Comments Posted By Geo Michalopulos

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First Rule of Holes: When You’re in One, Stop Digging

Joseph, the reason I asked him if he were a lawyer was to point out the vapidity of the letter. I suspected he wasn’t a lawyer because those who are have told me that yesterday’s letter was defamotory and thus actionable.

I’m not a lawyer but I formatted Matthias’ letter this morning and I saw so many glaring inconsistencies, slanders, and tautologies that my essay (“First Rule of Holes…”) essentially wrote itself. I was done in 20 minutes.

Syosset is clearly desperate. I’m wondering what the next fool thing they’re going to do is?

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 7:48 pm

You know, if you’re such a profession BS-detector, then you could take down my arguments fairly easily, and without resorting to gratuitous slanders. But since you don’t, I assume that you can’t.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 7:43 pm

I’m not clever enough to be an actor. What you see is what you get.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 7:40 pm

L’audace, l’audace, toujours, l’audace!

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 7:39 pm

Unless of course the facts aren’t as this hastily-written and unsigned letter from the Synod presents it.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 7:38 pm

In the meantime, Silouoan, I will not tolerate any more badmouthing of Abbess Aemeliane or Elder Dionysios.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 7:35 pm

Harry, what makes you think that the “whole” MC and Synod see things all the same way? Do you have inside knowledge of this? You see, I’m skeptical by nature. It’s partly because I have to be in my profession. Plus my years in the GOA, esp at CL 2002 in LA led me to completely be on my guard when a “entire” synod says one thing. I imagine you’re the same way with the GOA eparchial synod. Why are you so trusting now about what we’re being told by the OCA’s synod?

Prudence would dictate a healthy dose of suspicion.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 4:14 pm

Jesse, if I may echo your sentiments. My hope is not and never was in Jonah the man, or Kirill, or Dmitri, or Iakovos, or Billy Graham. My hope is in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. As a bishop though, and primate, Jonah represented a traditionalist, evangelical path for the OCA, one which is now ground to dust. If I thought that there was a good man to replace him, I’d say, “let’s get on it!”

The problem is that even if we had 10 Jonahs on the Synod, the dysfunction is so entrenched that it won’t be able to right itself. It is possible that the slow-motion implosion of the OCA is necessary in God’s plan of salvation. Our self-idolatry, our incessant invoking of the name of Schmemann, our insoucuant unconcern with Orthopraxy, has made our jurisdiction unviable.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 4:09 pm

Mike, your concern for my credibility heartens me. Just curious, are you a lawyer?

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 3:59 pm

Would you be willing to send post it here?

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 3:57 pm

I’m sorry Nicholas, but I can’t be deluded in this instance because I don’t believe in episcopal infallibility. It seems that you do.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 3:56 pm

But Alice, he’s been forbidden from talking. Yet another poorly thought-out stratagem by the wonderboys.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 3:54 pm

Thank you for your prayers Cheryl.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 3:52 pm

How can he have “abandone” his monastery if his elder asked him to transfer to another one? I don’t get it. Please explain.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 2:39 pm

Silouan, did this really happen? Did you see it happen or was this conveyed to you second-hand? This needs to be confirmed. How would we go about doing so?

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 2:36 pm

Why would we want to do that? It’s much more fun to go around screaming like banshees and making all sorts of wild accusations!

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 2:30 pm

my mistake, it was his successor, Ireneus who was deposed. sorry.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 2:27 pm

If true, these are serious charges. However, wasn’t Diodoros himself defrocked as Patiarch of Jerusalem?

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 1:54 pm

Yes I do. These guys have a track record of ineptness. Right now there are a passel of people at the DOS assembly in Miami who have to spend an extra nite and buy an extra meal or two because Nikon unilaterally cancelled the elections.

And for those who cancelled, their parishes are left with unrefundable tickets.

If that’s not inept, what is?

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 12:39 pm

Maybe it “very kindly doesn’t mention it” because he didn’t say it? Is that a possibility?

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 12:36 pm

And after all this, you would believe Syosset? Based on what? The fact that they shut down an earlier investigation against a sitting bishop?

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 12:35 pm

Harry, you’re not a lawyer are you? I’m not either. But I do know that there is such a maxim as “two sides to the same story.” That’s why we don’t take guys out and lynch them when we think they did something wrong. We don’t do that even when they do do something wrong.

We’re beyond this now. The Synod in the way they acted has now totally delegitimized the OCA in the eyes of world Orthodoxy. There is no way that the OCA will survive their boneheadedness and there is nothing the OCA can now bring to the table should the Episcopal Assembly amount to anything. Nothing. We can jump up and down and scream that we’re Americans and the Old World can go pound sand, but it’s not going to do us a bit of good.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 11:48 am

I disagree Rod. I very much believe syosset would put out a CYA letter (in Peter P’s phraseology). These guys aren’t that bright. I’ve got some institutional memory of the OCA and know that they when things get bad they form a circular firing squad. All you gotta do is dredge up the old Kondratick affair. They pressed charges against him, spent $500K in legal fees and then wound up paying him $250K in damages. How smart is THAT?

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 11:44 am

Where’d you come up with that? I’ve heard of no such thing.

People, we’re forgetting one salient point: this priest was never under the omorphor of Jonah!

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 11:41 am

I rather like that idea. How about this one: that His Beatitude call an ecclesiastical court and that twelve bishops from various jurisdictions serve as magistrates? Clearly this is uncanonical from soup to nuts. Jonah’s resignation is likewise null and void, given the fact that it was discussed by a clandestine gathering of bishops without his presence and he was forced to write the resignation letter under duress.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 9:09 am

You Can’t Fix Stupid

Harry, I agree with you. But when our local bishops act in such an egregious (and uncanonical and immoral manner) don’t you see the scandal of it all? People are leaving the OCA right now as we speak. And all because of this. When it becomes clear that the primatial cathedral of the Archdiocese of Washington has become homophilic in its preachment and praxis, then many more people will leave.

I love an American church, I want an American church, but I don’t want that church to succumb to the spirit of the age. Because if it does, then it won’t be a “church” in the Christian sense, but a congregation that is hunky-dory with whatever fad springs forth from the mouths of over-educated PhDs who use words like “hermeneutics.” It’s that simple.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 18, 2012 @ 10:13 pm

The Lavender Mafia: Just a Conspiracy Theory?

Rev Deacon, I responded hastily (but correctly IMHO) earlier to your request that I should concentrate my fire on these gay cabals. Would you permit me to disagree? I am just a layman in the Church. It is the duty of the bishops to teach, preach, admonish, and discipline. Instead, I ask you to direct this request to them.

As for myself, I will continue to comment on those things which Monomakhos is famous for: religion, culture, and politics, offering reasoned analysis and opinion if necessary.

If the bishops are more interested in stabbing their primate in the back rather than engaging the culture, then we are truly lost. We will have to rely on the Roman Catholic hierarchy and any other Christian denominations which choose to remain stalwart and unafraid.

Shame on us.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 18, 2012 @ 10:07 pm

Fr Basil, I stand corrected. Please read Greg Gerassimon’s reply below. I believe this will expose the vacuousness of this specific charge against His Beatitude.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 8:15 pm

Ouch! I take it all back. We need a Sex Czar poste-haste! Just make sure he’s allowed to go after bishops!

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 8:13 pm

Jesse, the more this drags on, the more it begins to unravel. You, Mr Gerassimon, and others have proved to me that I chose the right title for this blog entry. One of the essential mistakes of this misbegotten letter is that there is so much opacity there that a careful analysis can unravel it.

» Posted By Geo Michalopulos On July 17, 2012 @ 8:05 pm