Comments Posted By Jesse Cone
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Distraction? From what exactly?
From demanding the Metropolitan come out and agree with you?
The bottom line is that you assume this is where the answers are buried, and I disagree with you because there is no evidence for that belief.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 12, 2012 @ 6:58 pm
Stanko,
I’m convinced, along with several others, that you have psychological problems. I demand you go to St. Luke’s for a week long evaluation. 9 months later I will expect all your decisions will be grounded in your response to that evaluation. If you break up with your significant other, clearly you didn’t obey.
And since you’ll be the ONLY one who can LEGALLY prove this theory wrong I expect you to volunteer to make the results of your evaluation public to whoever asks.
Right.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 12, 2012 @ 6:04 pm
Here’s an interview from 2006 with Abp. Job where he says the OCA “fumbled the ball” with their autocephaly.
I’d love to hear from Bp. Tikhon as to how this was received at the time.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 12, 2012 @ 2:29 pm
There are some very good people and parishes in the DOW.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 12, 2012 @ 12:46 pm
I love how everything gets pinned on Fr. Fester. I’m sure he’s behind every dissenting voice, both in the OCA and out.
Cuz that’s likely.
The “find the Fester” fixation is just an unconvincing and sad attempt at creating an obviously ad hominem argument. The main reason we don’t do the same with Stokoe is because it’s a waste of time and a distraction from a topic that people (obviously) are passionate about.
But then again, if you’re passionate about Fr. Fester I suppose that wouldn’t seem like a distraction.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 12, 2012 @ 12:44 pm
Stanko,
Is that supposed to be a reply to my point? Because if so it seems non sequitur.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 12, 2012 @ 12:30 pm
Another story in Russian: Metropolitan Jonah: A Good Man in Syosset.
And, at the very beginning it mentions the conspicuous fact that a strange number of OCA Metropolitans are living and retired. It MUST just be the South that finds that fishy!
Story below (Google translation):
+ + + + + + + + + + +Last Friday, at his residence in Washington, in the presence of Chancellor Archpriest John Dzhillionsa Archbishop of Washington Metropolitan of All America and Canada Jonah, signed his resignation , and the next day during a telephone meeting of the members of the Synod released his statement. Thus, the fifth was the third of the primate alive today hierarchs of the Orthodox Church in America, followed by Metropolitan Theodosius (Lazorom) and Herman (fid), sent in his resignation.
See also: Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhauzen) – full text of the resignation
Metropolitan Jonah
James Paffhauzen, this is the secular name of Metropolitan Jonah was born in the Episcopal family in Chicago. While in college in San Diego, met with the Orthodox and the same place in 1978, is a university student, was baptized in the church of Our Lady of Kazan, which is under the omophorion of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Many years later, already in the metropolitan, in an interview with The Tribune, he acknowledges that “converted to Orthodoxy intuitively, at the call of the heart.” Learning of this, the family was horrified.
Working in Russia on his doctoral dissertation and in the magazine “Russian pilgrim,” James meets monasticism and decides to dedicate himself to monastic life. Most likely, a decision of the people that “the call of the heart.”
Having tasted the Valaam monastic life and finding a spiritual father in the face of the abbot archimandrite Pancratius, Hieromonk Jonah on his return to America, will the device monasteries and missions, little known to the American Orthodox Church actually places the feat – from Northern California to Hawaii.
Perhaps to this period belong such thoughts a monk, “I realized that I was not important cash position and power. I grew up a sort of manager, as my father and grandfather. But once I realized that all this – a void. “
In the spring of 2008, Hieromonk Jonah was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite and in obedience to the left the monastery. First, for the responsibilities entrusted to him auxiliary bishop and chancellor of the Diocese of the South, and then the Primate of the Orthodox 400000th U.S. jurisdiction.
At a young Metropolitan pinned its hopes of the orthodox conservative Americans vystupayushih to preserve family values, anti-abortion and sexual abuse.
Under Metropolitan Jonah, on the feast of the Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God Cathedral of the Sign in the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church held its first in decades, a joint ministry of the Primates, bishops and clergy of the OCA, ROCOR and the Moscow Patriarchate. Total served was more than 50 people. A half a year before their joint service was held at St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York.
