Orthodox Unity

Metropolitan Jonah

At the Friday night Sept 4 first session of the Missions and Evangelism conference, OCA Primate Met Jonah makes a strong call for unity preceded in importance only by the preaching of the Gospel.

Listen here:

Ed. We tend to avoid speculation at AOI blog but this tidbit caught our eye. HT: Orthodox England.

As a result of a teleconference on 1 July, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America has divided its Washington and New York Diocese into two. This means that it has changed the title of its head, Metropolitan Jonah. He is now to be known as ‘Archbishop of Washington and Metropolitan of all America and Canada’.

This change means that there is now no overlap between Metropolitan Jonah’s title and that of Metropolitan Hilarion, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, Metropolitan of New York and Eastern America.

This appears to be the beginning of further profound transformations in the Orthodox Church landscape of North America and indeed worldwide. We remind readers that the former head of the parishes of the Moscow Patriarchate in North America, Archbishop Mercurius, was earlier this year removed to Moscow and has not been replaced.

From the Ochlophobist (one who has an aversion to crowds) website:

The following is very important. It was written by Archim. Touma, who is said to be the most influential monastic under Antioch. He is Athonite in spirituality, he leads the most traditional monastery under the Holy Synod of Antioch, and he does not normally comment on ecclesio-political matters.

Highlight:

And what is to be said about the canonical disorders that we’re up to our ears in over there?

The situation of all the Orthodox eparchies dependent on mother churches in North America is uncanonical. There is one Orthodox church in those lands whose situation is sound and canonical: the American Orthodox Church (OCA). This alone is independent and autocephalous and this is de-facto recognized by the other Orthodox eparchies. Its recognition, formal or implicit, by the eparchies depending on mother churches is clear and frank confirmation that the status of these eparchies is uncanonical and unsound. If these eparchies and mother churches on which they depend were to be logical with themselves and consistent with Orthodox ecclesiological and canonical thought, in the true sense of the word, then they would belong to the OCA or would at least enter into an understanding with it and the thorny crisis of the Orthodox presence there, theologically and canonically, would end. The simplest position and the most sound is for us to leave the Orthodox in North America to themselves and to encourage them to arrange their affairs themselves! We and the other mother churches are the ones who are complicating their affairs!

Ed: The analysis applies to all Orthodox jurisdictions.

Pastoral Care and the Crisis of Power

In the See of Antioch, at the current time, there is a confrontation, a crisis of opinion, and painful consequences may follow. Are the bishops, within an eparchy that is headed by a patriarch or a metropolitan as an ecclesial administrative unit, bishops over a territory and a faithful people, or are they auxiliary bishops (asaqifa musa’idun)?

The traditional position, within the Orthodox ecclesiological framework, makes the bishops within a single eparchy brothers and the primate (mallak) of the eparchy first of all the first among equals and secondarily the head of a local council, governed by principles and canons and made up of the bishops of that eparchy. This assumes that each of them oversees a territory and a people. In principle, bishops are not titular or auxiliaries, dependent upon the metropolitan or the patriarch.

But, historical events came about in past eras that divided some bishops from their territories and their flocks, as happened in the Byzantine Empire after the fall of some of its regions to the Ottomans. It was hoped at the time that exiled or refugee bishops would return to their regions. However, matters became more complicated and situations worsened and such bishops found themselves permanently exiled from their flocks. Or, the dioceses which they had overseen in principle were emptied of their Orthodox people. Continue reading →

First of all, thank you to St. Vladimir Seminary, St. Andrew House, and Orthodox Christian Laity for sponsoring the webcast. Thank you to Ancient Faith Radio, and Executive Producer Dean Calvert and crew for making the webcast possible.

I saw perhaps a quarter of it. The first seminars dealt with historical themes, important and interesting (had to concentrate though) but I won’t comment on them here. I found the lecture on the “myth of autocephaly” very interesting, particular how the narrative of how autocephaly was obtained shapes contemporary self-understanding in the autocephalous Churches. This deals more with how historical narrative functions in a community, than the veracity of the actual narrative. (Of course, veracity is contentious term since history is, at bottom, narrative. Nevertheless, some history is “truer” than others, witness the attempts by the Marxists and other culture barbarians to rewrite it.) Back to the subject…

Dr. Paul Meyendorff, professor of Liturgical Theology at St. Vladimir Seminary, clearly understands the power of the internet. It gives voice to the laity and makes it impossible to hide malfeasance are two points he brought out. It’s a qualified good of course, but the Church hierarchy must come to grips with the fact that business as usual just doesn’t work anymore. Reference was made to a previous discussion that touched on this topic but I did not see it. Dr. Meyendorff wants others to grasp this as well. (We at AOI get it.)

Mr. Charles Ajalat, Chancellor of the Antiochian Archdiocese was perhaps the most outspoken but voiced ideas many people say privately. It was good to hear them expressed in a public forum. Some of them include reestablishing a married episcopate because in some cases we are not drawing the level of leadership talent that we need. He was more critical of the Chambesy conference than AOI has been because it offered a structure (the Bishop assemblies) that too closely mirrored SCOBA and thus could become ineffectual, another roadblock to unity. Fr. Mark Arey from the GOA countered his assertion by listing programs under SCOBA sponsorship such as OCMC (the mission program), IOCC (world aid), OCPM (prison ministry) and so forth, but Mr. Ajalat replied that these programs arose largely through the private initiative of priests and laity, not hierarchical leadership. He is correct in this.

Fr. Mark Arey, Ecumenical Officer of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, mentioned the importance of unity despite the differences. This is a good caution. However, not much more was offered beyond this. I was expecting some comment on the Orthodox-Hellenism-Greek historical apologetic, especially since it appears that the Chambesy conference effectively repudiated it. Constantinople’s position is that unity in America requires that all jurisdictions come under Constantinople, so I thought at least the idea would be defended but not a word on it.

I missed Met. Jonah’s talk unfortunately. Had a hospital call in the morning and then completely forgot about it until it was over. However, Met. Jonah made a comment in the discussion portion I have never heard a hierarch make: The Antiochians and the OCA should “come together” as a first step in establishing an American Church. Bold idea, especially coming from someone in leadership.

As mentioned at the outset, I only caught bits and pieces of the three-day seminar. Still, you could sense the shift in momentum towards an American Orthodox Church that seems to be growing. The next conference on Orthodox Unity will be sponsored by Orthodox Christian Laity in October. Info posted separately.