ecumenical patriarchate

In a stinging rebuke to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America issued a call for a unified American Church and rejected any path to unity that would mean “we surrender the freedom we have embraced as American Orthodox Christians to a patriarchate still under Islamic domination.” The video here records his sermon on April 5 at Pan-Orthodox vespers at St. Seraphim Cathedral in Dallas.

Although he did not mention him by name, the Metropolitan was responding to a speech given March 16 at Holy Cross School of Theology by the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr. Elpidophoros Lambriniadis, chief secretary of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In the speech, Fr. Lambriniadis was critical of calls for unity by both the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese and OCA and asserted that “submission to the First Throne of the Church, that is, to the Ecumenical Patriarchate” is the proper mode of unity for American Orthodox Christians.

To such a suggestion, Metropolitan Jonah said: “I would submit that, if we wanted a pope, we would be under the real one.”

He asserted that a Church dedicated to the conciliar process does not ignore the voice of the laity or the priests. The metropolitan spoke of Old World hierarchs “who are ignorant of our saints and who refuse to recognize the sacrifice of so many of those who have come before us in Christ to establish the Gospel here.”

During his sermon, Metropolitan Jonah repeatedly cited the sacrifices that Orthodox Christians have made for more than 200 years to bring the Gospel “in its wholeness” to North America. But this sacrifice, he says, is devalued by Old World hierarchs who believe that they are the only criterion of Orthodoxy.

“We can’t allow our Church to be controlled by people who have no appreciation of our culture and have to bow to the Turkish Islamic authorities,” the metropolitan said.

He concluded with an affirmation that the Church of the Apostles exists in America, in the Orthodox Church “now here in our midst. It was planted by our fathers in the faith generations ago on this continent and it has grown and borne fruit. And it subsists out of our common, sacrificial commitment to Jesus Christ. So let us give thanks to God for our unity. Let us give thanks to God for our diversity. And let us affirm to our bishops that they might tell the churches of the Old World that there is an American Orthodox Church. Leave it alone!”

The American Orthodox Institute has published a new paper on Orthodox unity by George Michalopulos that examines the historical usage of the title “metropolitan,” the role of the metropolitan in Church administration, and the “crucial” pastoral duty defined in the Divine Liturgy as “rightly dividing the Word of [God’s] Truth.”

In “E Pluribus Unum: One Church From Many?” Michalopulos takes it a step further. He offers a “sketch” of how an American Orthodox Church might be structured along traditional lines. In a unified American Orthodox Church, for example, the Archbishop of Washington would be the primate of the American Church and also carry the title of Patriarch.

Rather coincidentally, AOI published “E Pluribus Unum: One Church from Many?” just a day after the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr. Elpidophoros Lambriniadis delivered his speech “Challenges of Orthodoxy in America And the Role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate” at Holy Cross seminary. The Ecumenical Patriarchate sees unity as “submission to the First Throne of the Church, that is, to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.”

In sharp contrast, Michalopulos offers a very particular vision:

… bishops, priests, theologians, and laymen must request an independent unity that is free of foreign constraints. This first phase of unity may proceed on several different fronts. The bishops who make up SCOBA can certainly meet more regularly and request the convocation of an all-American synod. Priests on the local level can meet with their counterparts regularly and receive from their parish councils the resources necessary to consolidate operations. Cities that have bishops can request that the resident bishop serve as the president of the local Orthodox ministerial association. Laypeople must likewise apply their talents and experience to the cause of unity. Lawyers will be needed to help draw up diocesan incorporations. Accountants and financiers will be needed to assemble strong, enduring, transparent financial structures. Medical doctors and bioethicists can be appointed as permanent advisors to and members of episcopal councils, advising bishops about the ethical implications of current and developing medical technologies. The demand must be from the “bottom up” as much as from the “top down.” The universal call for unity cannot abate.

Asianews has an update on the preparatory meetings for a pan-Orthodox synod, which seems to be gaining momentum.

After various mishaps, in 1961 a pan-Orthodox conference was convened in Rhodes, with significant pressure from patriarch Athenagoras, for the purpose of preparing an Orthodox synod. This conference was also followed by numerous obstacles, because as theologian Giorgos Tetsetis observes, the local Churches did not have a clear idea of what they wanted from the Synod.
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“It is time,” says Fr. Tetsetis, a theologian for the ecumenical patriarchate, “that our Church finally realize that it is doing poorly as a whole. The Church needs an open and sincere dialogue. Because it is only then, with its rich tradition as a compass, that it will be able to emerge from its blind alley and together face its existential problems, which are becoming increasingly severe and complicated. It is only then that the importance of the Ecumenical Patriarch’s initiative can be understood.”

HT: Byzantine, TX

A very timely story yesterday in the Wall Street Journal by Andrew Higgins about a land dispute between Syriac Orthodox monastery Mor Gabriel and Turkish authorities. Also yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, during a stop in Ankara, announced that President Obama will be visiting Turkey “in a month or so.” She said this toward the end of her public remarks:

I reiterate the Obama Administration’s support for Turkey’s membership in the European Union. The United States believes it will strengthen Turkey, Europe, and our transatlantic partnership. The United States continues to support the UN-sponsored talks now taking place to achieve a settlement of the Cyprus conflict based on reunification of the island as a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation. We talked about Turkey’s democracy, its multiethnic heritage, and in that context, I raised the importance that we place on reopening the Halki Seminary and efforts to reach out to all of Turkey’s communities.

For the Journal story about Mor Gabriel, Higgins interviewed Bishop Timotheus Samuel Aktas, abbot of the ancient monstery, who claims that the surrounding villagers and local government officials simply want the Christian community to “go away.”

Here’s a snippet from “Defending the Faith — Battle Over a Christian Monastery Tests Turkey’s Tolerance of Minorities” [registration required]:

A big obstacle is Turkey’s continuing tensions with its ethnic minorities, notably the Kurds, who account for more than 15% of the population and are battling for greater autonomy. Also fraught, but more under the radar, is the situation confronting members of the Syriac Orthodox Church, one of the world’s oldest and most beleaguered Christian communities. The group’s fate is now seen as a test of Turkey’s ability to accommodate groups at odds with “Turkishness,” a legal concept of national identity that has at times been used to suppress minority groups. Continue reading →