Met. Jonah said: “We are also notifying law enforcement authorities in Pennsylvania, whose offices will be able to do a full investigation beyond our capabilities.”

This is a development that I am very glad to see. It provides a clearer context to Met. Jonah’s encyclical and indicates that my concern that talk about forgiveness was cloaking clear thinking about real malfeasance (a tactic employed by the old regime as a way to shut down discussion) may be unwarranted.

It appears that Met. Jonah is following through on his promises about transparency and concrete accountability. This will help rebuild the trust that was lost.

He did not turn a blind eye to it. The bottom line is that this scandal harms the reputation of the Church. What if those
who are guilty wanted exactly this: to harm the Church!

Looks like Met. Jonah is the only one who means
American Orthodox unity. All the others were only talking about it. This scandal makes the matter worse and it is certainly not Met Jonah’s fault.

We all make judgments every day as christians, parents, sons, daughters, leaders, workers etc. The truths that form the foundations of these judgments is what matters most. Judgment and responsibility go hand in hand.

There really is no neutrality in our present circumstances.

Metropolitan Jonah said in a recent interview with Ecumenical News International[] ‘Very honestly, I put little time in thinking about myself,’ Jonah said.

‘I see my ultimate task as not discerning my vision, but discerning what is God’s will for the church.’

We should pray for Met Jonah. He has a very
difficult job!

While you’re at it, you might want to see the March 5 press release from the OCA on the “evidence of financial mismanagement and possible wrongdoing” at St. Tikhon’s Monastery and Seminary. Link here: http://www.oca.org/news/1784

The story goes on …

“Yes, everything he says is true, but framing it in terms of the recent scandal in the OCA seems to preclude any further discussion of the scandal whatsoever. Is it wrong to ask for an accounting of the missed moneys?”

Father, forgive my ignorance: I do not know anything about the recent OCA scandal. How recent it is, or what happened …

What St. Abp John Maximivitch did when a money related scandal occurred while he was in charge and got blamed for it? He blamed the devil for everything! Why make publicity to the devil? Those who did that are certainly not God-fearing people. They might wear special vestments but they fear God not. Who are they then? Maybe this is what they wanted: a scandal in the Church!

Of course those in charge should follow up on the case. Was Met. Jonah in charge when this happened?

It seems to me that these exhortations skirt dangerously close to the old OCA problem: cover practical issues with misapplied moral exhortations so that necessary distinctions are blurred and accountability blows away with the wind. Again, everything Met. Jonah says is true, generally speaking. But the implied conclusion, or so it reads, that any further inquiry into the nature and structure of the malfeasance is spiritually suspect, strikes me as off the mark.

Let our fasting be accompanied by the refusal to indulge in judgment and criticism of others: gossip, slander, suspicion and innuendo, all that is hateful to God

.

I committed the above sins and many others.

To love your enemies is a commandment not a
recommendation … Help me Lord for I am weak!