But there were failures in management, administrative problems, friction with the Synod and the office in which all had a hard time. All of this, Metropolitan fit in two lines of computer letters of resignation: “I have long realized that neither my personality nor my character is not fit to hold the post of primate, of the office to which I aspired, and which was not looking for” .
“Care” of metropolitan long and cruel. Lent last year, the Metropolitan was sent to the clinic for examination, and then – in the forty-day vacation – “for thought.” A few days ago his “accused” in the softness. “Imagine this: the Metropolitan said that if he did not immediately write a letter of resignation, he will not sign a check for wages. And imagine the Metropolitan, who signs the letter! “
This is an entry in one of the U.S. index has appeared in these same two days time – from Friday evening until Sunday, when the OCA website has posted the official information on the resignation of the primate. They accused the Metropolitan and loyalty to Moscow.
The latest arrival, who visited the Metropolitan Jonah shortly before his retirement, was the arrival of Antioch Holy Cross in the town of Linthicum, Maryland. As a gift to the church, he brought the holy relics of St. Tikhon and the Great Elizabeth, was in a good mood and talked for a long time for a meal with the pastor, congregation, youth.
***
Under the heading … “Metropolitan Jonah kicked ‘ well-known journalist Rod Drier writes that American sinodaly “do not realize that it is likely that his act, they signed the death warrant of the Church.”
The Orthodox Church in America originated in 1970 when the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in America, the Moscow Patriarchate has been granted a Tomos of autocephaly. Granted on a wave of activity of such standing in the forefront of its charismatic personalities as Archpriest Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff. They and their like-minded American Autocephalous Church was seen as the basis for a future All-American Local Church, a stronghold of Orthodoxy in American Protestant-Catholic world.
Autocephaly of the new church did not initially recognize the Patriarchate of Constantinople (say, however, the reluctance of Constantinople to give their influence in America). But many in the U.S. today are convinced that the American autocephaly premature and controversial that the American Church is still so young, that “she needs to care,” and, among the weakest of its sides is called: the lack of due obedience to the hierarchy, the lack of tradition of monasticism, and such an important component, as a Christian martyr, not to mention the fact that after her talent autocephaly, the OCA had lost many of the traditions of the Russian Church.
Further undermined its credibility crisis associated with the publication of evidence of financial abuse, which resulted in the resignation of the head first OCA Metropolitan Theodosius in 2002, and later his successor, Metropolitan Herman – in 2008.
Metropolitan Jonah in the financial scandals and abuses has not been noticed. In his letter he apologized for his mistakes and blunders, and appealed to members of the Synod of the request, “given its financial situation” and the need to financially support their elderly parents and sister, to give him the opportunity to take one of the episcopal office.
At the end of a telephone meeting of the members of the Synod of the OCA, which took place on July 9, issued a statement on temporary duty under the former primate: the senior hierarch of the consecration, Archbishop Nathaniel of Detroit (Popp) was temporary administrator of the Orthodox Church in America, whose name was prior to the appointment of a new primate will be exalted in the Liturgy ; temporary administrator was appointed bishop of the OCA in New York and New Jersey, Michael (Dahulich), the youngest of his consecration Bishop Alexander (Golitsyn), temporarily headed by the Washington Department.
Metropolitan Jonah will retain the title of metropolitan and “the former Archbishop of Washington Metropolitan of All America and Canada.”
Tatiana Veselkin, New York, specifically to the portal “Orthodoxy and the World.”
Photo by Anatoly Danilov
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 11, 2012 @ 7:20 pm
Speaking of handling the truth: I would like to see our Chancellor acknowledge that there are far more people claiming the resignation is the fruit of viciousness, pettiness, and poorly-thought out strategy than an over-arching conspiracy.
There’s a difference between believing people conspire maliciously and being a crack-pot conspiracy theorist.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 11, 2012 @ 6:47 pm
This Is Far from Over: Get Religion Weighs In
Carl says,
Nothing worked.
as witnessed to all by the fact that he continued to travel, speak, and be liked by the vast majority.
