Comments Posted By Anonymous Since It's All The Rage

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The Unbearable Lightness of Stokoe

I don’t see two distinct stories there. Differently phrased, surely, but not mutually exclusive, the way I read it.

Please expand your thinking on how this is “two distinct stories”. Please show me what I’m missing.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On May 1, 2011 @ 8:02 pm

OK, so who is “Tavarishch”? In his March 18 “Update from Our Inbox”, he perhaps made the most startling statement on OCAT (among the many), when he published:

This just popped up in our inbox. It was forwarded by an Orthodox Priest on the clergy e-mail list and responds to Mark Stokoe’s latest article on +Jonah’s “Retreat”. Make of it what you will. Also, it is important to note here that +Jonah has never had anything to do with this website, or even been consulted on any of its content. It is simply a site run by concerned laypeople.

The alleged email (who can tell if it’s real at this point?) then goes on to state that Metropolitan Hilarion threatened that the OCA would be unrecognized by Moscow if it didn’t support +Jonah. It’s a favorite ploy of the Jonah-vistas, this threat of “schism”.

Rod, you yourself, as “Muzhik”, stated that a “blistering letter” had been received by the Synod from the MP. Can we see it? If you have the SMPAC report, surely a little letter from Moscow is no great shakes. Release it and let the Church decide.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On May 1, 2011 @ 4:14 pm

Well Fr. Fester has stated that his account was hacked into on Friday.

I did not know that.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On May 1, 2011 @ 1:50 am

Nope. No clue who was on those emails. But clearly one of them leaked it. The claim that an email account was “hacked” is an extraordinary one. Present your extraordinary evidence.

Mark’s explanation that the emails were indeed leaked stays well within the bounds of Occam’s Razor.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On May 1, 2011 @ 1:30 am

No one who supports +Jonah has ever hacked into another person’s email account. Stokoe and his supporters can’t say the same thing.

Actually, Mark did say the same thing. “Leaked”? Yes. “Hacked”? No.

Very much like the SMPAC report that Rod Dreher has. No one accused Rod of stealing it.

Just to draw a comparison that you can relate to, George.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On May 1, 2011 @ 1:12 am

Think It Can’t Happen Here?

Ivan, I don’t really think it’s a sham. We’re real. We’re freaking tiny, but we’re real. I think if we can get the Byzantine garbage behind us, like we’re dealing with now, and move forward, we can achieve unity. And I think the EP and the rest of the Churches really don’t have much strength left to deny it to us.

Call me foolishly optimistic. I think this can be done in our lifetimes, if we put our minds to it. I would see going back to the MP as, at best, a sideways step that would waste energy we could be using in a more constructive matter. At worst: we’d lose our position to no benefit…..

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On May 1, 2011 @ 2:14 am

I disagree, Ivan.

If we go back to the MP, there’s no leaving. North America then becomes a place “occupied” by the foreign patriarchates, not “evangelized”. It’s just not going to work. It would set back the very idea of a united Church here by decades, at best. No, the OCA needs to be what it is: a bit of a canonical thorn that needs to be plucked.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 30, 2011 @ 11:38 pm

And if “OCA Truth” wants to live up to its name, it will publish the SMPAC report that is in Mr. Dreher’s possession, apparently given to him by Mr. Fr. Southern Comfort.

Go ahead and tell it to the Church. We’re big boys. We can handle it. Stop the Byzantine BS.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 30, 2011 @ 10:47 pm

From OCATruth.com: Bishops Steering Church Toward Schism?

George, Mark Stokoe says he doesn’t have a copy of the report. I have no reason to disbelieve him.

Rod Dreher says he DOES have a copy of the report. I have no reason to disbelieve him.

Mark very well might have some of the info related in the report. If it’s damning to +Jonah, he’d say so, and he has. We know that Rod has ALL of the info related in the report, and what is clear is if it is damning to +Jonah, then he’ll hide it as long as he can. This is the different agendas of these different men. Simple as a syllogism.

