You know, the bad faith displayed by this number calls into question the integrity of the GOA leadership on so many levels. What follows are several propositions that come to my mind. Any one of them may be true (perhaps all of them are true):
1. they don’t care about the truth,
2. they don’t care to actually find out the truth,
3. they’re playing triumphalist games,
4. they have no intention of being honest, and
5. perhaps they’re just incompetent and believe their own press releases.
Ultimately what this tells me is that we are dealing with large-scale lethargy. Perhaps some of the more well-meaning ones are holding on to the belief that it’ll all work out in the end.
who knows?
]]>I like the 1.5 mil. That means that 1.0 mil. have left, leaving only 0.5 mil of faithful. But I just forgot something. They don’t care about the numbers of faithful; only the wealth of the Archons. GO ARCHons.
]]>George, lets take the bad faith one step further:
The 2/6/2011 Press release uses the figure 1.5 million Greek Orthodox Faithful
The survey conducted by Alexei Krindatch at the PAOI says there are only 535,000 Greek Orthodox Faithful.
We are looking at a difference of over 1,000,000 Greek Orthodox Faithful.
So what is the right number?
]]>Again, the stunning display of bad faith. One of the markers I laid down a couple of years ago which would prove that the GOA had some integrity would be when they stopped using the completely bogus number of “1.5 million Greek Orthodox faithful.”
]]>February 6, 2011 by Greek News http://www.greeknewsonline.com
Washington – President Barack Obama announced on Friday his intent to appoint a group of distinguished individuals, among them Archbishop Demetrios of America, to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The Advisory Council will be chaired by Susan K. Stern. The following members will also participate:
Leith Anderson, Andrea Bazán, Angela Glover Blackwell, Brian Gallagher, Bishop Mark Hanson, Lynn Hybels, Member, The Most Rev. Dr. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, Archbishop Demetrios Trakatellis, Sister Marlene Weisenbeck, Reverend Elder Nancy L. Wilson.
The President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships brings together religious and secular leaders as well as scholars and experts in fields related to the work of faith-based and neighborhood organizations in order to make recommendations to the government on how to improve partnerships. The President will announce additional members to this Council at a later date.
President Obama said, “I am pleased to announce that these experienced and committed individuals have agreed to join this Administration, and I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead.”
A short bio of Archbishop Demetrios that is included in the announcement states:
]]>Archbishop Demetrios Trakatellis is currently the Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Church of America, the Exarch (plenipotentiary representative) of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople in the U.S.A., and the permanent President of the Assembly of 65 canonical Orthodox Bishops in North and Central America. In 1999, Archbishop Demetrios was elected by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to lead the Greek Orthodox Church in the United States. He is the spiritual leader of more than 1.5 million Greek Orthodox faithful in the United States and holds leadership and advisory positions in organizations which promote dialogue and reconciliation (emphasis added).
Additionally, Archbishop Demetrios is active in interfaith and intercultural dialogues, in religious freedom and human rights advocacy, and in providing Church assistance in national and international cases of major catastrophic events, such as 9/11, Hurricane Katrina and the Tsunami in Indonesia. From 1983 to 1993, he served as the Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies and Christian Origins at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts and as Visiting Professor of New Testament at Harvard Divinity School from 1984 to 1985 and 1988 to 1989.
Having been elected Bishop of Vresthena in 1967 in the Archdiocese of Athens, Greece, Archbishop Demetrios served in this position with special responsibility for the education of the clergy until 1999. In 1968, he was elected Metropolitan of Attika and Megaris, but he did not accept the post for reasons related to the canonical order of the Church. Archbishop Demetrios graduated with distinction from the University of Athens School of Theology in 1950. He also received a Ph.D. (with distinction) in New Testament and Christian Origins from the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1972, as well as a second doctorate, namely a Th.D. in Theology, from the University of Athens in 1977.
Noah, welcome to the blog! We need and value your insights! If I may quibble on just one point: yes the Metropolitinate of Kiev was under Constantinople for about 400 years but its de facto independence as to how it orderred its interior church life was never called into question. Even though most of its metropolitans were appointed by C’pole, its bishops were locally elected. And let us not forget, the moral vision of the mother church was identical to its daughter. Given that there is absolutely no mention about abortion on their website but scads and scads about Canon 28 and global warming, can we say the same thing about Istanbul today?
