You touch on something important Dean. Americans would be the first to go to the EP’s aid if we didn’t have to wade through all the presumptuous claims (and shoddy reasoning) first. All that baggage — Fr. Elpidophoros’ speech, the coddling with “Progressives,” the specious historical claims, throwing all the eggs into the global warming basket, ad infinitum (they keep coming up with more) — swallows any hope that the kind of pastoral (read moral) leadership that the Church really needs will occur. If the EP (and his advisers) grasped this, the support would be overwhelming.

Sometimes I think the difficult historical circumstances of the Ecumenical Patriarchate could be redeemed by returning to the first commission of the Bishop: Preach the Gospel. He is in a perfect position to do this having been shorn of any real imperial authority. He would bear the cross of his suffering in humility and his moral authority would soar. No person has the right to impose this on another of course, and we have no right to impose it on the Ecumenical Patriarch. Still, it is, as you say, another opportunity squandered.

I read this differently. Is it pretentious, and overbearing?…of course. Would St. John Chrysostom have stooped to this? Of course not. And is H.A.H. being well advised by his handlers? Of course not..but so what else is new?

But from my vantage point, which is admittedly much different from the EP’s…I just see this as a gigantic, if not pathetic and truly pitiful attempt at reclaiming some sort of relevance.

All of the folks you have mentioned, the Pope, the Russian patriarch…they all lead “live” churches. Not so here.

Wouldn’t it have been soooo much better received if H.A.H. simply came to America, and said, “We are a poor remnant of a once Great Church…we are being strangled to death…please help us before we are extinct.”

One of the things that always fascinated me about the history of Byzantium, from the 1100’s on, was the sense that it was simply a story of one missed opportunity after another…being replayed over and over and over. The Crusades, the civil wars, the disputes with the other Balkan kingdoms, the religious bickerings, the transporting of the Turks to Europe (the Byzantines brought them there!). The very last one was when the Hungarian canon maker, Urban, came to offer his services to the emperor – FIRST..and was dismissed. He changed sides, and built the canon that brought the walls down.

This is nothing but more of the same….2000 years of moral credibility squandered.

Such a shame – H.A.H. would do well to take a page out of Met. Jonah’s book.

Best Regards,
Dean

Hum, not that I have made a serious study of it, but I am of the opinion that the temptations of power and prestige are always going to be too great for the various “mother churches” (and the EP) to let go of their claims. Only a legitimate and robust Russian Church has the canonical authority to “reclaim” what it lost due to the communist persecution. Not sure about South America, but only this makes sense to me in North America…

I have often said that most Orthodox, regardless of jurisdiction, would welcome the EP (and perhaps even its omophorion) where the EP to simply begin acting ‘ecumenically’ within Orthodoxy. If separate but equal ethnic jurisdictions under the ‘more equal than the others’ Greek Archdiocese were no longer the vision of Orthodox unity in America, I think people would welcome being under the EP (if they had to be ‘under’ any other local church) if for no other reason than because of the GOA’s being the largest and richest jurisdiction in America, to protect the Great Church and to balance the power and influence of an otherwise unfettered Moscow (which would then be far and away the single most powerful voice in Orthodoxy, which is not good for Orthodox conciliarity).

If he really, truly wanted to work on unity, it would be easy to see. Met. Philip, Met. Jonah, Met. Christopher would be meeting with him – without Abp. Demetrius. Then again, sigh, I don’t expect he would even consider meeting with the real leaders of Orthodoxy in America for any reason.

Do you think any of our bishops will have the courage to correct him, the way Paul corrected Peter? Nah, me neither.