I call on Dreher to release the report. And he won’t do it. Their separate behaviors both point to the same thing.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On May 1, 2011 @ 12:55 am

I’ve read the emails. You interpret them the way you want, as do I. And I don’t believe Stokoe writes “without spin”. He absolutely has an agenda. Anyone who says they don’t is BS-ing you. As for what his site says about His Beatitude, honestly, I don’t have anything good to say about him either.

Now that I know he actively supported a website set up to make him look good, and ONLY for that purpose, what am I supposed to think?

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 30, 2011 @ 11:43 pm

Stokoe is a convert, too, for what it’s worth. And it isn’t worth anything. But he’s been Orthodox so much longer than Dreher that it’s not funny.

The big difference is that Mark Stokoe is not a liar. Rod Dreher is. The big difference is that Mark Stokoe is not sitting on a leaked copy, possibly illegally, of the SMPAC report. Rod Dreher is. The big difference is that (and let me be careful here) Mark Stokoe is not shown, by any evidence extant, to be a PR shill. Rod Dreher is.

Mark Stokoe hasn’t hidden like a coward. Rod Dreher has. Mark Stokoe set out to find the truth. Rod Dreher set out to spin it. Look at the record. And I could still give a damn about his time in the RC, and what I see really is Mr. Dreher and his ilk attempting to foment a schism to turn us into Southern Baptists. That’s where they’d be more comfortable, let them go there. That works both ways, people.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 30, 2011 @ 11:24 pm

Mr. Dreher has hidden his involvement in OCA Truth. That is lying. I actually asked him directly what his relationship to that site was, and he obfuscated. And I could give a damn about his experiences in the RC Church. I have underwear that’s older than his Orthodoxy, and yet I’m to accept his attacks, by stealth, as some kind of defense of that same Orthodoxy? He’ll land back in the Southern Baptists by the time it’s over. He never left, in fact.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 30, 2011 @ 10:23 pm

Hear, hear, Fr. Basil!

Having had the pleasure of meeting His Grace, Melchizedek, a couple of times, he struck me as a quite kind, unassuming, and very bright man. Honestly, if I may say so about a heirarch, I got the impression he was as “regular guy” as they come, with a strong common sense streak, and also with clearly a strong monastic formation.

I was unaware that the Metropolitan was opposed to his elevation to the episcopate. Can you possibly expound on that for us?

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 29, 2011 @ 4:04 pm

60 Minutes on Mt. Athos and Behind the Scenes Video

They did a really nice job with this piece. What was funny was that I turned to my wife while we were watching it and said “60 Minutes must have a Greek on their staff to do this story.” Sure enough… I don’t think they had a prayer of doing this without having Mr. Karzis along.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 26, 2011 @ 3:15 pm

The Miracle of the Holy Fire in Jerusalem

Christ is Risen!

A blessed Pascha to all of you. Despite our differences on the details, we are united where it’s important.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 24, 2011 @ 1:41 am

The Toxic Culture of Syosset: The Early Years

Un-bloody-believable.

Just because I enjoy disagreeing with you, George, let me say “Nonsense!”. It’s absolutely believable.

But then again, I don’t think we’re actually disagreeing, are we?

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 15, 2011 @ 12:19 pm

I admire +Dmitri, though I have not met him, and it is a shame that the vote of the AAC was not ratified by the Synod. Certainly (and not as any “slight” to +Dmitri), I don’t possibly see how he could have done a worse job than +Theodosius.

He certainly wasn’t perfect. He acquiesced to too much financial impropriety (as did the entire Synod, bar none), and there is the matter of the defrocked Mr. Kondratick running around in a cassock playing Church, but these are really somewhat minor anomalies compared to his long and fruitful ministry. He did amazing things with Spanish language ministry, and was quite successful in expanding the South. May God grant him many years!