Think of it: the list of honorables about the early grace-filled days of the Church in Russia which you describe bears absolutely no resemblance to what has transpired in any of the eparchies which exist in America (not just the GOA). Let us for the sake of argument include the OCA and ROCOR in this mix. The question is “why?” Is it possible that the incessant meddling of foreign patriarchates whose main concern is vacuuming as much money as possible from their embassies plays a major role in this?
Like Dean, I’m under no illusion that the formal and loving unifcation of an independent American church is going to a panacaea. It is not. But the present state of affairs is an affront to the Holy Spirit and He will leave if he sees that we are not serious. The form of religion will exist but the grace of the Holy Spirit will go elsewhere.
]]>Nice comments. I disagree somewhat with you on the importance of orthopraxis. St. Paul whom you quote specifically commanded women to cover their heads in church and this was the practice, regardless of culture, for a very long time.
Nonetheless, it is important not to get too bent out of shape by such things.
Dean,
My point regarding the period of time it took Russia to get autocephaly was not that it was a long time in years. My point was that the country was largely “Orthodoxized” when it took, and then was granted, autocephaly.
]]>George,
Well, one thing we can agree on, if most Greeks (and others in GOARCH, this isn’t a slam at ethnicity) were as conscientious as you are about these issues, GOARCH would have a very different collective attitude.
]]>Dear Noah,
First, let me be honest and tell you – I love your comment: “…we have the energy to sustain the idealistic dreams of unity and autocephaly.” God bless you, and know that you will need it!
Second, as an amateur historian, let me add a little perspective to your comment about the Russian Church, as one who has gone back and read much of the original historical record. First, despite the differences which are obvious, I believe there are MANY parallels between the American Church and the Russian Church. Having grown up in the GOA, I was astonished to read many letters and commentaries, written in the 12th thru 15th centuries, which describe an ecclesiastical situation in Russia of the Middle Ages which was not unlike the modern day US – i.e., an Old World patriarchate (Constantinople) attempting to rein in and control the young upstart “daughter church” (Kiev, then Moscow), using many of the same tactics used by the ecumenical patriarchate on the US church today (insisting on Byzantine appointed metropolitans, setting up separate eparchies, playing princes off against one another, while attempting to solicit funds at the same time it was Russian money that rebuilt Hagia Sophia following a devastating earthquake in the 1300’s). The stress of the relationship between the two churches is easily recognizable if you read through the letters between the EP and the Russian princes and metropolitans – many of which can be found in Obolensky’s spectacular work “The Byzantine Commonwealth.” There is even one comical story told, I believe it was called “the false Anthony” where the Byzantine emperor took a bribe from the Russian Grand Prince,in exchange for appointing a Slavophile metropolitan (who the Grand prince had apparently never met). On the trip to Kiev, the candidate died. The Greeks got together, having spent the money already, and elected one of their own to impersonate the favored candidate, who was enthroned as metropolitan of Kiev!
In any case, with regard to your comment “I think it’s also important to approach the issue of disunity with a historical perspective as Scott has. As a slavophile I resonate his point about the Russian Church- it didn’t receive autocephalus status for 400 years after receiving the faith!”, let’s not get carried away (bamboozled is more the word springing to mind) with the “400 years.” Go and take a look at Bulgaria, which was declared an “autocephalous archbishopric” by the Byzantines only 80 or 90 years after having received the faith. A close examination of the historical record, with regard to autocephaly will reveal that the autocephaly is generally “taken”, not granted by the Mother Church (the exceptions are Serbia and Albania i believe). Perhaps more importantly, our history is filled with examples of changes in ecclesiastical governance which more aptly describe a living organism than the kind of static situation we in America have come to believe exists. Examples of this include autocephalies granted in Serbia and Bulgaria during the Middle Ages (twice in the case of the Bulgarians), the rescinding of those autocephalies following the Ottoman conquest, only to have those churches once again declare autocephaly following the wars of independence. Similarly, the churches of Ravenna and Trebizond (the empire of the Grand Comneni) were actually granted autonomy at various periods, only to have those effectively rescinded at following the conquest of those areas by non Orthodox.
The real point here, keeping in mind your “keeping a historical perspective” is that the borders of the nation the Church grew up in (the Eastern Roman Empire) were fluid and dynamic – reaching to the Euphrates one day, and only the walls of Constantinople the next. The Church, as a living organism, periodically, but methodically, reviewed those changes and adapted to them, as any living organism does. Metropolitan Philip, for all his failings, was absolutely correct when he stated, “The church was never intended to be fossilized in the 10th century.” The truth is, it is more fossilized now than it EVER was in the 10th century (the age of Sts Cyril and Methodios and St. Photios!)
