I hail M.Nikitas decision to apply for Turkish citizenship, and enter into a position to serve, preserve and protect our 1,700 year old presence in Constantinople, where so much of our Greek Orthodox heritage is rooted. To abandon the EP would be to abandon our geographical and historic home. Just as
Antioch was lost. Just as Ciliccia has been lost to Armenians. It would be supreme folly to give up the great Ecumenical Patriarcate, seat of several Ecumenical Councils, where the foundation of ALL of Christianity was forged.

Perhaps it means that we are the Ancient Church, the one set up by Jesus and the Apostles, with a twin responsibility to preserve, defend,
live and teach the ancient and unchanged Content of the Faith, and then to evangelize it to the ends of the earth, to draw people into a sound, serious and saving relationship with Jesus Christ.

That being the case, what is he ancient commission of Constantinople? Was its Patriarch ever conciliarly invested with the title,
“All-Holiness,” as distinct from (and superior to) simply, “Holiness?” Was he ever given juridical authority over any of the other Patriarchates? Was he ever acclaimed by any Council to be the “Eastern Pope?”

No.

The commission of the Patriarchate of Constantinople is clear: (a) bang the gavel at meetings; (b) serve, if asked and not if not asked,
as “court of last resort” in disputes (c) support foreign missions not supported by other Patriarchates and see to their formation until
they are self-sufficient enough to move through Autonomy to Autocephaly. That’s it. That’s the whole job. The “primacy” of the Phanar
resembles in no way the primacy of the Vatican, and (as we saw in the aftermath of the “Great and Holy Weekend in Crete”), nothing they do will make it so. Orthodoxy simply isn’t geared for papacy.

As for America, we are forever declaring, “one of these days we need to get organized.” It looks great on the surface, but how does it work
in practice? Nobody is more organized than Rome. Following the Roman model were the great “Mainline” Protestant communions. All
had good, solid, impregnable-looking structures.

The thing is, such structures are vulnerable to being chipped away at. Hell does not have our time constraints, and is very patient. It
chips slowly and subtly, until one day one wakes to find a big hole in the wall through which demons enter at will to freely roam the corridors.

I submit that it is our very (seeming) disorganization that is our strength, particularly here in America, where an “American Church”
would surely fall to secular liberalism within ten years. I can see Protestant-style “church councils” hiring and firing priests as if they
were Protestant pastors, with the priest not only not president of the council but not even on it. I see “open and reasonable debate”
about “what we all think” about this or that doctrine or practice, and coteries forming who “agree to disagree,” until we for all the world
resemble the Anglicans.

We’re even in occasional danger of that, now, but when one of us gets out of line there are the other jurisdictions to pull us back. It is
nice to assume that the same checking mechanism would be present if there were a single jurisdiction on the ground, but experience
shows there would not be. We are sinners–and while the gates of hell may not be able to prevail against us, we will ever battle to prevail against ourselves. It’s just in our nature. The world will ever continue to infect the Church, to convert us when we should be converting
it, because we are already too busy fighting each other to be able to spare the time we should be sparing in order to fight evil.

Now, imagine if all this political acumen became confined within one building. Instead of “jurisdictions,” we would have “parties.”
Instead of heretics we would have “dissidents,” who would acquire followers. invade the seminaries, do sterling jobs and get appointed
to powerful posts–and there would be no one to say nay to it all. Satan is a better politician than we are, and his alternate view of
“right” and “wrong” are fetchingly appealing.

There was an unfortunate OCA bishop who not long ago declared, “There are two kinds of Orthodox–Liberal and Traditional–and
both are equally Orthodox.” The reaction? Everybody just turned away, embarrassed for him. Same thing when some in the GOA
start calling +Bartholomew the “Head of the Orthodox Church.” It just doesn’t affect anybody, nobody has to listen to it, and it soon
fades away.

But what if these bishops were bishops in one American Church, with real authority and real influence over the teaching materials
and the formation programs of the Church as a whole? Would anything ever get done that wasn’t based on compromise? And
wouldn’t every compromise, simply by nature, diminish the objective immutability with which we are to regard the Faith?

The ACOB environment manages to give us ways to co-operate with each other in mission and in formation aids. Everyone has to
agree on materials and practices that are properly common, without trying (or being able) to impose cookie-cutterism on anyone else.
Everyone’s concern is, “Is it Orthodox?” and the fact that everyone is free to just walk away, and doesn’t have to compromise, keeps
us strong despite our incessant squabbling.

Christianity is a mission business. Our successes come from having doctrinal clarity combined with local flexibility. If we lose that,
we will, I think, lose who we are.

