This last weekend, an ecumenical symposium on the current situation in Ukraine was held at St Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, DC. For those who don’t know, this is the cathedral of the OCA’s Archdiocese of Washington.
This event was hosted by St Nicholas but three of its main participants were Uniates. Nobody from the other side of this unfortunate conflict was invited. You can read the story for yourself here: https://orthochristian.com/146281.html (Notice the words “schismatics” and “heretics” in the title. Gotta love those Russians!)
Now, why, in my humble opinion is this a travesty? Some would say it was because communal prayers with non-Orthodox were offered. Those who know me know that I have a rather expansive view of what constitutes Christianity, so as far as I’m concerned, that’s not it.
I dare say that what exercised many people in the OCA was the one-sidedness of this. Like most of what we know about current conflict, the official narrative is completely one-sided. Consider the fact that we know next-to-nothing about the atrocities committed by the Ukrainian government over the last eight years against thousands of their fellow-citizens in the Donbass. We are talking about horrific atrocities that have been going on since 2014, when 40 Crimean protesters were locked in the Trade Union building in Sevastapol and burned alive.
Yes, you read that right: forty civilians who were burned alive. With no mention at all from the Western media.
Or the 14,000 civilians residing in the Donbass who have been murdered by the Ukrainian Army. Nor were we told that the Ukrainian Army was mobilizing to invade the Donbass in order to inflict even more punishment on the civilians in that part of Ukraine. Nor are we told that it was the Russians who beat them to the punch by invading Ukraine first.
As for the Nazi/Banderist ideology which controls the Kiev regime, the only way we know anything about it at all is because of the alternative media. The corporate media has done mighty work trying to brush this aspect of Ukrainian history under the rug. (In one video, they actually blurred out the photograph of Stepan Bandera that was hanging on the wall of a government office.)
I did not attend this event. But I am confident that none of this was brought up. As such, it is a shame to our Church that this event was held at one of our cathedrals. It is also a shame because many of the old-line members of the OCA come from all of the lands that comprise the Russkiy Mir. That includes Russia, Byelorussia and the Carpathian Mountains, as well as Ukraine. Their memories are long.
Other members of our Church on the other hand, are heritage Americans, people who have made the leap to Orthodoxy from other faith traditions for cultural as well as spiritual reasons. And nothing screams “secularism” like hierarchs who have uncritically swallowed the anti-traditionalist, war-mongering narrative of the American Establishment.
At the risk of belaboring the point, is Syosset not aware that pastors of some of the parishes in the OCA (as well as ROCOR and MP parishes) have had threats issued against them? I’m sorry, but a little-known, pro-Ukrainian symposium in Washington, DC is not going to inoculate a Russian-looking parish in the American hinterlands from from those poor souls who have been whipped up into a Russophobic frenzy by the Establishment. What then? What will Syosset say to a priest who has been murdered or a parish which has been burnt? That we condemned the Russian “aggression” while we prayed with Uniates for peace?
As for the other Orthodox jurisdictions, many Arab-Americans may rightly ask: where is the outrage at the wanton destruction that is regularly heaped upon Lebanon, Syria or the Palestinians by Israel? Where is the outrage over the current quasi-genocide being perpetrated in the Yemen by Saudi Arabia? Both of these states perpetrate their actions with the full support of the United States. What of the wholesale destruction that the American Establishment unleashed on Iraq and Libya? Can we expect the prelates of the other OCA cathedrals to hold discussions on these conflicts? At least a retrospective on the American Warfare State?
As for the Uniate eminences who spoke at this conference, I wonder if any of them mentioned the culpability of their side in this conflict? Not only at present but in the bad old days as well. Have they acknowledged their role in the Banderist movement? Or did they present themselves as victims? At the very least, will they be willing to admit that the entire project of the Unia in the first place was to beguile the innocent peasants of the Ukraine, all for the purpose of destabilizing Russia?
Some might say that this is all water under the bridge. That the past is past. Like William Faulkner on the other hand, I beg to differ.
Presently, the collective West is being whooped up into a war frenzy and yet, we, the people who will have to fight in this war, are being kept completely ignorant of the long history of the constant aggressions that the West has heaped upon Russia (and other Orthodox countries) for centuries. The fact that the OCA, the canonical, territorial, and native Church of North America is willing to play along with this hysteria is most unfortunate. We, the American laymen of the OCA –regardless of ethnic origin–deserve better than that.
