Comments Posted By Jesse Cone

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More from Russia, Not with Love

Fr. George,

Had I just recently arrived on the scene I would think your comment was a good representation of a “middle way”, and therefore would have trusted it. However, this middle way seems to ignore and oversimplify the situation.

There has been ample opportunity — most notably the post-Santa Fe Lent — where the Synod would have been able to squash this divisive situation by merely issuing a statement of support for +Jonah, saying they would not be retiring him or extending the Leave of Absence. This was suggested to many bishops on multiple occasions, as well as publicly asked for. One bishop told me they would not do so because it was too much work to put together such a statement, and there was no real need for it. However, the following week the WaPo published their article on +Jonah; almost immediately garnering a whiny, almost-jealous sounding response from the Synod.

What explains this behavior? What explains their inactivity with the DOS? with Fr. Gerasim? with the parishes and clergy requesting release? with +Jonah’s release?

What explains their obsessive and no-holds barred pursuit of Frs. Wood and Fester, while rehabilitating Stokoe, Bps. Mark and Matthias?

As for +Jonah’s administrative problems; feel free to cite your references in this respect. I will be interested to see if it rivals those directly attributed to some of the other bishops who so quickly cast their stones in his direction.

I have said it many times before, and I will say it again: I will be thrilled if the Synod shows me cause to trust their motives, and there are discernible ways they can show the faithful they are not malicious.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 28, 2012 @ 7:47 pm

George should have also mentioned the embarrassing situation in Manton that caused a high profile monk to leave the OCA, the oopsies at St Tikhon’s that threatens numerous aspects of an already tenuous situation, the unrest at the representation Church in Russia, and the complete disregard shown the Diocese of the South regarding their assembly and continued failure the vet the man they said was vetted as their candidate for bishop, then said they never met, then sent across the country to be under the guidance of a bishop but can’t seem to get to know.

Just another day in Protopresbyter paradise!

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 28, 2012 @ 4:04 am

“How do we know this?”

I have heard it from more than one source, so I’m not surprised to see it here. If you don’t want to take my word for it I would encourage you to call either your bishop or Syosset and ask them. Please document what they say.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 12, 2012 @ 3:01 pm

The Apostolic Mission of Bishops: A Short Reflection

Photius kindly asks,

What kind of an idiot recommends the KJV.

Archbishop Dmitri of blessed memory.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On November 30, 2012 @ 11:06 am

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

Stankovich,

I didn’t realize you wanted me to instruct you. All this time I’ve been trying to keep this simple and pointed by asking you questions that should be answerable.

– What was +Jonah’s administrative “disaster”?
– Do you believe the July 17th letter was correct in its accusations and accurate in the facts it provides?
– If so, how do you square that with conflicting evidence about the timeline and the acceptance of the priest in question with the OCA?
– If not, don’t you think the letter should be publicly corrected, with apologies?

Fr. Tosi has said that they are investigating the claims made in the letter; an investigation we are anxiously waiting for yet see no evidence of. If the investigation is real, then the OCA has not moved on. What should we make of the situation if the investigation does not exist?

If you want to answer my questions, great. If not, and I’m boring you, feel free to practice what you preach and move on. At least you can understand that the questions have not been answered, and that to many of us, this fact is quite problematic.

I have one final question for you: why is it so important to you that we move on now? Why not wait for a couple more months, perhaps a year, while the stench from all this fades from our nostrils?

Does answering these questions really seem like a Sisyphean task to you?

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 19, 2012 @ 10:48 am

Stankovich says “move on”.

Do you want to tell that to Pat. Kirill or should I? Last I heard his express concern has not yet been tidied up.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 18, 2012 @ 12:24 am

Stankovich obfuscates by asking,

And you feel confident in your rudeness toward me for not joining you and your band of hyenas?

I feel confident in my position because your inability to answer the questions levied at you. Likewise, I feel more and more confident that Fr. Tosi was lying or incorrect when he said there was an investigation into the STINKBOMB letter, and the silence regarding the public slander of Met. Jonah further contributes confidence to my position that this was indefensible.

But, since you speak of Met. Jonah’s quietude and Parma, let’s go there. What did you expect from people who look towards +Jonah as a spiritual example? A public hissy-fit? Disorder? Frothing-at-the-mouth outrage? People forcing a scene through the walls of a carefully constructed and thoroughly expensive voting booth? Expecting such things further shows how little you understand the man we admire.

He has consistently shown us a spiritual way forward; something for more than political (read: backstabbing) acumen and administrative ambition.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 17, 2012 @ 2:07 pm

You’re welcome George.

