Isa, that’s interesting that you would say that. I’ve picked this thread up from personal conversations. Can’t really put my finger on it but it just seems to be “in the air” if you know what I mean.

There is so much about your comments that resonates with both my experience and views. I am particularly convinced (as numerous comments on this blog would indicate) about the importance of personal sanctity. No matter how compelling our arguments nor how effective our programs, nothing reaches and changes the heart like the witness of living saints. It is the ongoing transformation of the fallen person and the “incarnation” of God’s Spirit that makes a hash of all of our pet theories and personal excuses – and that evokes in our own hearts a deep desire for His kingdom. One can not read about Elder Paisios, for instance, nor meet those many “hidden” saints among us, without quickly discovering how low and self-serving our notion of life is. In these saints we realize that the transfigured life to which we are all called is indeed SO much more than we had thought or imagined.

As you say, the Church, en masse, has been a heartbreaking disappointment, yet the continuing flowering of God’s saints in her gardens convinces me – as you said – that there is nothing else compared to it.

Thank you for your post.

It has been my working theory that Moscow, looking at the facts on the ground and seeing the likely outcomes, signed on Chambesy to give the EP enough rope to hang himself.

It seems to me that the Old World Orthodox Churches, while having external (administrative, if you will) unity, contain at the same time, not just diversity but downright disunity (internal).

I guess if we were truly Orthodox we would already have unity.

When I was struggling through the process of conversion, my biggest question was whether or not there WERE any true Orthodox Christians (to the extent I was able to understand and discern what that meant). Thankfully, I did find enough pious Orthodox Christians in Romania to convince me that there really was such a thing as Orthodoxy, and nothing else compared to it.

To say that the Orthodox Church has been a disappointment would be an understatement. But in the mercies of God, we still can find salvation here. It’s a narrow path we must walk.

Lord, have mercy.

what worries me about this “in time we’ll all have unity schtick” that’s being peddled by many (mostly pollyannas and sycophants for the EP), is that I can just as easily see further division and eventual schism. I don’t mean to tell tales out of school, but I was told by a friend who I trust very much that a well-respected bishop once said in a private convesation with him and a few others two negative things about the present and future of American Orthodoxy. First, he said that he always feared, nay dreaded, “the Question.” What is The “Question”? The one that is invariably asked by honest inquirers is “Wow! I love Orthodoxy! I feel like I’ve found the pearl of great price! Now…which jurisdiction should I join?” Variations of this question include: “what’s the difference between Greek Orthodoxy and Russian Orthodoxy?” and “What’s this about the Serbs? Why are they divided?” “How come there are two Bulgarian jurisdictions in America?” “If your Church is the Church and it is guided by the Holy Spirit then why all this division? Is the Holy Spirit the author of division?”

(I know exactly what this bishop meant! I’ve been asked this question a hundred times if I’ve been asked it once. Speaking for myself, this hurts my soul, as I can’t give a good answer. Maybe you can help me?)

Anyway, this bishop spoke barely above a whisper and he said the second thing, that as to the future, “It’s very possible that in fifteen years we’ll be so divided that we won’t even share the Chalice.” My friend told me that you could have heard a pin drop. I still see that happening, especially if the forthcoming Episcopal Assembly proves to be nothing more than a smokescreen to frustrate true unity, something that I think we can all agree that SCOBA turned out to be. (Actually, that’s unfair, SCOBA didn’t have the moxie to be obstructionist.) Since there is no real deadline, I can easily see that if nothing concrete happens and there is no honest compromise between all the jurisdictions, then many bishops will leave, some in a dramatic fashion. Others will just stop coming, period.

In addition, it the current ecclesial laxity of the more worldly jurisdictions is not addressed, then I can easily see the more traditionalist bishops forming their own counter-synod. I’ve been told by people I respet that should this come about (i.e. lack of good faith, fecklessness, and no real attempt to enforce canonical norms) then Moscow will provide theological cover for any bishop who wants to leave from such an assembly. I know that Moscow forced the EP to come up with the protocol in the first place but we all know that individual jurisdictions can frustrate the entire process if they want to.

OK, I hope this gets posted in the right place, as a reply to Chrys.

I keep intending to stop posting, as I get tired of my own pontificating, but I did intend to say, Chrys, much more in the posting about the unique contributions of various Orthodox peoples.

In fact, you took the words out of my mouth, so to speak. Romanian theologians like to say that the American gift is pragmatism, and by that they mean the ability to get things done.

Perhaps also, as I said somewhere above, the multi-cultural character of our society can be a matrix for Orthodoxy to rediscover its universality and missionary spirit.

