Comments Posted By Helga

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Laurie Paffhausen, May Her Memory Be Eternal

Yes, I think Jeff was talking about Archbishop Tikhon.

» Posted By Helga On November 23, 2012 @ 11:09 pm

AG cannot possibly be Fr. Alexander Garklavs. His Matushka, Carol, is very much alive, as far as I know.

» Posted By Helga On November 23, 2012 @ 8:25 am

URright, thank you. I’m glad you got your prayer rope back so quickly.

I wish I could have been there for Laurie’s funeral, but it was not possible. On Tuesday night I prayed along with the Panikhida, from home. I will have to pay my respects to Laurie personally in the future.

» Posted By Helga On November 22, 2012 @ 9:49 pm

For everyone’s information, this thread pops up when Laurie’s name is searched for on Google and other search engines.

While Met. Jonah is a public figure, she is not. George may not agree judging by how he moderates the comments, but I feel Laurie deserves better than to have her memory mixed up in all these OCA politics. She did a lot for us just with her occasional comments here, plus her hard work helping her brother. I am grieving for her, and I have a hard time reading all this stuff in a thread that I would rather have been about her.

Please keep that in mind when you make comments in this thread.

» Posted By Helga On November 21, 2012 @ 2:43 pm

I hope that the gesture of sending the letter came from a good place. If so, they should follow this condolence letter with the necessary apologies and retractions.

I am not sure what should be overtly offensive about the content of the letter, unless it was delivered taped to a rock and hurled through the living-room window. The letter did come from people who caused Laurie a lot of pain, but it would have been worse not to acknowledge her.

But the best thing to do would have been never to have caused the pain to begin with.

» Posted By Helga On November 21, 2012 @ 9:00 am

Max, I understand, but what part of “this is neither the time nor the place” don’t you, Fr. George, and AG understand?

» Posted By Helga On November 20, 2012 @ 11:53 am

I think Met. Jonah would be her next of kin and likely chose St. Nicholas, for whatever reason, and I don’t think he would have picked it if he thought there was a chance they wouldn’t let him through the door.

I am not sure if the OCA will let him serve, or that he would want to if they did let him. I just hope everyone will concentrate on Laurie and paying their respects to her, and hopefully no one will make it any harder on the family than it has to be.

» Posted By Helga On November 20, 2012 @ 8:53 am

Terry, I should think so!

I don’t know about whether he can or will play a role in the service.

I am hoping that this development means the OCA administration has decided to be on their best behavior.

» Posted By Helga On November 19, 2012 @ 8:48 pm

AG, when George Michalopulos destroys the lives of the Syosset employees and their families, you will have a point. Even moreso if they all happen to be innocent. Well, they are not innocent, nor has anything said here harmed anything more than, perhaps, their egos.

The Paffhausens, on the other hand, had their lives viciously and deliberately destroyed, and only because their son/brother dared to do the job he had been elected to do.

That said, I think this is neither the time nor the place to argue this. We need this place to grieve for Laurie and pray for her repose, and for the consolation of her parents and brother.

» Posted By Helga On November 19, 2012 @ 4:18 pm

Thank you, Laurie. May you rest with the saints, where all sickness, sorrow, and sighing have fled away. Pray for your parents, your brother, and all of us who remember your hard work for the truth. Memory eternal!

» Posted By Helga On November 19, 2012 @ 3:10 pm

Extra! Syosset Reports of Deal Struck with Met. Jonah Not True

Your Grace, I do not understand how you can think Metropolitan Jonah’s would-be successor is another chance for the OCA, when this same person was directly involved in activities you refer to as “brazen and conscienceless”, activities that directly led to his taking Met. Jonah’s place.

I also don’t understand why you have to hold Metropolitan Jonah’s take on the financial scandal against him. He was an abbot in California when all that happened. Whatever the truth is, at the time, all he had to go on was the SIC report. He didn’t speak up at the council in order to rub the allegations in, he spoke up because the Synod asked him to, and because he knew innocent people were hurting and needed help. What he said was meant to help them move past the scandal.

I really don’t understand how you could suggest Metropolitan Jonah’s cruel treatment at the hands of the Synod was any sort of karmic retribution for that.

» Posted By Helga On January 3, 2013 @ 10:28 am

Stankovich, I would like you to cite a single instance where I have ridiculed your surname. I don’t remember having an opinion on the length of your hair, as I’m not sure I know what you look like.

If you’re done masticating the scenery, I’d like to know why the OCA bishops don’t want to release Metropolitan Jonah.

