Comments Posted By Sava
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Breaking: More Info on the DOS and Bp Mark
Helga: Learn to read, sister. To self-quote:
“At least I take comfort because soon enough you’ll accept that Orthodoxy has “let you down” and you’ll ditch it as you have all your past religions.”
Where is exactly is my “expressed hope that Rod leaves the church”? Please locate that “hope” in there.
My actual hope is that Rod quiet down, write less (about Orthodoxy) and ponder the damage he did to the OCA – and he certainly did – as “Muzhik”. Orthodoxy has room for lots of sinners, me included, and Rod too.
Yet Rod continues to show his trademark self-righteousness about all this, just as he did towards the Catholic church before he ditched them (and, just like now, Rod the enthusiastic neophyte was mostly right about the issues – with the RC’s child sexual abuse and corruption in the hierarchy – but got wayyyyy hot and bothered over it for years in a strange and angry – and very public – way …. sound familiar?).
Rod was an ardent convert to Catholicism and became disillusioned about that church, then abandoned it in a very public manner. My Catholic friends definitely did not appreciate what Rod did to their beloved church, especially how public he was about it. I don’t want him doing the same to us, but I am pretty sure he is.
I’d like to be wrong about that, but I don’t (yet) think I am.
This hardly constituts “hope” Rod will leave Orthodoxy, merely a prediction that he will, causing a lot of “collateral damage” along the way.
So, Helga, as with Rod, I counsel you to denounce less, think more, and always pray.
» Posted By Sava On April 30, 2012 @ 12:16 am
I have no problem with Rod’s motives as “Muzhik” – in fact I mostly shared that sympathy. I have a LOT of problems with his methods, which were nasty and highly unethical by the standards of his profession, as well as general decency.
» Posted By Sava On April 30, 2012 @ 12:04 am
Just as snarky and prissy as expected — thanks, Rod, very helpful.
» Posted By Sava On April 30, 2012 @ 12:02 am
If you don’t know what I was referring to, you’re not as informed as you ought to be … nuff said.
» Posted By Sava On April 30, 2012 @ 12:01 am
Nikos: I’ve never posted here before, so back the you-know-what off. And who’s “we” – the royal we?
Last year Rod engaged in a very slimy online game which brought no credit on him or anyone else involved in it, and was hardly Christian.
If you don’t know about it, well you must have been living in a cave with the mujahidin, but here’s the short version:
Suffice to say these shenanigans were in no way compatible with the journalistic standards Rod pontificates about so frequently, which is probably why he’s been run out of respectable journalism and now blogs on a Pat Buchanan-linked freakshow website.
Rod hardly seems sorry about this and, like more than a few converts, he makes it all about HIM, not about the Church – which is the issue here.
Ironically, I’m pretty close to Rod on a lot of substantive OCA issues, I just think the way he’s gone about his personal crusade is, at best, very misguided.
» Posted By Sava On April 29, 2012 @ 3:47 pm
Nice failed save, Rod. How you have the moxie – I was going to say cojones but I mean no disrespect to my Hispanic friends – to comment on any of this, after what you did last year … all very mystifying and troubling.
At least Stokoe is being quiet, as I wish he’d been all along. Ditto for you, in buckets.
I’ll know you’ve really become Orthodox when you shut up for a few months to ponder and pray about the damage you did to the Church of God.
At least I take comfort because soon enough you’ll accept that Orthodoxy has “let you down” and you’ll ditch it as you have all your past religions.
You’ll have oysters and Paris to comfort you, don’t worry.
» Posted By Sava On April 29, 2012 @ 2:31 pm
Let me get this out front. I’m a cradle Orthodox, deep family roots in the OCA (though due to frequent moves I’ve been a member of several jurisdictions as an adult – all have their blessings and their “issues”), and I’ve had the fortune of living abroad for a while, so I’ve missed all the awful drama of recent years, which I find depressing enough from afar. I know more than a few of the clergy and laity involved in the up and (mostly) downs of the least decade and more.