To the masses +Jonah was an count in favor of the OCA, so whatever work only seemed to be harming those who worked around him. He has clean background, something that is far more weighty and permanent than potential harm caused by “procedural” gaffes. Organizations have protected and supported their figureheads even when they didn’t like them and even when they had glaring shortcomings because it was obviously better (and easier) for them to do so.
Yet for well over a year many of those around the Metropolitan have preached his shortcomings rather than the Gospel, and when we add up all the complaints what do we have? Nothing that comes close to sinking a Metropolitan. Nothing that warrants this degree of inter-OCA turmoil, international embarrassment, and the cost of another Sobor.
Those of us who love the Church and serve in our parish know our priests well; their mistakes and their shortcomings. We still love them, we still support the Church. Can you imagine if a parish treated their priest (esp. publicly) the way the Metropolitan has been treated? It would be more shameful for the parish than for the priest.
“Nothing worked.” says Carl. Maybe we haven’t correctly diagnosed the problem.
Let’s get Metropolitan number 4 in here and try again. I’m sure that will fix it.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 12, 2012 @ 11:58 pm
I don’t think your description bears scrutiny. However I do think that the fact that you can straight-facedly talk about how great it was that he was given so much leeway and how gracious an uncanonical probation is demonstrates the kind of misunderstanding of primacy that led us into this mess.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 12, 2012 @ 7:09 pm
Carl, please tell me about the cannon that puts primates of autocephalus Churches on probation.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 12, 2012 @ 5:59 pm
H&O,
While you bring up some reasonable concerns (“is this just the DOS causing dissension?”) and some good points (there’s limited good to internet chatter, and quite a bit of harm) there is much more at play here than that.
For starters, OCAT ceased publication. I didn’t want it to be divisive any more than it already had. The way forward for the OCA required some internet stillness. However, I strongly believe the way forward was not taken.
As for your dismissiveness of HB, well that suggests you’re in an echo chamber, not us. People outside of Orthodoxy were impressed and pleased by him. Other jurisdictions were excited by him. I just heard from an Orthodox friend in another continent who is at an international patristics conference, and he’s disturbed and praying for HB. He’s NEVER been OCA. I’m no longer in the DOS (but still OCA) and I hear about how people think HB is great and has been treated poorly.
Lastly, the sad fact of the matter is that the comments here is the BEST place to get the latest trustworthy news. Sure there’s some misinformation here, but the past week has proven that news breaks here. That’s one of the reasons why you sound hollow when you suggest that we don’t know what we’re talking about.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 11, 2012 @ 4:11 pm
This Is Far from Over: Catholic Online Weighs In
No worries there Carl, there’s a lot going on right now. It’s nice to have something — anything — cleared up and clarified.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 11, 2012 @ 6:40 pm
Carl,
you keep reading that? from me?
I believe I hypothesized parenthetically. If I wanted to bring canonical charges, I wouldn’t do it like that.
As for the canons and the Statute; I’m just glad someone wants to read ‘em these days.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 11, 2012 @ 1:19 pm
Stanko,
I’m glad you see this systemically,
I however, see being forced to talk about “disaster” and to go to St. Luke’s to be an unhelpful act of bullying, one that was not likely to change things for the better. Before you call HB a liar, I do think he was acting out of love by going to St. Luke’s, and it was selfless love. Yet it was still an act of bullying; a symptom of the systemic failure and not its solution.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 11, 2012 @ 1:11 pm
Stanko,
Let’s not muddle this: you assume the problem is Met. Jonah’s mental state and his belligerence with instruction and help. I assume neither of these because the evidence doesn’t suggest it.
Again I ask, why do you think he’s the problem and not those around him who refuse to take any responsibility?
Don’t you remember Seattle? No one should have to undergo that level of humiliation, especially in public, and especially a primate. Non OCA friends of mine found it embarrassing and shameful for the OCA and convinced them that the real problem was endemic; not +Jonah. Their animus backfires and they convince people he’s a humble martyr, not a narcissistic maniac.