» Posted By Helga On December 24, 2012 @ 12:18 pm

Nikos, it is oddly fitting for there to be so many Ph.Ds in the administration, because one could say the OCA itself has gone from B.S. and M.S., to being “Piled Higher and Deeper”.

Apart from his fancy sheepskin, Fr. John Jillions doesn’t exactly have the history one would associate with a hire for such a critical administrative position in the OCA. But it doesn’t take much to go around yelling “ALL IS WELL! ALL IS WELL!”

» Posted By Helga On December 22, 2012 @ 9:15 pm

Your Grace, you may be right when you say Vladyka Tikhon’s persona has little to do with the “rather brazen and conscienceless actions” of the OCA. However, those “rather brazen and conscienceless actions” have led to great personal benefit for Vladyka Tikhon, while he has done nothing to apologize for or explain this.

» Posted By Helga On December 22, 2012 @ 3:16 pm

Stankovich, I have not scorned your name, nor am I scorning it now. It does not appear that you want to be addressed with your given name, since you only use your initial. You have specified that you do not want to be addressed by the honorific “doctor”. All that leaves me with your surname.

I didn’t think I was expected to reply to Vladyka Tikhon’s insinuations. But how is that relevant? Instead of chasing after trifles, maybe you need to concentrate on finding things you yourself have scorned.

» Posted By Helga On December 22, 2012 @ 2:24 pm

Stankovich, you say we should let this go, while mysteriously the OCA refuses to let Met. Jonah go. You cannot seriously expect us to leave him behind. That will not happen.

» Posted By Helga On December 21, 2012 @ 12:21 am

Nikos, in all fairness, Fr. Jillions did get a doctorate in NT from Thessaloniki. But I don’t find his blog particularly edifying, especially since it is so transparently one of Syosset’s tools for keeping the rabble quiet.

However, I can’t imagine what you would find desirable about hearing from +Tikhon more often. I have never thought he was a particularly good writer or homilist. Does he have any good points?

» Posted By Helga On December 19, 2012 @ 10:49 am

Fr. John Morris, welcome to our world!

There are plenty of people in the OCA ranting about “Episcopalian converts” who are “ruining the church”. What they are referring to are people who are simply proclaiming what the Orthodox Church has always taught, who may be converts or cradle, and if converts may have come from any number of places. This anti-”Episcopalian convert” business is the movement to marginalize people who object to tacit approval of homosexual behavior and coupling. It’s in all the jurisdictions now.

By the way, in the OCA, it has become associated with another movement which seeks to subjugate bishops to laypeople under the guise of “conciliarity”. Not subjugate them to all laypeople, mind you: just subjugate them to a handful of self-proclaimed Guardians of the Revolution.

Metropolitan Jonah is only a recent and high-profile victim of all this, because His Beatitude is strongly opposed to both the sodomite hypocrisy and having his rightful authority marginalized. He is also a convert from the Episcopal Church and has not been shy about a desire to welcome more Episcopalians into Orthodoxy. All of this is anathema to the novel movements, and until these movements are repudiated, the people behind them are just going to keep persecuting innocent people.

It’s Metropolitan Jonah today, it may be you tomorrow.

» Posted By Helga On December 13, 2012 @ 4:41 pm

Nikos,

Not surprising, any of it.

I agree that SVS needs to exorcise the spirit of the OCA. The OCA doesn’t give them a shred of financial support, the best they could do was a weak AAC resolution requesting parishes consider donating 1% of their funds. How long has SVS been in a state of financial exigency while Syosset throws money away on the chancery?

And Fr. Hopko’s tenure as dean? Don’t get me started!

Metropolitan Jonah has a great deal of respect for Frs. JM and AS, but he’s not such a fanboy that he can’t recognize any flaws in their thinking, nor does he push heterodox ideologies into their writing that the priests never intended.

And Jesse? I suppose you could build the time machine anyway, there’s plenty of worthwhile things you could do besides going to school with Stankovich and Stokoe. Just be sure to top off the tank in the DeLorean before you go.

» Posted By Helga On December 12, 2012 @ 4:47 pm

Jesse, there is no need to waste your time building a time machine so you can attend SVS in the late 1970′s.

Stankovich’s listed criteria for “earning a voice” are completely self-centered and arbitrary masks for the real criteria, which involve being part of a coterie of SVS alumni and their renovationist bastardization of Fr. Alexander Schmemann and Fr. John Meyendorff. Metropolitan Jonah himself fits most of the criteria Stankovich listed, but you see how much credit that earns him, because Metropolitan Jonah doesn’t subscribe to their ideology.

