Does anyone have a good book to reference about my question?

I’m wondering about the Emperors influence along the lines of…

“Alright, you Bishops get together at (this) place and (this) time and make a decision about (these) topics. And no one goes home until the work is done!”

Greg, yes…unless, we decide we want to be a real local church and stop waiting for the dhimmi leaders. Right now, at least in the US, we rather like our limbo state because that way we have no responsibility. We can be in the Church but not of her. Unfortunately, the longer we refuse to step up the greater the liklihood that we will disolve into Protestant-like schisms.

So… does this mean that there will not be a Holy and Great Council for a long, long time? And that Orthodoxy in Europe and the Americas will be in its present multi-jurisdictional state for the same long, long time?

Well, Greg lets put it this way. I don’t think any Orthodox Patriarch whose livelihood is depedendent on the approval and subsidies of foreign governments is capable of exercising the leadership needed to convene a council.

One thing I see that is more and more evident is just how addicted today’s Orthodox leaders are to mediocrity. The status quo has become a very lucrative endeavor. Orthodox bishops, senior staffers, clergy, lay chairs etc are not really committed to an enviroment of Christian excellence, they have no desire to progress towards goals Christ calls us to. Instead they simply preserve and profit from modern day Orthodox dysfunction while resisting any type of positve growth or evangelical outlook. When you make over $100,000 guarding a museum there is not much motivation to cultivate a garden a life.

This is why concepts like an Ecumenical Council, moral consensus, and an American Orthodox Church are given lip service but never acted on.

Lets take the GOA for example with its emphasis on omogenia not evangelism. Consider the following hypothetical situation: Given its history, if the GOA through its efforts attracted a large number of Hispanic converts in the USA … so many converts in fact that the number of hispanics in GOA Churches outnumbered the number of Greeks…. would this be considered a success or failure to the upper echelons of GOA leaders?

Think about it, we have Orthodox churches and leaders today who would frown upon large groups of people being received into the faith if their presence in the church altered the ethnic make-up of said Church.

This is worth repeating:

“How can the Church (today) claim to be conciliar and then never be able to hold a Council?”

You have to wonder what is going on.

I am not so optimistic about what the future holds. How can the Church claim to be conciliar and then never be able to hold a Council? Never in the history of the world has it been easier to hold an Ecumenical Council than it is today. There really is nothing wrong with holding a Council.

The Church in many ways is experiencing a breakdown in its ability to govern itself and with this breakdown comes all types of abuses and errors. Mix in the fact the majority of local churches are government subsidized and you can see how ugly things can really get in the Orthodox world.

We have plenty of politicians in cassock, all with titles – his supreme beatitude of extreme humility of ecumenical sanctity of universal knowledge and purity and perfection and other silliness. Instead of using the Apostle’s way to know who will lead, who will take what place, they’re playing like bad kids in a dark street. They invent themselves jurisdictions not existing at all, they take titles of long ago vanished dioceses (because now on islamic yoke ground without anything non-muslim still alive there). And we have no Council.

The world needs to hear the Gospel. And to see it practised so as to believe it is true – as says our Lord in the Gospel of John.

The Church needs to break down in Council – only possibility to do it – the silly anathemas against the Copts, our brethren in Faith.

The Bride deserves better than that sad circus.