Because I am a devoted member of the OCA, I would ask that our hierarchs put out a clarification (if not an apology) –and do so immediately. I would also ask that in the future, before jumping at the chance to please the East Coast cognoscenti on whatever is The Current ThingTM, that Syosset run these ideas by the various deans and senior priests throughout all of the regions of the OCA. If nothing else, they would get a better tenor of the mood of the country. I can assure you, that the majority of Americans are not at all on board with the latest American misadventure.
I can also assure you that every Ukrainian flag that presently adorns the twitter page of some secularist virtue-signaler will be hastily removed once the Supreme Court strikes down Roe v Wade or the price of gasoline hits $6.00 a gallon. As to whether this recent symposium will be forgotten, I am not so sanguine.
At this point if anyone is still expecting honesty from the media, they can’t be red pilled.
What exactly is the Nazi ideology? In the West we think Nazis mean racial hierarchy, and that was part of Naziism. But the Nazis also hated the Slavs. So what exactly is this Nazi ideology the Ukrainians have? They have Nazi symbols, yes, but no one has explained what they actually believe that is Nazi.
There are exceptions, but I would say most converts became Orthodox to reject civic religion. If we wanted to be a normal part of the melting pot, we would have remained protestant. Orthodoxy was chosen because it’s foreign. It’s not supposed to be American. It’s supposed to exist outside all of this.
This statement pretty well summarizes the state of Orthodoxy today. The applications to the EP are obvious.
Frankly if I were an inquirer today, I would not convert. Ten years ago you could make the claim that Orthodoxy stood outside American civic religion as something distinct. You could make the claim that the global body of Orthodox Churches all had the same beliefs and that the fractured state of the American Church was a temporary outlier that would soon be fixed. Nowadays, if I were an outsider, I would laugh at the claims that the Orthodox Church makes of itself.
And at the time, AFR was the leading commenter on all of this. Now they avoid all these issues, and no one listens to them anymore. I presume they still parrot the line that all of Orthodoxy believes the same things.
The difference is that these are peacekeeping missions. It’s only Russian aggression if the Russians are doing it.
The papist cries in pain as he strikes you.
Who is this “we” who is going to fight the war? I’m not going to fight in any war. The government is currently running out all the right wing rednecks out of the military. Who exactly is signing up to fight Russia? Emma the Lesbian?
You get the leaders you deserve, because your leaders are a reflection of you. This is true in any society. American religion is gluttonous and consumerist, and Orthodoxy is no exception. Of course our bishops are liberal and secular. Why would they not be? Of course our monasteries are tourist traps. How could they be otherwise?
Even you yourself said that you aren’t opposed to uniates praying in our churches. Maybe you’re the liberal-secularist. Certainly it’s outside the norms of the Church for outsiders to speak in our churches. You accept some progressive things but not others.
If we want to oppose secularism in the Church, then we cannot compromise at all. We cannot give the enemy any ground. Even if it’s something otherwise innocent, like praying for peace or tonsuring women readers, we have to oppose it just for the sake of not compromising. Small compromises lead to big compromises.
Are these senior priests not liberal and secular? I assume most of them are former Episcopalians. Certainly the ones who have published online are very progressive. One compared being opposed to COVID restrictions to snake handling.
It’s not that the hierarchs are outright atheists. When you’re interviewing to be a bishop, they don’t ask you to swear to Marx. It’s that the system selects for the people who reflect it. The various senior priests are senior because they fit within the system. The only difference between them and the bishops is marriage.
I could name drop many of these senior priests of the OCA, many of whom have published widely on the internet, but I know you don’t like me doing that.
Oh but even then it will stay up in front of many churches. There’s a very historic OCA church near where I live that makes a big show of “standing with and praying for Ukraine”. The outright secularists will move on, but the Orthodox civic secularists, they will be beating the war drum of praying for peace for at least another year.
It will easily be forgotten. The Orthodox news cycle will move on, and people will find something else to get angry about from a distance.
Somewhat related: https://youtu.be/dBsf2JVXM9Q
Austin, as usual, you provide incisive commentary.
I’ll only take your assessment of “Nazi/Banderist” ideology.
Yes, the Aryan/Nordic ideology of the Third Reich had racial hierarchies and despised the Slavs. I mentioned that. That said, the fact remains that the Banderist ideology is alive and well in Ukraine at present. Not among all Ukrainians mind you, just among an energetic and decisive minority.
