No he doesn’t. Characterizing him in the way that you do however, makes him appear evil. That’s your intent, correct?

Bill, unfortunately, the places where these questions should be discussed — the episcopacy and the seminaries — we hear little but silence. The few bishops who speak on these matters clearly have not thought through them much. The seminaries, well, they seem to be occupied with different things. There is an episcopal statement that affirms traditional marriage.

We have the intellectual power to address these issues, but there is a strong reluctance to engage. I’ve heard some defenses that we Orthodox do not engage the culture in these ways, but the critics clearly are not as familiar with the Fathers or even the Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church who are taking the lead on these questions in the Orthodox world.

Thank you, Mr. Stankovich, for clarifying your perspective to me. You make an important point in your last paragraph. Too often do we forget that the Church is divinely led. Your point also reinforces the understanding I tried to express in my post, that while all of us are flawed vessels, God nevertheless chooses to place within us the treasure of His grace and mercy.

Holy Scripture bears this out repeatedly, as the LORD saves His people through unlikely candidates. Joseph, a man with no children and thus no reason to be remembered after his death, preserves all the children of Israel during the famine. Joshua conquers Jericho with the help of Rahab, a prostitute. Naomi the foreigner becomes an ancestor of the royal line of Judah. David, the last and least of his father’s sons, is chosen to defeat the enemy giant with a shepherd’s weapon, and in turn to become king. The LORD selects Amos, a lowly fig pincher, to address the divine word to the king of Israel himself. In Jesus’s parable, only the hated Samaritan acts with mercy to save the victim of the bandits. Most astoundingly of all, the Word Himself achieves the world’s redemption and healing by dying in the same manner as a rebellious slave.

So we may be thankful and humbled at the depth of God’s mercy in loving and saving us despite our sinfulness. Our flawed condition does not obstruct God’s purpose. Even bad church leaders can carry a gift of grace that benefits us. Thereby does God win great glory to himself.

You’ve already partly answered my request in your essay on Homosexual Marriage and the Dusk of Liberty. Your essays are always right on target, but this one shines with special brilliance.

It would be good to know what the Orthodox are saying about this. It’s easy to find Catholic sources, but what are good sources for official Orthodox views?

I’m not ignoring this Bill. Just swamped.

Mr. Congdon,

You will pardon my temerity as unnecessary. Ordinarily, I find it foolish, unfair, and lacking fundamental charity to compare “charisma” among individuals – “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles?” (1 Cor. 12:29) – but I have reached a point of saturation where the rise or fall of Orthodoxy in America seemingly rests in “persons.”

God has so richly blessed me to, literally, sit at the feet of the fathers of our generation and to simply listen, the most profound of whom was Vladyka Basil (Rodziako), who I know to be a Saint of the Church and will one day be acknowledged as such. Would it be appropriate to “compare” his insight with others? Prudent or “fair” to measure one bishop against another? I do not believe so. But I will say that Vladyka Basil was the worst administrator undoubtedly ever know to the OCA, and he realized it. He retired to Washington, DC to spend glorious years on the Voice of America as the Orthodox disciple & evangelist to the Soviet Union. Can you imagine? And like his friends – literally his friends – St. John Maximovitch, St. Nikolai (Velomirovich), St. Justin (Popovich), and his confessor, Met Anthony (Bloom), never would they have imagined that they personally were responsible for the sustenance or survival of the Church. In an analogy I have used previously, the Prophet Jonah spoke one sentence to Nineveh, but it was the people who chose to repent. We lose sight of the necessity & equality of the relationship.

If you have interpreted my comment to suggest I bear some personal ill-will for the former Metropolitan, you would be mistaken. I am, however, greatly offended at the suggestion that his resignation as First-Hierarch signals a “dearth of leadership,” as this is a fundamental lack of trust in the love of the Bridegroom for His bride, for the Enlivening & Invigorating Spirit, and the unreined and unstoppable Energy of the Father. Without this belief, we are those which have no hope.

No need to apologize. I thank you, though, for your humility and kind instruction. Your words are truly encouraging.

Mr. Stankovich, if you will allow it, I commend you for pursuing your “rule for life.” I imagine that Archbishop Chaput might do the same, rather than calling you a “bad citizen,” since you are indeed engaging sincerely, in your way, in the “vigorous moral debate.” Not everyone can engage it on the level of a Met. Hilarion or Pope Benedict.

I believe, however, that calling Fr. Hans’s comment about Met. Jonah a “reduction” is a bit simplistic. I may be a sinful man, but this does not necessarily prevent me from having deeper insights into the moral crisis than the people around me. The same is true for everybody, even my hated enemy.

Alyosha, my apologies. I should have written more clearly.

First, Alyosha is the name of the youngest (legitimate) Karamazov brother, a young man of deep faith and charity. I was trying to make a positive connection between your name and the novel, but I see now that this was presumptuous, and I ask your forgiveness.

Second, in the chapter I mentioned, Jesus appears to the head of the Spanish Inquisition, tasked during the Middle Ages with rooting out and punishing (often killing) Western European heretics. At great length, the Inquisitor tells Jesus that nobody really wants the awful burden of total freedom offered by God, and that they prefer to be told what to do by religious authorities like him. Consequently, when Jesus comes again in glory, he will be feared and rejected as he was before. As he would be if he ran for President of our country.

Of course, Doestoevsky tells the story much better than I do. It’s a great, thought-provoking read (as is the whole novel).

Hi, Bill! I am not familiar with Brothers Karamazov, and I don’t know whether you are making an observation, compliment, or barb. Be that as it may, thank you for your reply. It definitely has compelled me to read Brothers Karamzov now and look forward to that particular chapter to which you had alluded.

I live in a country where despicable behaviour is sanctioned outright by statute. This is neither new history or historic news. Nevertheless, I may choose not to participate in this behaviour, even decry & protest to a point short of violence, all without consequence. This is remarkable. Irvin Yalom, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry from Stanford, has always been critical of Freud for acknowledging, but not delineating or expanding on the primordial conflict of freedom. His Existential Psychotherapy is classic for this issue alone. The reduction of this extraordinarily complex issue to anything that would manage to somehow include the name Jonah Paufhausen speaks to the reality of the state of the public square. I rest my case for my method.

In 30 words or less, of course…

Alyosha, your online name and your post both remind me of the “Grand Inquisitor” chapter in The Brothers Karamazov.

I agree, Bill, and this was made more evident in CNN’s coverage yesterday of the Inauguration Day Parade. Reporters, marchers, and attendees were fawning over a man who is one of the most – if not, the most – pro-choice presidents of our time, who is sanctioning legislation for homosexual rights, and is polarizing this country. I told someone yesterday that if Jesus Christ Himself ran for President of these here United States He would lose the election.