Just a few random thoughts to add to you excellent analysis!
Best Regards,
Dean
Noah
It slightly shakes my young weak faith when I read/hear people speaking so candidly about the shortcomings of my jurisdiction.
You are doing excellent! Your faith might be “young and weak” but it is a healthy faith.
Greek Orthodox Churches have always services on weekdays feasts. The Greeks also have Easter midnight service, while the others prefer to have it at 8 in the evening. For many it is more important to stay up till midnight on New Years eve. The Resurrection feast is not worthy of such sacrifice. If we keep innovating, the Church will slowly become one more secular activity. The “old world” preserved and handed down to us the Orthodoxy which is Life. Honoring our predecessors means to honor the life that has been given to us.
Without the “old world” and a continuous contact with it, Orthodoxy would soon be overcomed by the subtleties of the American culture “that shapes our perception of the world and God’s place within it”.
Please see: Sloshing Our Way into the Kingdom By Father Stephen. I is brilliant!
]]>When my friend told me the story, I asked him if he understood what had happened. “We Americans sprinkle water as though we’re afraid to get wet. The Russians “slosh” the water as though they are getting blessed!”
[…]
The rejection of relics and icons, the desacralization of sacraments renders our modern world “safe” from a concrete encounter with the sacred. We prefer our encounters to be polite sprinkles, marked with ambiguity and never free of doubt.
Noah, really good and hopeful insights. In one sense it reminds me of the words of Met. Joseph, the Patriarchal Bulgarian Met here in the US. After Ligoner fell apart he stated that all of the participants in Ligoner would have to die before any unity occured. He was likening it to what happened to the Nation of Israel when it refused to go into the promised land and had to spend another generation in the wilderness before it was allowed to enter.
Perhaps a Joshua will be raised up from amongst you.
On the historical development side however, Russia did not have the prospect of a plethora of dhimmi weakened churches fighting to avoid real evangelization. Russia was actually evangelized by a strong, vibrant mother church.
The United States has had little actual evangelisitc activity in her. The initial Russian effort in Alaska was decimated by the U.S. Governement sponsored Protestant oppression of the Native Alaskans as were the people. The Soviet Revolution in Russia dealt a real blow to any effort in the lower 48. While we may bridle at the term diaspora applied to us today, the late 19th and early 20th century showed we really were much more like a dispora than anything else. The Patriarchates have just kept treating us that way.
They have not been in a position to develop a missionary vision for the US. They have been too busy just trying to survive Isalm. The Islamic attack on Christians in Turkey, Iraq, Egypt and even in Jerusalem with Israeli help continues to this day. The founders of my home parish were literally driven from their Syrian homeland by Islamic pograms that left many of their family dead and them disposessed.
Despite that, they established churchs at great personal sacrifice so that the faith would continue. Many times they had little to feed themselves and their familes, yet they built churches. They had to work long, long hours to earn what little they did earn, yet they had time to attend worship when the traveling priest came through, to have their children baptized and their marriages blessed. They were literally spit on in the streets, called dispicable names and shuned in many other ways, yet the built churches and became an integrated, respected part of the community.
Russia had a unified, missionary effort that created the Church there and an absolute monarch to inforce the enculturation (forced baptisms BTW and a residue of superstition that led to ‘monks’ like Rasputin and use of icons as magic talismans in many of the villages not to mention the suppression of the Church to the will of the state from Peter, the-not-so-great on). The Church here was sprinkled in disperate pieces onto this land–a land with a strong, establish Christian-based culture that is still somewhat xenophobic. It is up to us to, by the grace of God, to put the puzzle together in a God pleasing manner so that we can actually evangelize our own land from within. This approach is in perfect accord with the character of our country and the people here even as it is quite strange. We may never be ‘dominant’ here as we were in Russia (although I think the actual dominance in Russia is overstated). Our influence is likely to be more indirect.
I also think we have more saints formed here than is evident at this point, householder saints like Matuska Olga are, IMO, more likely to be the norm here in the US rather than the great asthetic athletes of the past.
It would work more easily if we had the blessing of our various mother churches, but the work of the Holy Spirit will not be thwarted forever. We will go into the promised land or we will be scattered.
Thank you for your perspective and sharing it.
]]>Hi Noah,
If disdain abides in the “Old World – New World” scenario, it runs in but one direction, from Old toward the New.
We Americans are not the ones locking the Phanar bishops out of the voting, it is the “universally recognized” Patriarchates locking out
America, Ukraine and other “inconvenient” groupings (I avoid the term “jurisdiction” as inapposite).