Is this a philosophical inconsistency? Yes. So what? Within a decade of the Republican Terror unleashed by the French Revolution (which overthrew the monarchy), the Republicans were throwing themselves at the feet of Napoleon Bonaparte, first as “First Citizen,” then as Emperor. And like Christian emperors in the past, he was crown by the Pope. And then entered into a dynastic alliance with the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
How ironic is that?
Hitler, Rosenberg, Goebbels, et al could not predict that Slavs in the Ukraine would take up their banner, yet such is the case.
I think Napoleon crowned himself, George.
Details, details.
You’re right but that was a last-minute switcheroo: Napoleon invited him with the express intent that it was the Pope who was going to do the honors.
I didn’t make my point clear. I’m not saying that Naziism is good or bad. Maybe these people who claim to be Nazis hold many Nazi-esque views. It seems odd that they would be fighting to support a Jewish president, but they probably consider themselves Nazis. I have a friend I used to work with who considers himself a Nazi, and I’ve tried to tell him that Hitler wanted everyone to become a vegetarian and quit smoking. So I’m not claiming that self-professed Nazis have a consistent ideology.
My issue is the framing. Nazis and Klansmen are the boogiemen in the woods we tell people about to scare them. They’re the goblins who will steal you in the night if you don’t eat your vegetables. In reality these never existed. There were historic Nazis and Klansmen, but they were very different than how we imagine them.
The typical Nazi soldier was a scared 20 year old with a rifle fighting a war he didn’t vote for but knew his country would be destroyed if he lost. The Klan of the late 1860s was trying to prevent a second civil war and brutal genocide (the governor of Tennessee threatened to kill all the former secessionists and take their land). The Klan of the 1920s was more like an anti-catholic Lions Club than a lynch mob. The Klan of the 1960s wasn’t an organized group.
Calling people Nazis is the modern equivalent of witch hunting. People start throwing around the word based on little or no evidence. They even claim Ben Shapiro is a Nazi. This word is hyper-emotionalized, and so the mob gathers together against an object of agreed hatred. The one thing all of colonial America could agree on was that witches couldn’t be tolerated. That’s what Nazis, klansmen, white supremacists and racists are today.
I tend to agree with you, but, thanks be to God that scores of people are converting to Orthodoxy in spite of this. My former parish has 30+ catechumens and a sister parish of this has ~50. My current parish has almost that.
The way I see it, Orthodox in America is seeing a major realignment, this started with Covid. ROCOR, Serbia/Georgia and some Antiochians & OCA (notably Diocese of Alaska & South) seem to be banding together while the rest of the OCA and the GOA (with exception to the monasteries) are going another way.
Petros, my understanding is that the OCA and Antiochian parishes in Alaska are further left than any other Orthodox group in the US. The Cathedral in Eagle River has been hosting the Fordham crowd for years.
I used to live in Alaska and you’re 200% correct about St. John’s in Eagle River. So many people have complained to Met. Joseph about them that their summer institute has been sanctioned. I’m very aware of them.
However, St. Herman’s in Wasilla and All Saints in Homer (both Antiochian) certainly aren’t “Left.” They actually we’re started by people who wanted to leave St. John’s.
Neither are any of the OCA parishes I’m familiar with, at least St. Tikhon’s in Anchorage, St. Juvenaly in the Valley or St. Herman’s in Fairbanks are “left”.
TBH I think the best parish I’ve been to is the Greek parish in Anchorage.
Unfortunately, I’m hearing more about that. No one tells me anything!
About St. John’s and their institute?
They didn’t use to be like that but I saw they weren’t enthusiastic about me calling on your behalf. It honestly pissed me off.
Yea I can’t speak to how they used to be but they have gone off the rails.
I didn’t go to any of the talks when they had it last year because I know I wouldn’t have been able to stay silent, but, I have friends that went and they said the speakers were preaching outright heresy. That’s partly why I sent that letter to you and Met. Joseph last summer. Apparently I was not the only one to air my grievances because Met. Joseph put his foot down.
He generally will when his attention is brought to something.
St. John’s is extremely friendly and nice, warm and hospitable. I spent time up there myself. However, they are very much on board with Fordham and its agendas.
You’re right, very, very nice people.
But very, very theologically off.
They got in trouble by Met. Joseph for trying to introduce multiple spoons during covid and were stopped (Thank God).
St. Herman’s in Wasilla was started by people who wanted to leave St. John’s and it’s night and day.