I can say with full honesty that I belong to no “camp” and I have no interest other than seeing the health and growth of Orthodoxy in the USA (note: not necessarily the OCA). And it’s clear to me that the selection of +Bp. Mark for the DOS, if true, is a truly bad choice and will bring more war where there needs to be peace. It will be especially sad to see the wonderful legacy of +Bp. Dmitri compromised in suich a manner.
It’s now clear to this sinner, at least, that the OCA’s days are numbered. I used to dread this, since the widsom of +Fr. Schmemann’s life work once seemed so self-evident and genuinely divinely inspired. Now I am a lot less sure, and I think the day is soon coming when the OCA will pretty much implode and the Russians will pick up the pieces. That will be, at best, a mixed blessing, but I’m beginning to think it may be the only way to ever forge a genuine American Orthodox Church, someday – insh’allah as the Muslims say. The OCA, which for so long seemed like the ideal vehicle around which to build real unity, has become a stumbling block, and worse, to that holy mission.
I have nothing good to say about Syosset, I wish it would just disappear at this point, though I find some of the language used against that clique which I find here, in comments, to be troubling to say the least. Those of us who have been around the OCA for many decades, unless we are wilfully blind (I’m not, and most laypersons aren’t either), know all about the dirty deals, etc. We don’t need converts to tell us, and go all investigative journalist on us, thanks.
I have a lot of sympathy with the pro-+Jonah crowd, on political grounds; the Met’s big-picture vision is pretty much one I can endorse, and he’s absolutely right about his general “program” of where Orthodoxy needs to go in the USA today – “Father, bless” and “right on” suffice here.
That said, I find various aspects of +Jonah’s past to be troubling, to be charitable – you ardent converts, especially the blogging kind, ought to have checked the teeth on that particular gift horse. But you knew it all and you had God on your side, didn’t you? Since “God gave us +Jonah”, to riff on a comment I found here, what could possibly go wrong? (While I’m dishing out truth-as-insult, let me add that I always found the protestations of Mr. Stokoe distasteful at best and vile at worst – I’ll take my ponitifcations from less morally compromised persons, thanks.)
So what is to be done, per Lenin? Pray, pray, pray some more, and tone it down! The Lord wil provide, especially if we listen, fight the good fight with charity towards our enemies in the Church, and be wise as serpents.
I implore all OCA members, especially more recent converts, to channel their enthusiasm and righteousness into proper causes, not merely denunciations. The Church has been around for a couple millennia and it will keep chugging along in that lovingly underperforming Orthodox way … if you don’t believe that, in the core of your soul, you need to go back to Methodism or whatever rock you came out from other to get chrismated.
Let me conclude by saying that I find it appalling that people who have so morally compromised themselves so recently on these matters – yes, I’m talking especially, but not exclusively, about Rod Dreher – dare to speak out, just as before, when it is obvious that their involvement with this brought no credit on the Church or themselves, and have only served the Other Side … yes, the Bad One.
» Posted By Sava On April 29, 2012 @ 2:13 am
“Smaller Parishes Need More Outreach in Order to Grow”
Again, you are extrapolating what I “must” think … very unsophisticated (ok, downright stupid) of you. Ask if you want to know. My comment was about music – and only music.
» Posted By Sava On May 2, 2012 @ 12:51 pm
«« Back To Stats PageAnd what on earth would “music to fit the American ear” mean? Banjos?
As one who, despite being a cradle Orthodox with a love of his own traditions, has always detested how ethnicity can be a bar to bringing people into Christ’s church, I nonetheless find your comment deeply troubling.
I don’t mind people using awful music in church – if you’re in the South you can’t swing a cat without finding ten places with said awful “Christian” music – but please don’t bring it into Orthodoxy.
This is the sort of convert BS – I want Orthodoxy, but I want it to be my special (read: post-modern American) Orthodoxy – that drives many of us crazy and makes us deeply suspect of any parish which has too many mouthy, over-opinionated converts.
There is a lot more musical diversity within Orthodoxy than most converts realize, due to a lot of ethnic diversity – might I suggest you try all those options first before making your own.
» Posted By Sava On May 2, 2012 @ 1:23 am
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