Even Arius & other heretics were admitted to the Ecumenical Councils, were afforded the right to present their viewpoints publicly, even to vote on their own anathematization. Imagine being on your own jury! Orthodoxy used to constitute Due Process PLUS!
I know disdain when I see it, and the disdain runs from THERE to HERE.
It was disdain that summarily forced Archbishop +Iakovos into retirement after Ligonier.
It was disdain that saw the Phanar forcing an unwanted Constitution rendering the GOA a captive church, its bishops “serving at pleasure.”
The point of my article, if I were forced to “nutshell” it, is that we DO HAVE an American Orthodox Church today, but being historically constrained, it finds itself malformed, because (unlike Russia), the Mother Churches are herding/ constraining it (us) into activities divorced from our life here in America.
Our church life, our collective attention, is burdened with the issues of Hellenes, Phanariots, Syrians, past Russian colonization of Ukraine/ Bucovina/ Transnistria/ Baltic states + Russia’s working out its post-communist life; of Romanian post-cold-war politics, etc. etc.Being themselves restricted to ceremonial activity (unlike Greece, Romania, Serbia), our bishops’ lavish receptions and foreign “good-will” junkets lay waste to diocesan finances, and worse, we must resign ourselves to our paucity of charitable institutions, our sub-engagement from American public life.
Two questions stand out in my mind –
WHY are we Americans as a group more fixated on Turkish citizenship for Greek-American bishops than on planning national chains of wholesome Orthodox orphanages and senior centers?
WHY couldn’t our Episcopal Assembly have walked into NYC 2010 with committee assignments already settled & hit the ground running?
You know, in 1963, the bishops had to be hoodwinked and dragged along by the then-lay leaders of CEOYLA (Council of Eastern Orthodox Youth Leaders of the Americas), into attending a National Orthodox Festival in Pittsburgh’s then-spanking new Mellon Arena. Over 10,000 faithful attended (the financial statements imply over 11,000) and the combined choir totalled nearly A THOUSAND VOICES. Another CEOYLA Festival was held in 1977 despite behind-the-scenes maneuvering by some hierarchs. Not so the failed 1983 Journey to Pentecost, which was rubbed out of existence by “scheduling conflicts.”
One would think that the Episcopal Assembly agenda for Spring, 2011, should include a 50th ANNIVERSARY WEEK OF ORTHODOXY, perhaps in Chicago including a Divine Liturgy (rivalries left CEOYLA having to settle for Vespers only), as part of a week-long National Orthodox Congress, where the faithful could be included in brain-storming, in identifying priorities and funding solutions, and pray together.
Of course, the hierarchs won’t go for that because it might break out into an out-of-control Festival for Autocephaly. And for them, removal by their overseas overseers.
Our disunity has created duplication, duplicity, making Orthodoxy a fantasy-world organization where 4 Orthodox kids who live on the same street attend 4 different Orthodox churches – and we avert our eyes, denying that it is a scandal, insisting that “Orthodoxy is One.”
The Episcopal Assembly cannot continue to tolerate such a monstrosity. But to do otherwise risks dismissal/ removal by the Old World Patriarchates.
If that constitutes disdain, I repeat – disdain from which camp?
God help us, and God open the hearts of the Episcopal Assembly, where legitimate authority lies.
Ron Muresan
]]>I agree with you, Noah; you have spoken very well. I’ve often pondered the concept of judgment within the Church rather than judgment of outsiders that Saint Paul discusses. Looking back, my comment sounded very much like a rant, and I apologize for that. I agree that we must find a way of spiritually guiding each other, but we face the challenge of stubborness on all sides. Maybe this stubborness is a good thing, but only if it is out of sincerety and to uphold the Gospel, not for fear of being wrong. The history of Orthodoxy has shown many Christians to be opponents within the walls of the Church, not because one person was heretical, but in a sense, because both were. If heresy is “picking and choosing” parts of the Faith rather than the catholicity of it, then I feel like we even have Saints that have overemphasized one teaching to the point of losing full meaning. One beauty of the Tradition of our Church is simply how deep it all is. Every parable, every liturgical movement, every icon can point us to Christ in so many ways without contradiction. Unfortunately, I feel like we often create a false contradiction ourselves when one may not exist–and this requires understanding and forgiveness. From all the harshness that eventually shows itself if and when we become united in practice, I think one of the greatest things each community of local and truly sister parishes can do is celebrate the Forgiveness Vespers. Let the icon of Saints Peter and Paul embracing be an image of our united Church.
]]>