You’re making the same, counter-productive play.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 11, 2012 @ 2:25 am
MStank,
I am surprised to see you go from your agreement with me here:
“The failure of the Synod to function well speaks of the failure of the Synod as a whole and not merely their president,” and I guarantee that a program such as the one utilized understood this as well. At least two other bishops were there at the beginning and the conclusion, and I believe that whatever recommendation was made, it was not limited to an expectation of change on the part of the Metropolitan alone.
to,
And the only person who can explain it is the Metropolitan himself. What did they recommend? If he rejected their recommendation, why?
You have to assume SO MUCH to get from that A to that B.
Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to wonder why we haven’t ever heard the Synod take any responsibility for their role in dysfunction? Or even admit that they have a part to play in dysfunction? Instead all we have seen is the
supportingcast throw him under the bus (ex. Fr. Leonid’s indefensible and disingenuous presentation at the AAC).You “guarantee” us that you know what sort of thing the eval at St. Luke’s consisted in, but you have a long way to go to convince me that the St. Luke’s experience would have fixed the problem if only the Metropolitan had followed instructions.
I’m not the expert you are, but I see dysfunction in the Synod and Syosset, and the Metropolitan seems to be the most humble, malleable piece, and the only one that is willing to take any responsibility. In other words, it looks like he’s the one wanting things to change, while the rest seem happy to chew up and spit out white hat after white hat as our trust deteriorates and the Gospel goes neglected.
The OCA is now known more for patricide and pettiness than for proclaiming the faith. What a shameful use of our autocephaly.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 10, 2012 @ 11:33 pm
lxc is completely correct: Any failure of Met. Jonah’s ministry once he arrived in Syosset is also Syosset’s failure. The failure of the Synod to function well speaks of the failure of the Synod as a whole and not merely their president.
(Especially when they meet and conspire uncanonically!)
As for the mention of the two other retired Metropolitans — who didn’t necessarily advance the reputation of the OCA — well that must be because +Jonah didn’t follow the OCA’s policies and procedures!
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 10, 2012 @ 8:48 pm
Nothing Syosset will say will sufficiently answer why the cost/ benefit of forcing his resignation makes sense for the OCA.
They underestimated Met. Jonah’s popularity and influence because so many of them hold him in utter disdain.
They didn’t like his ministry because they disdained him.
Go back and read the leaked letters from last year’s cabal. The plan was to use fear, especially fear of sexual misconduct lawsuits, as a “hook”. I’m not saying the fear wasn’t entirely real, but certainly some of it was manufactured , and most of the real fear was misguided. Archbishop Nathaniel punished a priest and his family for reporting sexual impropriety, and this threat of a lawsuit is much scarier than the idea that HB is responsible for a non-OCA priest who misbehaved and was subsequently banned. A year ago. Yet +Nathaniel straight-faced accused HB of jeopardizing the OCA? Of inviting lawsuits? Of not following the OCA’s policies and procedures?
The rest of the Lesser
of allSynodscan also be exposed as pointing out specks in HB’s eye while having logs in their own.It beggars belief.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 10, 2012 @ 8:02 pm
This Is Far from Over: The Chicago Tribune Weighs in
Alf the Amazing:
So good to be a protopresbyter in protopresbyterian-land.
Brilliant!
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 10, 2012 @ 6:32 pm
The misbehaving priest, Fr. Simeon, was never accepted into the OCA. My understanding is that +Jonah could have accepted him in order to defrock him.
Or, he could have banned him from serving in his parishes; which is what I believe he did.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 10, 2012 @ 6:26 pm
That’s news to me.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 9, 2012 @ 6:22 pm
A Terrible Day for the Republic
CQ,
I can see why the “you are not responsible for my salvation” comment would smack of Protestantism. However, the next sentence clarifies what George means here — and I think that is quite Orthodox.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 6, 2012 @ 11:03 pm
Would You Want Your Son to be a Priest?
MB,
Just to be clear, I’m not valuing the married life over the monastic. I believe some are called to one sacramental life, some to another. Additionally, the monastic life and the solitary life are two different things.