I’ll also add the I came into the Church through a wonderful Antiochian parish, and that during my catechumenate there I was introduced by them to “For the Life of the World”. I am, and will always be, indebted to that book. Since then I have (unwittingly following Stankovich’s advice) paid special attention whenever Fr. Alexander has been invoked.

It strongly appears to me that though my Antiochian priest and parish had no explicit ties to Fr. Alexander they have been much more true to Fr. Alexander’s legacy — a legacy of evangelism through rich and obedient sacramental living — than those who rubbed shoulders with him administratively.

If all I had seen of Fr. Alexander had been what I’ve seen of his legacy in the OCA, his name would be repugnant to me and my family. Stankovich: for his sake I really hope you are not his legacy.

I said this during the OCAT days, and I’ll say it again. The Syosset Circle does not seem to understand that disagreement with them about their behavior or ideas does not necessarily constitute arrogance and willful ignorance. It constitutes disagreement. We may sit at your feet while you teach and still not believe you or be convinced by you. Trotting out a resume or a big name may help us to give you the time of day, but it won’t guarantee agreement.

But again, all of the bloviating from the Syosset Circle about legacies and Fr. Alexander is a smokescreen for the fact that they cannot answer the simple questions put to them.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 14, 2012 @ 1:46 pm

Stankovich says,

What do I read here? The jingoistic crap of those who have not invested the time to read his writings or speak with those who actually knew him, but anonymously dare to pejoratively refer to him as a “Parisian,” modernist, or “innovator” and would suggest to us we need to “re-evaluate what is still relevant about Alexander Schmemann.”

Please show me where Fr. Alexander has been derided on this site.

Also, please show me where people outraged over behavior like (for example) the demonstrably false STINKBOMB of a letter has anything to do with the legacy of Fr. Alexander.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 14, 2012 @ 1:22 am

Dn Eric psychologizes,

I am also sick am tired of those of you who have come into the church deciding that the litmus test for Orthodoxy is the position on abortion and homosexuality. Note to converts, our Orthodox church has been dealing with these issues for centuries. Ya’ll, who are wrapped up in these conspiracies, need to rediscover why you joined our Church and if it is because you were runnin’ from somethin’ in your former delusion, you may have come for all the wrong reasons.

I don’t know if this applies to me, but I feel quite misunderstood. And sneered at. It’s dripping off my computer screen.

Inasmuch as this is meant for me and those I know on this site, this is further demonstration that (a) you are part of the Syosset Circle, and (b) that they do not understand at all what is going on here.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 12, 2012 @ 2:39 pm

Thanks Helga, but what I am supposed to do with all these flux capacitors?

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 11, 2012 @ 10:37 am

It’s ironic that no one would know who I was if it wasn’t for Bp. Mark stealing emails and publishing them.

I think I am just as happy as Stankovich to see my name returning to that file.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 10, 2012 @ 1:55 pm

Stankovich,

The educational merits and Orthodox accomplishments of Mr. Stokoe aside, please understand that your tone and argument tell young, enthusiastic converts like me that there is no place for them in the OCA.

After all, how could I proceed to graduate from SVS in its heyday and run Orthodox institutions and make friends like Mr. Stokoe? I am in my twenty’s.

Moreover, I do not set myself up as a foil to anyone — and even then questions still remain. If, as one Protopresbyter claimed, hierarchs should not be judged on the internet then why was it acceptable for Stokoe to criticize +Jonah? That question garnered not an answer, but an attempt to exile me from business in the OCA. Likewise why should my question asking you to spell out what exactly was the administrative “disaster” of +Jonah’s garner name-calling and bravado instead of an answer?

This behavior, from a select few, is likely to convince enthusiastic twenty-somethings that of all the Orthodox fields to labor in, it would be best to avoid the OCA’s.

That would be reasonable, no?

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 10, 2012 @ 1:18 pm

Stankovich,

While it is not lost on me that you have failed to answer the most basic question posed to your perpetual accusations against Met. Jonah, I commend you on your public demonstration of the “this isn’t your church” attitude I have encountered over and over again from the Syosset Circle. A certain Protopresbyter gave me a similar response when I asked him if his criticisms of me applied as well to Mr. Stokoe.

Honestly, I don’t understand much of what you write, but your anger is palpable.

+Jonah, even in his weakness, showed us all the way forward. You just keep showing some of us the way out.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 7, 2012 @ 1:58 pm

Stankovich,

I always get a little giddy when people bring up that “administrative disaster” complaint against +Jonah because it hi-lights the problems with the OCA quite nicely.

