I wouldn’t say it’s “up and running” by any stretch of the imagination as it has the bare minimum of information. Look at SCOBA’s: it’s interactive, voluminous, etc. (Couldn’t they have overtaken SCOBA’s website and done some minor editing?) It appears hasty as it has the bare minimum of information, just what’s already been released on OCL (photo, founding document, etc.). When you click on “committees” there’s nothing there for instance.

If my suspcicions are correct, then I would recommend that we continue agitating for more –changes, reforms, activity, meetings, encyclicals, etc.

Kevin, Perhaps the reason he and others are somewhat locally participating, while generating the basis for later foreign denial of approval– is the possibility that the outcome will be a good one and they’ll want the chance to support it, or at least not be the one to ‘blame’ for it failing.

You know how this goes, this stuff makes Plato’s shadows and the kabuki dances look like nursery room bouncy chairs. It’s so complex those involved who think they understand fourteen moves ahead notice a leaf passing in a stream stem side first rotating to leaf point first and change their whole strategy.

The overall thing to notice here is: A strong, sane, sober move by lots of laity can generate the sense of dread only a high school parade leader can have turning off into an alley while all confiddled and confunded– looking over his shoulder wondering whether anybody is still following him. If the laity do a strong sober thing I guarantee you these fellows will have been with ‘them’ , now ‘us’ from day one.

Harry, because of your insights, I am now convinced that Ligonier was the only way to achieve unification. It was organic for one thing, not like this hideously deformed jackalope that’s been cobbled together at Chambesy.

Just think, thanks to the Old World patriarchates and their over-reaction to Ligonier, we’ve already lost half of a generation. sigh.

Having said that, I think +Philip’s fears are misplaced. It is becoming increasingly clear that the EAs will probably not amount to much. SCOBA is already beginning to look like a golden age in retropect. If such a scenario plays out, then the egregious ecclesial atrocity that he perpetrated against all of the diocesan bishops (and not just +Mark) will make him look tyrannical in retrospect.

This is sad because it would besmirch an otherwise fine ecclesiastical career.

“…but perhaps absent this foreign controlled EA thing it never would have been felt necessary…”

This is a very interesting speculation. The sense I got from comments both on and off the record is that the “tightening of the reins” so to speak with regard to the on and off title of bishops, is directly related to the concerns of the Holy See of Antioch that the E.A. is an unbridled attempt by the Phanar to “take over” the “diaspora” (and that ‘fragmentation’ of the episcopasy as they conceive it, will potentially aid and abet such). Although Met Philip did not confirm this directly when I asked him, he did say, “I heard this from many bishops in the Middle East…” (which in Byzantine-speak is as good as saying “yes”), and it was clear to me from his attitude, etc. that this is what he believes. What is still unclear to me – and apparently unclear to H.E. Philip — is why Antioch agreed to the terms and conditions of the pre-conciliar Chambesy IV documents, that set-up the E.A., without reading them! This to me was the revelation of the interview!

In contrast we have the OCA whose leader and synod have the unassailable defacto and significantly dejure status of autocephalous. They each are already ‘more equal’ than the foreign-owned bishops and the leader of their synod stands legalistically taller than all of them from that point of view– whereever they ask him to sit defines the ‘head’ of the jurisdictional table no matter where the staff puts a microphone or elevates the chairs.

Philip’s ‘collection’ puts him and in a strange way the entire ‘Antiochian’ (Damascian?) group in the USA roughly in nearly the same stronger-hand position as the OCA. No intrigues now swapping short-term boons in exchange for ‘not obstructing’ can defacto leave them long term under Turkish dominated decision making. There has been much commentary about the other two sides of that ‘auxualliaries really shazaam!’ move, but perhaps absent this foreign controlled EA thing it never would have been felt necessary.

Anyhow the answer to the pace issue George Matsoukas raises is plain and revealed by Met. Philip: The presumption of being controlled from afar in exchange for ‘permission’ to speak among themselves in unquestioned acceptance of the EA ‘process’.

You really have to wonder about that don’t you? Bishops needing and seeking permission to speak to their brothers. How actual here is what the texts say Orthodox Christianity ought to be anyhow? Bishops with a mass infection of speech impediments among ‘their’ brothers while one-to-many communications downward to ‘their priests’ — no shortages. Historically this appears about at the same time ‘ordained young never married’ begins to predominate.

Ligonier mapped a way to a sustainable future.

Maybe the title of this thread should be called “Chambesy Bankrupt, Part II”?

Again, I’d love to be proven wrong.

These are wonderful questions thank you for asking them. I know that I have been asked by my bishop if I would be willing to serve and he suggested 2 committees that I could be helpful on. I also know that my bishop has submitted his suggestions for his committee assignments. So from the Romanian perspective we are doing our work.

Again, thanks for asking the questions.