» Posted By Helga On December 11, 2012 @ 12:36 am

Your Grace, they wouldn’t want Metropolitan Jonah to forsake monasticism. That’s pretty much the only defense they have against him filing a lawsuit.

» Posted By Helga On December 9, 2012 @ 11:38 pm

Nikos, notice that Metropolitan Jonah’s cardinal sin, in the eyes of Syosset functionaries and other enablers like Stankovich, is not anything he actually did as Metropolitan, but his retaining legal counsel after the coup.

Apparently, having a lawyer is some horrible thing that monks are not supposed to do, although these people don’t object to spending ungodly amounts of money on the OCA’s legal team for their own benefit.

The truth is that the Syosset functionaries thought Met. Jonah’s monastic lifestyle meant that they could do whatever they wanted to him. They expected him to roll over and take the beating because he would never stand up for himself.

If they actually thought Met. Jonah was engaging in frivolous and vengeful legal action against the OCA, you would expect them to attack the actual merits of the case. But no, they attack him simply for defending himself.

» Posted By Helga On December 9, 2012 @ 8:04 am

Stankovich, I see you are waxing poetic on the “grace of the Holy Spirit” of Parma. Yes, it was so grace-filled, it had to be stage-managed. So blessed by God, the business of the council needed to be protected from honest procedural questions. So infused with the will of the people, the bishops had to cull delegates based purely on whether or not they had expressed critical opinions of the events that precipitated the council.

As I recall, Metropolitan Jonah attended SVS not long after you did, learned at the feet of Fr. Alexander Schmemann and Fr. John Meyendorff just like you did, earned the same M.Div you and Mark Stokoe earned, and even added an M.Th for good measure. He spent years working as a lay assistant in parishes, was ordained to the priesthood, was tonsured a monk, fostered several missions, and even MacGyvered a monastery out of the mold-eaten hermitage in Point Reyes.

Some might call that a degree of success in church work. It is certainly an advantage over one whose noble accomplishments include settling old scores with a church gossip blog.

» Posted By Helga On December 8, 2012 @ 11:24 pm

Carl has officially come down from crossing the bridge to living under it. *cough*

Seriously… who would deny Metropolitan Jonah a living wage? There’s also the support of his parents to think about: Metropolitan Jonah is their only living child now, and he needs to be able to work in order to fulfill his responsibility to support and look after them.

But none of this will move Mr. Kraeff’s pity! To him, $40,000 is very generous, even though it would mean Metropolitan Jonah living in one of the most expensive parts of the country, supporting three people on maybe a third of what he made as Metropolitan, and working for someone who hates his guts. Metropolitan Jonah could do better as a public school teacher!

The Berkeley offer is a sick and appalling joke, and it shows the OCA bishops do not respect Patriarch Kirill or the Moscow Patriarch, despite the years of strong support Moscow has shown the OCA.

» Posted By Helga On December 1, 2012 @ 9:57 am

Your Grace, what a bizarre question! You may as well ask why Mark Stokoe is privy to information about the assignments offered to Metropolitan Jonah by the OCA, commenting on the proposals to alleged journalist Svetlana Vais.

At least Protodeacon Wheeler lives in the area of Syosset and has a brother-in-law who works there…

» Posted By Helga On November 30, 2012 @ 2:43 pm

Carl, I am still in the OCA, and Colette’s question is my question.

» Posted By Helga On November 27, 2012 @ 3:12 pm

Seraphim98, I think you have it on the money when you say the offer is an insult to Moscow as well as Met. Jonah. The OCA bishops don’t respect Patriarch Kirill or the Moscow Patriarchate any more than they respect Met. Jonah.

» Posted By Helga On November 26, 2012 @ 10:29 am

Seraphim98, I think the best metaphor is that it’s a slap in the face.

» Posted By Helga On November 25, 2012 @ 7:05 pm

Your Grace, did the whole “sole support of his parents” thing escape their attention?

» Posted By Helga On November 25, 2012 @ 2:50 pm

Totally agree, despondent.

We got a little information about it from Stokoe’s interview with Svetlana Vais, apparently Metropolitan Jonah has been offered various “positions” and rejected them. No comment on the actual feasibility of those positions, or whether the Synod means to put him through the six months of “therapy” in order to take them, or what would happen to his parents in the meantime.

Metropolitan Jonah has no real future in the OCA.

» Posted By Helga On November 24, 2012 @ 9:08 pm