Thank you, Dean.

No, this is not nice. Forgive me, I understand the irony, Chris, but we cannot joke on the subject. It is a serious matter. I actually agree that what Fr. Peter says “Maybe it is time to move on out of Istanbul to another place would actually allow the EP to function”, is the answer here.

I see potential for a conflict of interests in this situation.

I couldn’t have worded the root of the problem better than you did it here, Dean. That’s how hundreds of thousand people see it.

Agree, fr. Peter.
Isn’t change of citizenship an act of betrayal as it is? It is. And the clerics, especially, should be able to see it’s nature as such.

People around the globe know of many more things that Turkish government wouldn’t allow, and what the Turkish government can do to uproot the dissent … in any area of life.
This is in the subject of potential conflict of interests. The Codes of Ethics in any field caution against entering into relationships involving conflict of interest.

I agree with Fr. Peter.

Fr if I may, the autocephaly of the OCA (which is now accepted by the other jurisdictions, albeit reluctantly and not trumpeted) means that its Holy Synod is free of foreign interference. I wonder how this will play into the calculations of the Phanariotes who as you rightly state, still want all of America under their control. My guess is that their claims will become taken less seriously as time goes on.

Andrew, the EP does not have the authority to “take over” the American Churches. His authority extends only to the GOA. Fr. Mark Arey, who speaks for the EP implies that an administrative ordering will be imposed on the American Churches by fiat through the Mother Churches, but this may be no more than bluster as this stage and merely affirms the EP’s desire to bring all the American jurisdictions under his aegis.

We know this because the Canon 28 apologetic developed to rationalize the EP claims fell flat at the Chambesy Conference. This is not to say that Constantinople no longer believes they have authority over the American Church (they still believe it), but only that no one else takes it seriously. Constantinople is trying to drive the Episcopal Assembly process in their favor. Whether or not the American jurisdictions will follow it to the end is far from settled.

Isa,
I would agree that one appears unlikely to be called in Australia in the near future. The Australian version, ‘SCCOCA’, exists in a very different form to when it was begun: there were five jurisdictions (Antiochian, Greek, Romanian, ROCOR, Serbian), and after a number of events occured, two withdrew (Antiochian and Russian). In current times, concelebration between Greek and Russian clergy is not allowed, and between Greek and Antiochian clergy is, at most, uncommon (and expressly forbidden in Sydney).

Added to that the small size of the Romanian jurisdiction (only recently getting a bishop for ~5 Australian parishes) and, really, SCCOCA has two jurisdictions, with bishops who concelebrate on Bright Friday each year, and that’s about it.

Added to that some long-standing disputes between the Greek Archbishop of Australia and the Ecumenical Patriarch…well, no, I don’t think anyone could anticipate an EA happening in Oceania any time soon.

For those who fear deals, let the Phanariot version of BarbD., voices from the Phanar on the other side of New York State, warm your heart with her words:

Words from a righteous man: Fr. Makarios Griniezakis is an Archimandrite of the Ecumenical Throne:
“…even a cursory study of history shows us that every heresy, schism and ecclesiastical division stemmed from personal ambition and egotism, only later to be robed in the mantle of dogmatic diversity”.
“When we emphasize our vastness and point to statistical demonstrations, it means that we are not shepherds, but rather operatives of power, exploiting the administrative and spiritual authority that springs forth from our position”.
“The pentarchy is comprised of Old Rome, New Rome (Constantinople) and the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. Not only was Moscow never considered a member of the pentarchy, but also there are no ecclesiastical or canonical texts that designate Moscow as the replacement or substitute for Old Rome”.
“It is clear from the discussion that the Ecumenical Patriarchate will certainly not lose the position of primacy that it maintains; the ranking of the Orthodox Churches will not change; and the committee in question–or any other committee that is formed–will not institute rebellious changes in the Orthodox Church”.
“The truth will release us from our parochial attitude and self-love; the truth will liberate us from spitefulness and our egos; the truth will allow us to move beyond feelings that instigate internal quarrels and erect narcissistic partitions. ‘The truth shall set us free.’”

http://elgreca262.blogspot.com/2010/06/patriarchates-of-undivided-early.html
Indeed: I’ve seen many a Vatican polemic which would say the above, just replacing Moscow with Constantinople, on New Rome’s upstart status.

As long as the likes of Angelika and BarbD feed the baser side of their patriarchates abroad, us who pay attention to the lands where we live need not fear any deal coming soon. LOL. No love lost on any side.