Peter, it was more than simply Hellenic ethnocentrism that caused the scandal. It was something far more scandalous.

A couple years ago I gathered from oblique references in more than one Web source that Fr. Daniel (Byantoro) and others left the EP’s HK Metropolis over Hellenism-related issues, jumping to ROCOR … but that the EP retained a handful of parishes/missions and clergy, not only an orphanage as noted above. Maybe the situation has continued to evolve. Considering the switch, I was surprised at how little I could find, like maybe nobody wanted to make a big deal about it outside that region. But sometimes it feels like Estonia, where certain folks will only discuss one jurisdiction, as if the other one doesn’t even exist, vs. a reality of tacit mutual toleration (or better). Maybe the info has improved too … it’s getting kind of late for me to go looking today….

–Leo Peter

The Carthaginian Canon was dealing with bringing a specific heretical Church — Donatists or Docetists, I always confuse them — back into THE Church. ISTM “his jurisdiction” would’ve referred to their congregations and bishoprics (if plural) within the commonly-recognized and consistently-ordered boundaries of his own recognized Bishopric. “Catholic unity” = “returning from heresy to THE Church.”

The Chalcedonian 30-year statute of limitations seems to address relatively minor ‘outlying’ congregations, in places where perhaps the boundaries between Bishoprics would be contested — having in mind the typical model where a Bishopric consists of the congregations in a Roman/Byzantine city, its outlying towns, villages, and waysides … ‘the next one over’ starting with ITS waysides there, and moving inward to its villages, towns, and city (and hence “One Bishop, One _City_”). This seems it would’ve been applicable to Alaska 1867-97, but once you get down to the ContigUS you’re clearly dealing with “cities”: San Francisco, New York, Pittsburgh, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, etc., and mostly their outlying towns and countrysides. Whatever maybe should’ve happened, clearly in such a chaotic situation as has been allowed/promoted here, the mandate of Nicea seems most appropriate, that all the Bishops here should convene, recognize one as their Primate, and establish 1B1C, just like at Nicea where the Church was recovering from the Age of Persecutions, Sectarianism, and (to some) uncertain Orthodoxy.

Ugh. Having met and heard from the Dean of Indonesia himself, I know just how venal this all has gotten. Whatever happened to putting God and His flock first? You have to be a subtle as serpents to deal with the Phanar crowd. Caveat Emptor.

I’ve only heard about this recently. This needs to be investigated and the facts known. It appears there was a serious failure of leadership by Constantinople in their handling of the Indonesian Church.

Orrologion, this is somewhat tangential but here goes: I came across this interesting passage from St Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain, who was commenting on an earlier canon of Zonaras who was commenting on canon 9 of Chalcedon:

“If any clergyman has a dispute with another, let him not leave his own bishop and resort to secular courts, but let him first submit his case to his own bishop, or let it be tried by referees chosen by both parties and approved by the bishop. Let anyone who acts contrary be liable to canonical penalties…”

[Nicodemus]: “…It did not say that if any clegyman has a dispute or difference with the metropolitan of any diocese or parish whatever, they must be tried before the bishop of Constantinople…That is why Zonaras too says that the bishop of Constantinople is not necessarily entitled to sit as a judge over all metropolitans, but only those who are juricially subject to him.”

The plain text is obvious. What is ironic is that this is the same Zonaras who is quoted on the website of the ecumenical patriarchate and whose words are twisted to equate “nation” with “barbarians,” in other words, the supremacist interpretation of canon 28.

Ugh. Having met and heard from the Dean of Indonesia himself, I know just how venal this all has gotten. Whatever happened to putting God and His flock first? You have to be a subtle as serpents to deal with the Phanar crowd. Caveat Emptor.

George,

The thirty years reasoning makes sense to me in light of the fact that the Russians arrived on the continent first and in light of the fact that there was a widespread, although not universal, understanding that America was under the omophorion of the Russian Church. From what I know of the earlier period (which, I’m sure, is far less than you know) what you’re saying seems sound regarding the one Rome and the then common view of the empire and Christian civilization being seen as manifestations of each other.

I’m not an expert or scholar in these matters, but if 13 of Carthage is construed to mean what we asserted above, it adds positive weight to the notion that a local church can and should expand into nearby unallocated territory. But even if it is not construed that way, it does not hurt the case we’re making.

It is true that all things should be done in decent order. However, absent some conciliar agreement on exactly what this orderly expansion looks like, it seems to me obvious that each local church should expand, if at all possible, into unallocated territory. This is nothing less than obedience to the Great Commission. It strikes me as a strange and somewhat contorted view of the Church’s duty of evangelism to insist that each local church is restricted to evangelizing only that territory that is given to it explicitly by canon law. This would leave the situation such that without some conciliar authority, or agreement of all the primates, no expansion could take place.

I can’t imagine that such an unchristian result could obtain from sound canonical reasoning.

This is why it seemed to me that the canon 28 rationale of the Phanar was implicit in Orrologion’s reasoning. If Constantinople’s jurisdiction is only that specified in the canon (i.e., the three provinces mentioned plus any other territories under it at the time of the IVth Council), and if Russia is confined to it’s European and Asian territories, and if the other local churches are confined to those territories given them in their tomes, etc., then we’re at a standstill mission wise, except within those territories.

There seem to me to be two theories on the table (not addressing the ethnic idea of the Romanian Patriarchate for the moment):

1) Constantinople’s current interpretation of canon 28.

2) The idea that local churches can evangelize outside their canonical boundaries, especially in nearby regions, so long as they do not intrude on the canonical territory of other churches.

I, for one, cannot take the Phanar’s reasoning seriously since I can’t find any evidence for this interpretation prior to its assertion by Patriarch Meletios IV. Moreover, he himself disregarded it when he was the exiled head of the Church of Greece and formed GOARCH. Besides lack of any serious foundation, the other problems with this interpretation are that it seems to contradict 1) the canon itself and 2) the opinions of some of the commentators on the canons. It also would lead to a number of unintended absurd results were it to be followed.