The Antiochian Diocese of the West doesn’t have a bishop and is under the direct sight of Met. Joseph, add that to being very isolated, St. John’s is not accustomed to being “under the microscope”
Petros (and others), thank you for your insights. I have family in AK and have visited many times. It’s on my short list of places I’d rather live, compared to where I live now. This is the main reason why I asked you. I attended Divine Liturgy in Eagle River back in the summer of 2015. That was before I knew they were off the rails. I echo what others have said, super friendly people there.
Petros, you mentioned St Herman’s and All Saints being solid. I was told that Eagle River, as the Cathedral, casts a long shadow over those two parishes. I’m not sure if All Saints has a permanent Priest even. Last I knew, the services there were covered by Clergy from Eagle River.
I don’t mean to open up a whole can of worms here, but this is the chickens coming home to roost with the EOC and the way that whole thing was done by Metropolitan Phillip.
Anyway, thanks for your comments Petros. I appreciate hearing from you on this matter as you are obviously in the know.
The bishop of the Diocese of the South who is an open socialist and derisively refers to Southerners as “Bible beaters.” He has publicly gone on record claiming that Origen was a saint and that there may be reunion with the monophysites, so that’s at least not rumor.
Yes, I can personally attest that the bishop of the Diocese of the South openly supports socialism, openly chain smokes cigarettes on monastery grounds, and believes Origen is a saint.
“…One compared being opposed to COVID restrictions to snake handling…” He said this at least twice during homilies in the middle of Divine Liturgy. Privately, he refers to his nemesis, the nearby ROCOR parish to which he has lost a large number of his parishioners, as “a cult” that lures in innocent converts from his church. And yet he serves on the Metropolitan Council. Sad.
Yeah, plus he’s Canadian. Who is this west coast foreigner to insult our southern religious heritage?
George, thank you very much for your succinct words and thoughts on this subject. I’m hoping this will get back to our (OCA) hierarchs, and that they’ll do the right thing, and apologize. We’ll be watching and waiting.
You’re welcome!
I’m pretty convinced that the only way they will “hear us” is to storm the chancery and Met. Tikhon with displeasure, and threaten to withhold money. If this was allowed at St. Nichols you can bet it didn’t happen without the OK from Met. Tikhon. What’s next, the OCU being invited to SVOTS?
For those of us who used to be Roman Catholic, Episcopalian or any mainline Protestant I think we are all keenly aware that if we don’t vehemently voice our displeasure it will not only become more common, it will get worse. And I would hate for the OCA to go down the drain.
Met. Tikhon contact info:
Email: metropolitan@oca.org
Phone: 516-922-0550
Petros,
You’re absolutely right. I fear the underlying theme at play among those who make these kind of decisions about whether it is acceptable to have a symposium like this at the National Cathedral of the Orthodox Church in America (which is what St Nicholas on Mass Ave in D.C. is… it’s more than simply the cathedral church of the Archdiocese of Washington D.C.) – it’s really about needing to be liked by the leaders of American culture and government.
Assuming that this event was approved by the OCA Metropolitan, his staff, and maybe even some of the “Metropolitan Council”?
But having lived around this realm for decades — and I love the Church with all my heart, and love and honor those who built her in America from the ground up — please don’t get me wrong on that one — but what plagues so many of our Church leaders is that many of them still seem to have this deep need to be taken seriously by those who run American culture. That is, many of them want to be accepted by the Washington Post, by CNN, by the State Department, etc.
This need to be accepted is a misplaced “leftover” from 60-70 years ago. Yes, it was very important how Metropolitan Leonty and the precursor to SCOBA in the 1950s got the US government to take we Orthodox Christians seriously and allow “Orthodox Christian” to be printed on military dog tags in the 1950s, for example. (Prior to that, it was either Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish; many of our American Orthodox forebears who fought in WW2 were “Protestant” according to their dogtags.) We needed a small seat at the table then, and by that time, through the sacrifice of thousands of American Orthodox Christians, we had earned it.
But back then, those who ran American culture are very different from those who run American culture now.
Those who run modern American culture do not like Orthodox Christianity at all, and they are not shy about it. Reference recent NPR and NY Times hit pieces on Orthodox Christianity, particularly on any Orthodox Church that honors the Patriarchate of Moscow (which the OCA certainly does).
