I happen to fully agree with and sympathize with the establishment of an Autocephalous Church in America. There is no reason why all Orthodox in America should not be fully united and take their place with the other Autocephalous Churches. This is required by the Holy Canons.

By no means do I agree with everything the Phanar does. Ecumenism is a perfect example. I am of the opinion that the Ecumenical movement has been a disaster and a failure. I disagree with the Phanar’s participation in it.

However. I do sympathize with and support the Phanar’s plight in a Muslim country, and he does have a very small flock left. The flock is very small, but it is still a flock.

Theodoros

Theodoros, speaking as a Greek-American myself, I too believe it is possible to see Christianity revived in the area and that every effort be made to keep it alive and spread it. My disagreement comes from the tunnel-vision that this produces, i.e. let’s keep on “electing” fantasy metropolitans for extinct sees against the day when the Church will be revived but let’s do everything in our power to prevent Christianity from arising in the “barbarian” lands.

The neglect that Istanbul has shown to the Americas for decades cannot be ameliorated overnight by the hyperactivity shown since the election of the +Bartholomew, especially if the type of pastoral concern shown includes the quashing of an organic American Orthodoxy (Ligonier), a type of Gaia-worship, and the propogation of a Phanariote-based neo-papalism.

Dear friends, I’m afraid that Dean has keenly identified the root of the problem: Churches that are “Live” vs “Dead”. However, I’ll be even more bold say that this vitality or mortality is contingent upon faithfulness to the apostolic tradition or lapse into heresy, respectively.

Yes, I actually did use the word heresy (αίρεσις) which simply means to choose one’s own beliefs and/or practices over and against the established beliefs & practices of the Church. I am a physician and having knowledge of organic chemistry & pharmacology I can attest that even the slightest change in the molecular structure of a drug can literally mean the difference between efficacy and inefficacy or worse yet between life and death. It is no different with our Faith.

I am specifically referring to basic Orthodox ecclesiology in all its multifaceted richness. As many of us here at the AOI know the “one, holy, catholic & apostolic” Church that we speak of in the Creed is nothing other than the phenomenon of the local ecclesia (έκκλησία), the assembly of those called out, that is, the bishop surrounded by his presbyters, deacons and lay faithful, all gathered together in a specific place for the particular purpose of celebrating the Eucharist and other Holy Mysteries in order to participate in and make present the Kingdom of God in their given geographic area. The local Church is the Church in all its fullness, and all the local Churches together are also the Church. However, you can’t have the latter without the former.

The bishop is central to all of this, and without him there can be no Church. The local Church’s unity is dependent upon communion with the bishop. The local Church’s sanctity is derived from the Holy Mysteries, which by virtue of the grace imparted to the bishop during his ordination and the operation of the Holy Spirit, flow from him as from a fountain imparting the local Church with catholicity in the sense that nothing lacking for the spiritual perfection of its members. The local Church’s apostolicity is two fold. Its bishop is in the stream of apostolic succession, sharing both the faith and lineage of the apostles, and given that apostle (άρόστσλος) literally means one who is sent forth, the local Church under the direction of its bishop is committed to the mission of bring the Kingdom of God to all people of its territory.

If it is true that there can be no Church without the bishop then the converse is also true: a bishop cannot exist without his Church. A bishop without a flock is nothing more than a glorified bureaucrat holding a “desk job”; he is certainly not an active shepherd of the souls entrusted to his care and the guarantor of the holy mysteries for this flock. I am not speaking of bishops who at one time had flocks and were subsequently exiled from their sees being temporarily or permanently separated from their flock as we have seen in various periods of history. I am talking about titular bishops, men ordained as bishop of sees that no longer exists to pastor flocks that do not exist. Let us remember that the term bishop (έπίσκοπος) actually means overseer; without an actual Church there is nothing to oversee. Without a flock the titular bishop is not even a pastor let alone an archpastor.

This shameless practice is diametrically opposed to our Orthodox ecclesiology. In short it is legalistic hypocrisy and I would argue an ecclesiological heresy that desperately needs to be confronted along with so many other aberrant aspects of ecclesiology including authority, primacy, conciliarity, jurisdiction, ethnophyletism…

With this in mind, I would like to point out that there is nothing else that +Elpidophoros could have said aside from offering remarks about his nonexistent flock/Church & praising the Patriarch for the “promotion”. I am not speaking ill of +Elpidophoros personally. I actually met him at St. Vladamir’s Seminary last summer and had the chance to speak with him after his talk. Although I disagree with his views on Constantinople’s primacy and jurisdiction (i.e., the Phanar’s interpretation of Canon 28 of Chalcedon), finding them to be altogether without scholarly merit and inconsistent with Holy Tradition, nonetheless, he was a remarkably warm and compassionate person.