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 15, 2011 @ 12:17 pm

The Dumping Ground: The Toxic Culture of Clerical Homosexuality

I will not say that your evidence here is thin. I disagree with Mark’s conclusions, though what Mark is saying is what I’ve always understood the general consensus to be: that homosexuality has a rather tentative, but slightly correlative [though he doesn't say so], relationship to pedophilia. (Much of course has been made of the RC sex “pedophilia scandal”, when, in fact, the victims were generally not little kids, but post-pubescent young men. That’s not pedophilia, but straight up “I like ‘em young” homosexuality.)

Still, I asked you, I thought (though I realize, not explicitly but in context), to provide a quote where he calls for the overthrow of the Church’s teaching. While he quotes academic studies in his responses, perhaps with an agenda, I certainly don’t see any explicit “change the Church’s teaching” being proffered.

Hey. You’ve moved me a little towards your position. Keep going.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 15, 2011 @ 8:01 pm

The preferred strategy for overthrowing the Church’s teaching on sodomy involves (a) not teaching the teaching, (b) misrepresenting the teaching, (c) complaining against “unilateral” public statements of the teaching, (d) misrepresenting the empirical facts relating to same-sex attraction, and (e) shaming those who don’t go along as insensitive and “homophobic.”

All of these tactics are on display in public statements by Mark Stokoe and others active in making the case privately if not publicly against the Metropolitan.

OK. You’ve named the strategy. You have alleged that Stokoe has made public statements that conform with the strategy. Please cite one of those statements.

As for your “and [unnamed] others, &c.”, I continue to see nonsense.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 15, 2011 @ 2:33 pm

I’d have more confidence in my assertions if those people spoke up, too.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 14, 2011 @ 8:57 pm

Cheryl, you are reading too much into Fr. Gregory’s statement.

As did I.

He is really only saying what the Metropolitan’s critics no doubt are saying in reverse — that the devil is using some people to harm the Church. Our disagreement is over whom he is using and what harm is being done.

I can’t speak for what others are saying, as it relates to the first sentence, but I would wholeheartedly agree with your second sentence.

Some of our disagreement is no doubt attributable to innocent error

Absolutely.

but some of it is also no doubt attributable to the desire of some of +Jonah’s critics to quietly overthrow the Church’s teaching on sexuality.

Utter balderdash with zero, zip, nada evidence to support it. That is just flat made up out of whole cloth. Please name an individual who has ever stated that the teachings of the Church on sexuality need to be changed.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 14, 2011 @ 8:48 pm

False piety? To show respect to a priest?

What am I supposed to say? “Yo, Greg?”

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 14, 2011 @ 8:37 pm

Cheryl, my speculation is thus: there’s been some sexual shenanigans, and +Jonah is not following the OCA procedures for such matters. He’s getting called on it because his failures here put the Church at real and significant risk legally and financially. Also, it’s the final straw to a lot of people after putting up with other flighty behavior from him.

That’s what I think is happening. It’s pure speculation based on the behavior of the people around him.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 14, 2011 @ 8:30 pm

You seem shocked to hear suggestions that he might improve, or that his behavior might be acceptable.

Disregarding the other drivel you typed, for it was, the fact remains that none of us know what behavior of the Metropolitan’s is at the heart of this. Oh we presume that for example “he’s upholding the Church’s teachings on sexuality!” or that “he’s engaging the culture!” or some such that has incensed the liberal homo-lovers.

Or, on the other hand, we presume that “he’s screwing up his job!” or that “he’s trying to give away the autocephaly!” or such.

But, in fact, none of us KNOW. Again, there are things here that are hidden. I’d bet my life on it. These presumptions are causing this split.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 14, 2011 @ 8:26 pm

Thank you for your reply Father, and clearly, I did misread what you wrote. I am sorry.

Certainly, passions are high. While I’ve gotten my digs in, certainly, I think I’ve been pretty consistent in saying that the information is minimal, and I see conclusions being jumped to all over the place. (What me? Sin? Never!)

You’re right: it’s not an honest disagreement anymore. Sides are being drawn that unfortunately cannot be abandoned when this dust-up is over. (And it will be. Soon, I’d figure.) I just don’t understand the knee-jerk “defend +Jonah at all costs” mentality, regardless of the paucity of information regarding the actual issues.