These silly “conferences” seem to be a misplaced attempt among some leadership in the OCA who still feel that need to ingratiate themselves to “movers and shakers” in American society. In essence, it’s that need to be liked. This quality destroyed the Greek Archdiocese in America and is not uncommon among senior OCA leadership, both lay and ordained, sadly.
The Rusyn core of the OCA/Metropolia from the 1950s was almost uniformly Democrat of the Harry Truman kind. Sad to see that many of them seem to have kept the Democrat attachment without opening their eyes to see what modern American leftism has become.
The OCA has an All American Council this summer. Seems to me to be a perfect time for public discussion of this kind of “ecumenical” event – in the spirit of honesty, freedom, and transparency – to get the broader Church’s opinion of whether these “ecumenical” events are appropriate to have.
It’s glaringly obvious to me that those who run American culture would like nothing more than to shut down the OCA’s St Nicholas Cathedral on Mass Ave., or at least turn it into a museum or Disney-style-Russian-themed nightclub. That some in senior OCA leadership still think that those who run our culture “like” or “respect” us seems to me to be ostrich-like head-in-the-sand wishful thinking at best, or delusional at worst.
Great comments FTS! Thank you.
About that $40 billion (ostensibly) being sent to Ukraine (as opposed to lining the pockets of hordes of middle-men):
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/05/truth-40-billion-us-aid-ostensibly-spent-arm-ukraine/
Sounds like it’s from the desk of Francis: https://mobile.twitter.com/Elpidophoros/status/1529227604045484033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1529227604045484033%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Forthodoxtimes.com%2Farchbishop-of-america-this-bloody-sacrifice-of-children-cannot-be-justified-by-appeals-to-rights%2F
Wonder if this is a warning?
https://orthochristian.com/146358.html
I really don’t want to cause scandal. I’m wary of commenting, but I feel that I must.
This seems like a sacrilege. Why are Uniates and schismatics meeting at our Church Temple?
The people who built the OCA were from the western regions of Rus. Most of the people who built the Russian Metropolia/OCA were from what’s now Ukraine and Belarus, yet they didn’t have those modern nationalist identities which proliferated during the Soviet Period. (Yes there were Carpatho Rusyns as well, who were Russophillic by the way.) The majority of them didn’t buy into the Ukrainian nationalist idea. Our people identified as Russian, and were loyal to the Russian Church. We were/are a different demographic. The Ukrainianists were either Uniate or schismatic historically. The Russian Metropolia people saw themselves as heirs of Russian culture and religion. Our people were loyal to the Mother Church while the Ukrainianists were either remaining in the Unia or making schisms. Our people came over before the development and proliferation of Ukrainianism which occurred after the Bolshevik Revolution. Our people were Russian in identity, and dare I say, their conception of identity was similar if not identical to what’s now called “Russkiy Mir.”
This is not simply me, an OCA person of Russian background, being personally offended. This is what our ancestors fought against, in a sense, as part of their witness as Orthodox Christians. We should carry on their traditions as our witness. We should resist Uniates and schismatics. And people need to face it: the Ukrainian community is filled with Uniates and schismatics. The Ukrainian nationalist movement is/was dominated by Uniates and schismatics. Ukrainianism was invented to counter Russian Orthodox identity. These are facts even if you feel compassion for Ukrainians suffering from the conflict.
Our people resisted these same Uniates and these schismatics.
Kissinger added to Ukraine’s ‘list of enemies’ on his 99th birthday
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger turned 99 on Friday and pro-Kiev activists marked the occasion by adding his name to its Mirotvorets (‘Peacemaker’) website. Labeled “an accomplice in the crimes of the Russian authorities,” Kissinger was blacklisted after he called for a negotiated peace between Kiev and Moscow and a return to the pre-February status quo.
Created in 2014, the Mirotvorets website – whose homepage features a grizzly mosaic of dead Russian soldiers – is a publicly searchable database of what it calls “pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers.” These range from members of the Russian military to Western politicians like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, who has opposed sanctioning Russian oil and gas.
Kissinger is accused by Mirotvorets of “spreading narratives of Russian-fascist propaganda and blackmail… in exchange for the truncation of Ukrainian territory.” These charges make him “an accomplice in the crimes of the Russian authorities against Ukraine and its citizens,” his entry continues.