First, it hi-lights the fact that these administrative failings are so “disastrous” that no one outside the Syosset Circle knows or cares about them. Notice I’m not saying +Jonah doesn’t/ didn’t have faults as an administrator; just that they were of such a nature that forcing (or even allowing) such a mea culpa on a public stage is inappropriate to the point of idiocy.

Thus, the second thing it it hi-lights — the disconnect between Syosset and the boots on the ground. +Jonah is loved and respected by Orthodox in the continent because of his wealth of gifts, but the Syosset Circle cannot or will not see it. Instead, they see vague, controversial disagreements between them and their primate as damning.

The third thing is that they find this internal matter regarding their beef with +Jonah so damning they force their issue with him upon the rest of the OCA. The damage caused to the OCA because of some personal animosity against +Jonah is astounding. There are no winners — but some people seem ok with that as long as +Jonah is among the losers.

The last thing is that administrative failure and inter-church turmoil has erupted after +Jonah. They don’t need his help to mess things up, they’re doing just fine on their own. They have a representational parish that is “losing” money in scandalous and fashion, and despite public pleading seem to be covering it up rather than investigating it; a bishop publicly humiliated and a Synodal response that demonstrates their double standards; a pitiful excuse of a reason for leaving their most lucrative diocese perpetually without a bishop, including the public cancellation of an election; a seminary in jeopardy due to allegations of conflicts of interest and illegal changing of bi-laws; a blistering indictment as a welcome to the new Metropolitan from their most significant ally; a libelous, vicious, and demonstrably false letter accusing their own primate, which has further trashed their own credibility with other jurisdictions by further substantiating the claim they “eat their own”.

All this in the span of a couple of months.

What, again, was +Jonah’s “administrative disaster”?

» Posted By Jesse Cone On December 5, 2012 @ 3:19 pm

And the White Hat Goes To…

James S.,

I’m sure the Antiochians would appreciate that choice. Our external relations would be, um, interesting.

A question: why do you think he’s been passed over as an episcopal candidate by dioceses in the OCA?

» Posted By Jesse Cone On November 12, 2012 @ 9:53 pm

“Personal Moral Failings”

Helga coins the term “Autocephalitis”. Brilliant!

» Posted By Jesse Cone On November 27, 2012 @ 11:54 am

More Narrative Fail: The OCL Weighs In

jacksson,

“His actions endangered the entire OCA” is best translated as “He didn’t follow the oligarchy’s vision for the OCA.”

I’m often reminded that some people think this is “their” OCA, and not mine and yours. Apparently I’m just an inconsequential Russophile from Dallas.

Again, what is lost in this is the Gospel. Isn’t that why people love and support +Jonah, because of his ability to remind us of the Gospel?

» Posted By Jesse Cone On September 20, 2012 @ 10:31 am

Scandal in Chicago: the Initial Story is No Longer “Operative”

Bishop Tikhon says,

Three years sounds like either a sentence or a therapeutic period.

I suppose that’s possible. However, from what I have heard but not confirmed, the Synod’s discipline of Fr. Zacchaeus had nothing to do with alcohol or sex. It was, I have heard, an issue of “obedience”.

As in, they didn’t like how he handled their investigation into him.

I don’t think St. Luke’s usually handles that.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On September 6, 2012 @ 8:42 pm

Here We Go Again?

Sorry for the confusion. The point I was trying to make was regarding what has to happen liturgically when a diocesan bishop goes on leave. In the case of +Jonah last year, the DOS — which has commemorated him as our locum tenens — had to commemorate the bishop who was at that moment responsible for us (+Nikon).

(+Jonah was still commemorated as primate, but that is not analogous to what’s happening now in the Midwest.)

Since (apparently) bishops can be secretly suspended, I’m wondering whether or not the secrecy will extend the public commemoration of the bishop in the liturgy. If not, it ain’t much of a secret, and it’s a pretty rotten way to let the faithful know their bishop ain’t their bishop; if so, that seems inconsistent in a deep liturgical manner — one I am very uncomfortable with.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On August 30, 2012 @ 1:24 pm

Sorry, I meant during HB’s “Leave” last year. Whom did ya’all commemorate?

» Posted By Jesse Cone On August 29, 2012 @ 5:51 pm

Rod says,

The Church has a right to know who this is, and that the allegations are against him.

True. Compare this to +Jonah’s infamous Leave of Absence last year. They appointed +Nikon locum tenens in the South and +Jonah was not commemorated. (I don’t remember what they did with DC. Colette, help?)