Again, I’m sorry.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 14, 2011 @ 8:20 pm

This is the first spring we haven’t raised hogs in several years. Why? Because, of course, I tore down the hog house last fall. Right before pork went to $1.10/lb carcass price from its usual 45-50 cents.

Been there, done that.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 14, 2011 @ 7:12 pm

God has given Metropolitan Jonah to the OCA not simply for our renewal as a jurisdiction but for the renewal of the whole Church in America. This is I think the only thing that makes sense of the criticisms that have been leveled against him. The enemy of souls is afraid of what God will do through the Metropolitan.

Father, I beg your forgiveness, and your prayers, but I believe this to be beneath the dignity of a priest of Christ’s Church. To attribute an honest disagreement, based on incomplete facts, to demonic possession is beyond the pale. If I have misread your statement, please forgive me, but I do not think that I have.

Let us assume for a moment that there is a conspiracy to oust His Beatitude. According to the folks here, said conspiracy involves the Synod of Bishops, the Metropolitan Council, the Sexual Misconduct Committee, a couple of the most respected priests of the Church, and a fair number of the laity. I would submit that, if this is so, another name for “conspiracy” would be “the conciliar decision of the Church”.

When you, Father, attribute the opinions of this conciliar process to the machinations of the Enemy, you discredit yourself and those who share your opinion, and you separate yourself from the governance of the Church for which all of us share responsibility.

I would ask you, in all respect, to clarify the statement that I have highlighted.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 14, 2011 @ 5:16 pm

While your at it, Father, you can create a petition for those of us who do pray for the Metropolitan even though we’re not absolutely cocksure that he’s correct as so many here claim to be. Perhaps along the lines of “And we pray for those whose arrogance has gotten the better of them even though they’re admittedly working off of innuendo, rumor, presumption, and half-baked info.”

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 14, 2011 @ 3:42 pm

Me? A liberal? Well, I did vote for that Democrat once. He was a buddy of mine that lost the R primary for County Engineer and ran as a D to snub his nose at the local party establishment. All good fun. He almost won, too.

Please keep on believing that we’re just a bunch of brain-numbed robots. That way, when we mop up the floor with your ilk, we’ll get a special thrill out of it because as we do so, you’ll never be able to process how morons can be winning such battles against witty, urbane sophisticates such as yourselves.

Wow, George. You’ve really got your knickers in a twist. “Mop the floor?”. Such martial allusions. “Urbane sophisticate?” I just came in from trying to get a ’48 tractor to start and I smell like gasoline. Then I have to take some scrap to the recycler, and maybe put new lights on my boat trailer. How “urbane” does that sound? Fact is, I’m one of the few members of the “Redneck Orthodox Church”.

Here’s the thing, George. When the truth about what’s going on comes out, and it will, I think you’ll see that my speculation is about 75% correct. That’s my standard track record. And you’ll see that you’re about 75% wrong. We’ll meet back here when it happens, possibly, God willing, in a few weeks, so we can get this behind us and move on to more important things.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 14, 2011 @ 3:37 pm

Covering up “nasty stuff”? Evidence? Inquiring minds want to know.

No evidence. I’ve admitted whole-heartedly in the past that it’s pure speculation. However, in my analysis, that’s the direction everyone’s behavior is pointed.

Cultists? Because they have no “actual knowledge of what is behind this dispute”? Evidence? Inquiring minds want to know.

What else do you call folks who jump straight to the defense of “their guy” at all times, with no regard for the opinions of highly respected elders? Who want a “no confidence” vote on the whole Church administration, except of course for “their guy”? It’s knee jerk. And this whole “culture war” thing is a chestnut, as is the “conspiracy”, the “Lavender Mafia”, the “cabal of homosexuals”, etc., said cabal appearing to be one allegedly gay man with a blog. It’s made up by the knee-jerk loyalists in the absence of actual information.

» Posted By Anonymous since it's all the rage On April 14, 2011 @ 12:21 pm