When Henry Kissinger gives advice on ending the Ukraine conflict, the West should listen
Read more When Henry Kissinger gives advice on ending the Ukraine conflict, the West should listen
Earlier this week, Kissinger told attendees of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that a peace deal must be reached between Kiev and Moscow in the coming months, lest the conflict in Ukraine spiral into a global war between NATO and Russia. To do this, Kissinger said that Ukraine must at least accept a return to the “status quo ante,” or relinquish its territorial claims to Crimea and grant autonomy to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
Kissinger is a prominent advocate of the realpolitik school of international relations, which puts the practical interests of nations before their ideological stances. As President Nixon’s Secretary of State, he spearheaded the US’ diplomatic outreach to China during the 1970s, which was aimed at preventing Beijing from allying itself with Soviet Russia.
In his Davos speech, Kissinger recalled that eight years ago, when the Ukrainian crisis was launched with an armed coup in Kiev, he advocated for Ukraine to become a neutral state and a “bridge between Russia and Europe rather than… a frontline of groupings within Europe.”
Russia responds to Zelensky’s call for talks
Read more Russia responds to Zelensky’s call for talks
While US and NATO leaders have since discarded this advice and poured an unprecedented numbers of troops and weapons into Eastern Europe since the start of Russia’s military operation in February, Kissinger urged Western leaders to remember that “Russia has for 400 years been an essential part of Europe,” and should not be “driven into a permanent alliance with China” – a position that somewhat mirrors his 1970s stance on China.
Kissinger’s call for negotiations and concessions was rejected by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who declared in his own Davos speech on Wednesday that “Ukraine will fight until it regains all its territories.” However, Zelensky also told world leaders this week that “we may try and go the diplomatic way” with Russia, “unless it is too late.”
“The Ukrainian leadership constantly makes statements that contradict each other, which makes it impossible to fully understand its intentions and whether it is ready to take a sober approach and acknowledge the real state of affairs,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded on Friday.
What might this mean?
Rumblings of UOC-MP separation from Moscow…see: https://byztex.blogspot.com/2022/05/rumblings-of-uoc-mp-separation-from.html
Not much. “Independence” is not necessarily autocephaly. And reportedly the synod maintains that the “clergy” of the pseudo-church, the OCU, would have to receive apostolic succession before any reconciliation could move forward. Also, the full phrase used is “complete independence and autonomy”. I think some reporters are reading “separation” into this where only expressing a difference of opinion and maintenance of the status quo is intended. Pro-Ukriane/pro-Western outlets make too much of it.
https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/ukrainian-orthodox-loyal-to-moscow-break-with-moscow-patriarchate.html
https://www.urdupoint.com/en/world/ukrainian-orthodox-church-of-moscow-patriarch-1517155.html
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2022/05/27/Ukraine-s-Moscow-backed-Orthodox-church-says-cuts-ties-with-Russia
That said, Met. Onuphry and his synod are in a bad position. Hopefully the resentment of the Ukrainian people for the West will rise given the betrayal we are seeing by the West and Kiev of the Ukrainian military and thus pressure on the UOC will be reduced.
Interesting. What will happen when the canonical Church is forced to buckle to Epiphony?
As I understand it, Moscow does not oppose Ukrainian autocephaly.
However, any Tomos they are likely to get from the Phanar
is highly unlikely to leave them as free as they are in the MP.
And what will they do when the war ends and the borders are redrawn?
Meanwhile unordained schismatics remain, well, unordained schismatics…
This is overblown. Right now, all of the heterodox who are trying to harm our Church are reading these “unofficial” or “off-the-cuff” statements, and they’re trying to spin this into what they want. Wishful thinking on their part…
Read the official statements. They didn’t declare autocephaly.
I don’t believe it. No sources are cited. It would be a major news story if it were true. It’s also extremely uncharacteristic.
There’s a lot of chatter about liberal secular bishops. While I certainly think that all communists will burn in hell “prepared for the devil and his messengers”, you all would hate a Chrysostom twice as bad.
Chrysostom preached that we should throw stones at homosexuals. He said that the women in the congregation are dressed like prostitutes. He said you will go to hell for using Jewish medicine. He said that anyone who goes to the theater is excommunicated. He said that women shouldn’t pretend to be equal with men. He said that owning more than the bare necessities is robbery.
You guys talking about how we need saintly bishops again, I don’t think most of you know what you’re talking about. Alexander or LP is your reflection. You want a soft bishop who will affirm your gluttony and tv addiction, and that’s what you got. You want a bishop that fits within American consumerism, who won’t say challenge you too hard or get on any government hate watch lists. You want a bishop with a PhD who can answer any question.
Perhaps this is a time to gather stones together?