At any rate, if it is not sheer heresy then at the very least this whole business of ordaining a titular “metropolitan” is a pathetic and embarrassing exercise in ecclesiastical pageantry and politics, and the fact that so many hierarchs from the other autocephalous Churches participated, especially +Hilarion, just makes my heart heavy.

Lord have mercy!

For the record, those of us who are Greek are not expecting a resurrection of Byzantium, simply the triumph of Christianity in the regions where it was nurtured and thrived. To a certain extent this may already be happening. The liturgies that have been held in the holy places of Cappadocia in recent years, and most recently the liturgy at Panagia Soumela at Trebizond last August 15 represent the triumph of the faith. For many decades, in the aftermath of slaughter and the construction of Islamic minarets and prayers, the divine liturgy took place. The chanting of the glorification of God in a region known for death and maryrdom took place. The Eucharist was served.

The revival of Christianity in Constantinople and Asia Minor is possible as it was in Russia. Metropolitan Hilarion of Moscow last June at the liturgy in Cappadocia urged the Ecumenical Patriarchate to fight and compared the plight of Greek Orthodoxy there with the dark years the Russian Church faced under Communism.

Orthodoxy has always maintained sacred shrines and Churches from the beginning. Read Steven Runciman and see how the early Christians made pilgrimages to Jerusalem. Constantinople and Asia Minor are the places that have many holy and beautiful Churches and Monasteries.

In a sea of Turkish Islam, the Church continues to function and the glorification of God has not been silenced. I also do not see what is wrong with vestments worn by Orthodox Bishops in their ceremonies. Should they wear suits and ties?

Theodoros

Just look at the reinterpretation of the icon of St. Sisoes the Great and the body of Alexander, the iconic exaple of this idolatry of which you speak.

One more thing: if they truly believe that Byzantium will rise again then they’re truly delusional, and engaging in idolatry. The purpose of the Church is to spread the Gospel, not put on fancy dresses and play-act, hoping that an extinct empire will be restored.

Thanks, all.

Btw, to give credit where credit is due:
Ecumenical Patriarch expresses condolences to Pope Shenouda about deadly terror attacks
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
We hasten to express to Your Beatitude our sincerest and whole-hearted condolences for the recent terrorist attack outside of Saints Coptic Church. Words cannot adequately express our shock and sorrow at the magnitude of this tragedy; the ruthlessness and cold-bloodedness of the assailants has shaken Christians and people of good will all over the world.
http://www.patriarchate.org/documents/copticchurch

Scott, you raise perhaps the most important point of all, that of the excessive flattery displayed here. As far as I’m concerned, such effusive praise for a “monk” is worthy of canonical censure. It most certainly is not Christian. It’s worse than when the Holy Synod in Damascus end their letters to Pres Asad in the most grovelling phrases, after all, they are having to deal with Caesar, but to speak this way to another Christian, it’s really quite beyond the pale if you ask me. Not only is it detrimental to the soul of the hearer, what does it say about the flatterer? That he has found a more worthy master than Christ?

marHabban bik!

It may be the wishes of the Coptic hiearchy: Pope Shenoudah specifically forbade Copts from taking part in the revolution (a mistake IMHO), and there has always been an argument between Alexandria and the Copts outside about how vocal they should be become on any specific issue.

The Greeks and Copts and Arab Orthodox iin Egypt get along tolerably well. It’s not the situation in Jerusalem.

On the Georgian parishes, it might seem small, but it means a lot to the Georgians, who are going through a lot of problems righ now (though many it seems may be of their own making).

George, I think you’re on to something there.

The obsequious language used is Byzantine, from the latter days, when it was a shell of its former self. In the earlier days, the political and religious mandarins were polite, but not to the exaggerated extent used in this speech. Usually, the patriarch was called “Most Reverend Archbishop X,” and then more direct language was used. Conversation and speeches as a rule were terse and to the point.

I have a hypothesis that when a civilization is struggling (or dying) it reverts to increasingly polite and exaggerated language. We saw this in Byzantium. We see this in the Arab world where courtiers have to find circumlocutions to talk to their leaders. And we see this today in America with our bizarre cult of Political Correctness, where you can’t even point out obvious things without being branded a reactionary.

That is why even if Byzantium was restored, it will not be because of the clownish games played by these Metropolitans of Nowhere. Byzantium, even in its worst aspects, never shied away from proclaiming Christian truths or sending missionaries to the furthest reaches of the Empire. It sincerely believed that its role in the world was to spread the Gospel, and not some poems that don’t rhyme.

Yup, the good old ‘blood blossoming’, and I thought the Spanish bull-fighting thing was a hard one to understand.