If a bishop is suspended, who’s minding things? Without them telling the faithful, the diocese will have major functioning problems. Unless, that is, that the current line of thinking is that bishops are rather dispensable in the functioning of the diocese — what with committees, Tsars, and a bench of Synod “untouchables” ready to step in. Perhaps we really have “progressed” in our understanding of a bishop since the time of St. Ignatius?

What’s to be gained from not being open about it? It’s not like anyone would find suspending a bishop right before an AAC — esp. when it’s happening within their diocese — suspicious!

» Posted By Jesse Cone On August 29, 2012 @ 10:22 am

Removing Metropolitan Jonah Hurt the American Orthodox Church

I came into the Orthodox Church by way of an EOC parish. When I talked to Vladyka Dmitri about them he told me of his frustration over how Met. Phillip embraced the EOC wholesale.

However, our beloved Vladyka was very happy that the EOC changed and conformed to Church traditions more and more under the guidance of their bishops after they were brought into the Church. He was also happy that time has shown that acceptance of the EOC was not a mistake, but a rather a wonderful testimony to how the Orthodox Church changes people.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On September 3, 2012 @ 3:31 pm

More Evidence that Jonah Was Railroaded

PdnNJ remarks,

Stanky has to be “pulling our leg.”

I know, right?

Perhaps Stanky is confused between Metropolitan Jonah and George Michalopulos.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On August 3, 2012 @ 12:24 am

Helga asks,

Now, how did rape enter into the discussion?

My understanding is that member of the Metropolitan Council speculated about Fr. X committing serial rapes — a speculation that was met with immediate amazement and rebuttal. Yet the speculation became a topic of conversation and discussion among members of the Synod/ MC/ CA. I don’t believe any credible allegations were made in this regard, and no “victims” came forward.

It’s my opinion that the priest in question, regardless of other mistakes and sins, was in fact “greatly slandered” in this occasion.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On August 3, 2012 @ 12:11 am

It’s also important to note that there is no trace of the priest in question in the official OCA “Pastoral Changes” documents.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On August 2, 2012 @ 11:56 pm

The issue, amazingly, has moved from whether or not the allegations in the Synod’s letter were true to what possible justification they might have for removing him with a lie. If +Jonah is even un poco loco they could have acted awhile ago for that reason, not another.

How is it that they could publicly smear and slander him, stirring up fear by making comparisons to Sandusky, when to the clergy of the OCA and other jurisdictions they claim an altogether different reason? That is, how can they do so and be acting in good faith?

» Posted By Jesse Cone On August 2, 2012 @ 2:44 pm

From Russia, Not with Love

Tim G believes that

There are many things that are said on this board and blog without a shred of evidence.

Yes. But there are also many things said here (and that includes the comboxes) that have proved to be true.

Even more interesting is the fact that there is evidence on this site regarding the claims of the “Stinkbomb” letter from the Synod . That is more than the Synod and Central Administration has to offer at the moment. Of course, I welcome an independent investigation and whatever evidence they bring to light.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On August 1, 2012 @ 9:31 pm

The Keystone Kops Swing into Action

F.A.

You nailed it.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On August 1, 2012 @ 1:48 pm

Another Hole in the Official Story: ‘Alleged Rape’ Timeline Reporting is Wrong

M. Stankovitch claims we have

ignored the fact that he was again offered the option of remaining Metropolitan, but participating in a program as St. Luke’ss (sic) recommended

Good point, let’s talk about it. It’s obvious to me that if he spent 6 months (!) in a treatment program at St. Luke’s for an unidentified “problem” he would (1) be declared unfit and retired and (2) would give those who want to explain away everything as “crazy +Jonah’s fault” the ammo they need. Those of us who share the opinion that +Jonah is fine, not the only problem, and further desire his spiritual leadership would all fail to see this as an option.

Someone said a while ago that the best play the Synod has right now is to try to get the “crazy” label to stick. I think that’s probably what they’ll do, but it’s not their best option. Nothing will erase how they didn’t allay concerns last year by simply speaking up in support of +Jonah, the fact that a “unanimous” voice came out of a Lesser Synod meeting instead of a meeting of the entire Synod, the fact that they’re explanation of his resignation is factually inaccurate as well as obviously scapegoating, that scapegoating has continued as the bishops and CA talks to the clergy and laity.

Insisting on going after +Jonah and this “treatment program” just confirms the suspicion that the “reasons” for the resignation were just “hook” they used to accomplish their anti-+Jonah campaign.

The only way forward is for the Synod to own up to their mistakes and apologize. That wouldn’t restore trust, but it would be a start.

» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 27, 2012 @ 12:09 pm