Romanians have a deep respect for all the other Orthodox peoples, and also admire the zeal of American convert Orthodoxy. But they have settled into the idea that every people has its own religion, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be; thus there is no impulse toward what they call “external mission”.

But, you see, here I go on and on, riding my hobby horse, and pretending I know what I’m talking about.

Lord have mercy!

Fr. David, you are exactly right. Just as each individual has unique gifts and a unique calling, so to each era, nation, culture, locale, etc. At the risk of horrible oversimplification, one can see it in the Russian asceticism, Greek community, etc. The Romanian theologians and witness generated in the midst of one of the most deliberate persecutions in history has been a profound blessing. (The very different writings of Fr. Roman Braga, Elder Cleopa and Fr. Dumitru Staniloae have each blessed and challenged me.) I look forward to the unique contribution(s) that American Orthodoxy will make. My suspicion is that it will have “practical” character, perhaps fostering organizational accountability and efficiency. (While some may struggle to stifle laughter at such a comment, it is precisely our American demand for organizational integrity is what has exposed – and what may ultimately correct – the practices that I suspect are more commonplace throughout history than we would like to think.) The issue is one of priority and focus. So long as our focus and priority is the kingdom of God, then we will eventually discover the character of God’s unique gift that is American Orthodoxy.

And yet, brothers, we should be careful about treating Orthodox nationalism as though it were nothing but some kind of disease. Some of the most significant Orthodox theologians of the 20th Century (Dumitru Staniloae, Justin Popovich, and St. Nikolai Velirimovich) all wrote very convincingly about their Orthodox nations having a special character, a unique contribution to the whole, and a divine vocation to fulfill.

Hmm. Perhaps it is “dead in the water”, but I’m not sure it was necessarily “more of the same”. For some, it certainly was. For others, I think, it was meaningful on a different level: (1) healing an ugly, sinful rift; and (2) not carrying that baggage into the new administrative paradigm for Orthodoxy in America, which will surely continue to respect and make room for what some of you called in previous posts “the Romanian usage”. Since, even in Metropolitan Jonah’s vision, the future of Orthodox unity in America will probably be organized as something other than the OCA, I imagine that many Romanians may have considered a Patriarchate-based unity a viable step towards the new Chambesy IV paradigm. Even the Romanian Episcopate of the OCA has utterly no intention of being assimilated into some kind of Pan-American-melting-pot-Orthodoxy. Myself, I’m sorry to see the Romanians again fail to reconcile their differences. While I don’t believe the Old World Patriarchates should be carrying on a mission directly on foreign soil, that IS the predominant paradigm at the present. I suppose we’ll all get to unity at the same time, traveling our various roads. As Chrys points out, and as in fact Metropolitan Jonah warns us, without inner unity, administrative unity may be a nightmare.

you are of course right. The Balkans are a place of intense intermingling of different nations. One of the reasons I have come to reject the pettit nationalisms of modern ethnic Orthodoxy is that I can look around the GOA and see the diverse descent of Greek-Americans who claim 100% Greek ancestry. In my case, my mother’s maiden name has has clear Slavonic roots even though that part of the family was from Asia Minor. My paternal great-great-grandfather was from Sicily and his name is most definately Italian. My wife’s paternal ancestry is from Peloponnesus but her maiden name is Hispanic. (Actually it was traced to Medieval France but it got hispanized early on.)

Fr David, all: Anyway my point is that growing up it appeared that the GOA’s mission was to foster a cult of homogeneia. I imagine that’s what was going on in the Serb/Bulgar/Romanian/Etc. jurisdictions as well. All to the detriment of the Gospel.

That’s why sometimes I get dismissive of this type of ethno-Orthdoxy and simply call it “Bulbanian” or “Slobovian” Orthodoxy.

p.s. I’m very gratified to hear that the proposed merger of the two Romanian exarchates is dead in the water. When I first heard it I thought it was more of the same.

Quick clarification: my point in referring to WWI – which was well after the Ottoman empire and occurred, in fact, at its very end – was only an awkward expression of the global nature of the phenomenon. I should have chosen a much more timely (by a few or more centuries) example. One could see similar forces at work in Europe and China around the same era – the inevitable development in the scale and integration of social organization. (Its delayed development in Europe was, as I understand it, the consequence of the utter social disintegration that followed the collapse of Rome.)
Again, my apologies for a lousy illustration, which takes a bit away from my key point – namely, the divisive nature of sinful existence and the ONLY solution to it: life in Christ.