against Jonah are indefensible. Even if such a charge were true, neither proper Christian conduct nor sound legal judgement would lead to the kind of statement that was published. It is a fearful thing, of course, for me or anyone to make such a comment about Bishops of the Church, but even the Apostle Peter was publicly censured when his public behavior made it necessary. The following link contains the testimony of the God-mother of the woman who was raped. Jonah’s conduct appears to have been entirely appropriate.

http://www.monomakhos.com/another-hole-in-the-official-story/

This comment is particularly disturbing to me when you say the OCA does not have “much to show for the last 20 years,” or has not “risen to the challenges before us in any appreciable way.” You made it a point to repost Fr. John Peck’s essay on the American Church of the future, and I will repeat what I stated then: the foundation for Fr. John’s inspirational words, as well as the former Metropolitan Jonah’s articulations, are the shoulders of the architects of autocephaly. Certainly I refer to the most visible and the most vocal, but many more are the unacknowledged priests who were and are “unsung” inspiration, “good [men], and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith: and many people was added unto the Lord.” (Acts 11:24) These were and are the rocks upon whom converts to the faith, themselves now likewise “some excellent priests,” whom Fr. John notes are becoming the majority, the ones who will lead the Church in America in the future.

You were not Orthodox when worse crises befell the church and many prognosticated the “demise” of Orthodoxy in America: the Metropolia’s decision to refuse the directive of Patriarch Sergius to promise to be silent on “politics” and allegiance; the separation from ROCOR and the years of accusations of “schism” and “heresy” that literally divided families to this day; the fear and hostility of “betrayal” by some American jurisdictions who had initially supported autocephaly and had made commitment “in principle,” but later capitulated; and the portend at the All American Council in Montreal, when a spontaneous “outburst” of the clergy and faithful who overrode the choir in signing the Creed in English. My point is that the conflict in the OCA today is, by contrast, a “ripple” fueled by the internet – the other events were battled face-to-face, by sermons, by official “letters,” and in the theological publications – that is barely even interesting to the indifferent majority.

I have considered at length, what would Fr. John Peck change in his prediction of the future America Orthodox Church given the current events – and let him chastize me as he will – but I strongly suspect nothing. As I noted at the time, he has most honorably joined a very lonely rank of “architects” who have paved the way with vision; who, having accepted the consequence of the “marshal [of] anger against [them]” defer reward for later, rather than sooner. Church leaders and personalities will cycle “like the grass,” for whatever reason, but vision will steadfastly continue to drive us forward.

American Orthodoxy has a firm foundation in our native saints – from Kodiak to Brooklyn – and martyrs, teachers and confessors, apostles, monastics, and the simple, persistent, and resilient clergy and faithful who are being saved, unknown and silent. Certainly, we have “all sinned, and come short of the glory of God,” (Rom. 3:23), and I personally may never live to see a true American church. But to say the OCA “will collapse” on account of our current conflict is a reflection of one’s own lack of faith and trust, and no reflection on the foundational rock, the shoulders of the “architects” who drive this vision.

Yes, it is scapegoating George. The OCA, like the GOA, doesn’t have much to show for the last 20 years unfortunately. Both have some very good people of course and some excellent priests. But overall we can’t say that we have risen to the challenges before us in any appreciable way. That’s not to say that their have not been some successes or that on a local level in isolated instances good work has not been done. Clearly that is not true. But on weighed on the scales the efforts fall far short of what they should and could be.

Fr. Hans,

Have you any recommendation for how an Orthodox Christian might manifest courage in a situation such as that presented in the blog above? Met. Jonah has seemingly demonstrated courage, but in the moment, it appears that his courage as he stands alone is not enough. Should others then courageously stand alongside him? If so, what might this look like for clergy and for laity?

If we should not stand alongside Met. Jonah the person so as to avoid factionalism in our Church or for some other reason, then should we otherwise visibly stand for the foundational moral truths of our Church that Met. Jonah has been articulating at this time when these truths seem to be under assualt even from within the Church? If so, what might this look like for clergy and laity?

