As much as I tend to agree with you, I think we need to keep our heads in all of this…remember the advice of Gamaliel…

“38Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

I trust the EP about as much as you do. But I sense the Holy Spirit working here. Let’s stand back and see. It wouldn’t be the first time God has used essentially evil or corrupt men to do good work…Look at Justinian for starters: The guy murdered 35,000 people in one afternoon…and eventually built Hagia Sophia (and was canonized as a saint)!

A path is unfolding before us. Let the Phanar continue it’s dunderheaded gynmastics…that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re moving in the wrong direction. Always remember Yelstin, who in the midst of Soviet chaos, assumed the Russian presidency. Everybody said, “What a joke…what’s the Russian presidency” (at the time a Republic of the USSR and a figurehead position).

A couple of years later, the USSR had disappeared, and all of those ceremonial positions (presidencies of republics) were suddenly running countries…and Yelstin was staring down tanks in Moscow..saving the young Russian democracy.

Who could have predicted this?

In any case…if this is of God, I certainly don’t want to be opposing it. And if it’s not…it will certainly fail.

But it’s just possible that we, supporters of Orthodox unity, may look back on this period, and say, “We would never have guessed it…and THEY may not have even intended it…but those actions put us on the final path to Unity in America.”

Just a thought.

Best Regards,
Dean

Also, now that the story broke on the OCL about the EP wanting real estate in the “diaspora” deeded to him from all EP bishops, it’s clear that he has no intention of going forward with Orthodox unity/autocephaly in North America, Oceania, England, etc.

What we’re possibly seeing here is a retrenchment into the phanariote/”homogeneneia” core. Clearly, the Russians have him spooked. Remember last June when +Kirill went to Istanbul and looked around and saw that the Russians outnumbered the Greeks by 5 to one and hinted that in time some future EP would be a Russian?

Just curious, what’s the Phanar going to do with all the real estate that’s being deeded over to them? Build Orthodox hospitals and orphanages? Universities? it’d be nice but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Actually, I hadn’t heard that.

Surely he wasn’t serious! 🙄

If the Church can’t support its own seminary, that seminary should close.

Period.

Too many Greek Americans/American Greeks would rather be ‘archons of the EP’ than actually help their ONLY SEMINARY endow and establish itself.

Δελτίον Τύπου Γραμματείας επί της προπαρασκευής της Αγίας και Μεγάλης Συνόδου της Ορθοδόξου Εκκλησίας
Κατά την Σύναξιν των Προκαθημένων των Αγιωτάτων Ορθοδόξων Εκκλησιών, των συνελθόντων, προσκλήσει της Α.Θ.Παναγιότητος, του Οικουμενικού Πατριάρχου κ.κ. Βαρθολομαίου, τον Οκτώβριον του παρελθόντος έτους, εν Φαναρίω, εξεφράσθη υπ’ αυτών “η βούλησις δια την ταχείαν θεραπείαν πάσης κανονικής ανωμαλίας προελθούσης εξ ιστορικών συγκυριών και ποιμαντικών αναγκών” και εχαιρετίσθη η πρότασις του Οικουμενικού Πατριαρχείου «να συγκαλέση δια την συνέχισιν της προετοιμασίας της Αγίας και Μεγάλης Συνόδου, Πανορθοδόξους Διασκέψεις εντός του προσεχούς έτους 2009…».

Ούτω, μετά την συγκληθείσαν εν Σαμπεζύ Γενεύης κατά μήνα Ιούνιον ε.ε. Δ Προσυνοδικήν Πανορθόδοξον Διάσκεψιν, συνέρχεται ήδη, τη προσκλήσει της Α.Θ.Παναγιότητος, του Οικουμενικού Πατριάρχου κ.κ. Βαρθολομαίου, και πάλιν εν Σαμπεζύ, από 9ης έως 17ης Δεκεμβρίου ε.ε., Διόρθοδοξος Προπαρασκευαστική Επιτροπή, υπό την προεδρίαν του εκπροσώπου του Οικουμενικού Πατριαρχείου, Σεβ. Μητροπολίτου Περγάμου κ. Ιωάννου.

Η Επιτροπή αύτη θα εξετάση τα υπολειπόμενα θέματα της μελλούσης ίνα συνέλθη Αγίας και Μεγάλης Συνόδου της Ορθοδόξου Εκκλησίας, δηλαδή το Αυτόκεφαλον και το Αυτόνομον και τον τρόπον ανακηρύξεως αυτών και την σειράν των Διπτύχων.

From http://www.Orthodoxie.com in French:

Nouvelle réunion des représentants des Églises orthodoxes locales à Chambésy
Suite à la IVe conférence panorthodoxe préconciliaire (historique) à Chambésy, une commission composée des représentants des Églises orthodoxes se réunira du nouveau à Chambésy du 9 au 17 décembre. Les membres de cette commission examineront, sous la présidence de Mgr Jean (Zizioulas) de Pergame, les questions inscrites à l’ordre du jour du futur concile œcuménique, à savoir les modalités d’obtention de l’autocéphalie ou de l’autonomie d’une Église locale, ainsi que l’ordre des Églises locales dans les dyptiques.

George,

I can see them now in the Phanar…”Ti tha pi ‘dunderhead’?”

Too funny!!!

Dean
a Diasporean

Isa, I think you’re right. I was wondering what dunderheaded move the Phanar would pull which would derail the episcopal assemblies.

Fr. Peter: I certainly don’t know who the 20 are or whether the story is true or not. But a quick peek at the EC website reveals that there are 25 “greek diaspora” metropolitans.

“The meeting aims to resolve issues that have emerged in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent emergence of new nation states, whose churches have sought independence from the Patriarchate of Moscow, demanding so a return to the status they had before the birth of USSR”

Before the Bolsheviks, they were part of the Russian Orthodox Church. I do not think the Catholicos of All Georgia wants that.

Asiannews.It, the Vatican’s mouthpiece to clamp onto Asia. No wonder it would like to fan the flames in Ukraine, having already moved its self-proclaimed patriarchate to Kiev from Lviv (where its cathedral stands on the grave of the Orthodox Metropolitan’s Cathedral). But the Patriarch of Moscow is on to the antics:
Russian Church wants “concrete steps” from Vatican to make Patriarch-Pope meeting possible
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=6712
“”We expect the Vatican, the Roman Catholic Church, to take concrete steps to show that there is a desire to be cooperative and heal all the wounds that were inflicted in the extremely harrowing period of the early 90s,” the Archbishop said.

In that period, more than 500 Orthodox churches in Ukraine “were forcibly seized by Greek Catholics and the Orthodox believes were ousted from them”.”

Myself, I support a Ukrainian ORTHODOX Canonical Patriarchate, but the uniate meddling is not helping.

One good thing that might come out of this is it will sink the episcopal assmeblies, if they start out on what I see as their EP inspired mission: disseminate the novel interpretation of canon 28.