I’m calling for a symbiotic relationship between monastics and marrieds, between the monastery and parish.
And I’m calling for us to remember that status as married or monastic does not give one a privileged role in the Kingdom; just your role. We all still need theosis.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 2, 2012 @ 12:41 pm
Fr. John Morris decries monasticism using the following formula:
Given the problems caused by some _________, any sensible person would be leery of _________.
The obvious analog to monasticism is marriage, and that formula seems to hold. That being said, I am personally called to the married life, and must therefore try to make my marriage Christ-like, despite the counter-examples that would make all sensible people leery of the institution. I would venture to say my monastic friends feel the same way about the sacramental life they are called into.
I bring this up, knowing that it’s not entirely to the points of this discussion, because I get frustrated when people see monasticism as either “more Orthodox than marriage” or as an analog to a career rather than a sacramental undertaking. Even the best intentioned, prudential, and necessary warnings about monastic life can serve to obscure our focus of what monasticism should be and cause harm, especially to those considering their monastic calling.
As for the questions like “How should my parish interact with monastics and monasteries?” I think a good place to start is the expectation of a healthy, symbiotic relationship.
Perhaps the precursor to skepticism (cynicism?) of monastics is the belief that monasticism is a magic bullet — it cures everything by making it “more Orthodox”. This is, of course, misguided. I see know reason to think, for example, that a monastic priest is inherently more trustworthy than a married one, and vice versa.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On July 1, 2012 @ 12:53 am
My guess is that this “mistake” is what precipitated the site’s removal.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On June 27, 2012 @ 4:09 pm
Carl, you thought that was slick? Aside from judgments of the writer’s facility with language and the obviousness of the writer’s purposes the article is so wrong about so many, many things it’s hard for anyone who has been paying attention to give it much weight.
Mistakes like thinking +Nikolai is deposed, not knowing his last name, etc., stand out as +Tikhon has pointed out.
Moreover that business about +Jonah’s agenda during his trip to Moscow in 2011 can only be explained as a product from the fearful minds of those who have raising the alarm about how HB is a “threat to autocephaly”. (And where is this “threat” documented?) This is telling: the writer gets basic facts wrong about the OCA, but is privy to “secret” agenda of HB in Moscow? Whoever has been feeding “Alethia Bringer” (1) is in +Mark’s episcopal corner, and (2) spreads paranoid untruths about the Metropolitan.
I’m just waiting for someone to claim that this dissent — dissent that pits the interests of an Auxiliary Bishop against his Ruling Bishop and Metropolitan — is solely +Jonah’s fault.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On June 27, 2012 @ 4:02 pm
Abbot Gerasim has been vetted. If his teachings are heretical, than so are rest of the bishop’s in the OCA.
That doesn’t make him the right choice, but it does mean that those attempts at casting dispersion on his teachings (and the Serbs by extension) don’t hold water.
His reputation in California is glowing, and St. Herman’s is treasured and well-thought of in no small part due to him.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On June 26, 2012 @ 6:34 pm
Perhaps I’m being overly simplistic here, but I think the main point here isn’t what happened in Toledo, but that what happened in the DOS has caused people to reevaluate everything that came before. To use a close-at-hand analogy: what was revealed about Mark Stokoe has caused most to reevaluate their opinions of RSK, + Nikolai, etc.
Moreover, I have heard from multiple people that +Mark told them he collaborated with Stokoe while he was in the Antiochian Archdiocese. How, why, and to what extent I don’t know.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On June 26, 2012 @ 6:26 pm
It’s Time to Bring Vladyka Dmitri Back to His Cathedral
«« Back To Stats PageDio, while some seem worried about whether or not they will be compelled to revere a man in death whom they did not revere in life that is quite tangential to the construction of a mausoleum. The surest way to get a campaign for his canonization is to start one against it.
People want to bring him home because they love him.
It seems self-evident to anyone who spent a length of time at the cathedral that it’s where he belongs.
» Posted By Jesse Cone On May 18, 2012 @ 3:36 pm
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