Regarding the “this” that will pass soon enough: are you referring to the current discord and unrest surrounding the situation articulated in the blog above, or the modernist spirit that underpins the discord, or some other possibility?

It seems to me that while the upheaval of this present moment will certainly pass (if for no reason other than that our human bodies and souls grow weary and need rest), the modernist spirit which has lead to it might well be here to stay if we do not actively expunge it from our Church.

If you have thoughts to share in this regard, I would be grateful for them.

Catherine,

I have seen these kinds of conflicts before in the Church and there is always a period of deep confusion about facts, which we are seeing now. It’s correct that the truth will win out, but sometimes it takes a very long time for that to happen.

In the meantime a person has to be willing to take the hits that speaking the truth sometimes (often actually) requires. In the case of Met. Jonah, it is clear that he speaks the truth with depth and coherence because he understands the dominant culture and how people think. He speaking has what I call a prophetic dimension and this gift (and it is a gift) only comes by conquering sin and temptation in one’s interior life.

He’s a good man but inexperienced in this sense: he only now is learning that speaking in this way will marshal anger against him. He implicitly challenges those who have a basement full of Orthodox bromides but lack the prescience to speak within that prophetic dimension. Because they lack it, their words, while coherent, systematic, even true in their own way, never rise above merely assembling propositions together. That’s entirely appropriate in a classroom of course, but it is not preaching. Met. Jonah preaches and people listen.

So what do we do? Recognize that not everything that calls itself Orthodox is Orthodox, and trust that Christ will lead us in all things, which He will. Live your own life in Truth, and then God will guide you and protect you.

We are very much dealing with scapegoating here Fr. You are completely correct. That is why the OCA will collapse.

Scapegoats arise as a substitute for repentance. Whenever I see scapegoating, then I know no one is really dealing with sin/dysfunction. You see it everywhere too, Churches (across all denominations), business, social groups, etc. It should not exist in the Church, but it does. Rene Girard has done some great work on this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating

This is an Orthodox blog, but I am an occasional columnist for Catholic Online. You will find strong opinions here but little factionalism unless you define holding contrary opinions as factionalism.

Fr. Hans, it is obvious to me that there are at least two very strongly held positions on Met. Jonah both of which are probably wrong. I would caution anyone to avoid certainty about any of the situations surrounding his resignation.

It is obvious to me that Met. Jonah quickly and irrevocably upset a number of powerful constituencies within the OCA thus making it impossible for any brotherhood to be evident.

As many pieces of ‘evidence’ as Mr. Graban and ‘George’ seek to bring forward there are at least at equal number of pieces on the other side.

That is the real problem: sides. Since Mark Stokoe took to the internet, there has been fostered a culture of the scapregoat in the OCA that is not just at the top levels but seems to infect everyone who actually cares.

Trust me, “getting rid’ of a person or a series of people will not help a bit no matter what anyone thinks. Looking for a scapegoat is one of the most profoundly un-Christian attitudes we can have. Once it is fostered and grows in a community it becomes a statanic game of whack-a-mole that is deeply destructive to the community and the spiritual lives of everyone in the community.

Stop blaming, stop looking for bad guys, stop, just stop. Every single time you say so and so did this and that was just wrong!, you are playing into the evil one’s hands.

My own bias is for Met. Jonah, but I don’t know. I have come to the conclusion that if folks in the OCA want healing they should just shut up and go to confession frequently. That is where the truth is. Anything else is unrighteous anger, moral posturing and power politics that have no place at all in the life of the Church.

I don’t intend to discuss the particulars of the letter. I don’t know the history or the evidence. Still, this charge is so scandalous and so destructive to the man’s reputation, that if it is ever proven to be false, those that made it should resign.

I’m not as gleeful about Church survival as you are. Yes, the Church will survive but not everywhere, it never has. And while it is true that the gates of hell will never prevail against her, pray that we never see them. Those are times of great injustice and suffering.