The Dumping Ground: The Toxic Culture of Clerical Homosexuality

Credit: Heracleides

“By now it was clear: slavery was an infection, a toxin in the American bloodstream that poisoned all that it touched. The violence seen on the frontier spread back to Washington, where the floors of the US House and Senate began to resemble armed camps, as legislators exulted in their hatred of each other and demonized their political opponents.” –“A Less than Perfect Union”*

Back when I wrote Cui Bono?, I said that the priesthood was a “dumping ground.” It stirred up a quick reaction. Critics said it was an unfair and hurtful characterization, a point I conceded and completely agree with.

Let me repeat it. My assertion that the priesthood is a dumping ground is an unfair and hurtful characterization. Unfortunately, it was also the view held by many lay people during the first couple of generations after immigration. And this perception held because, as difficult as it might be to admit, it contained a measure of truth.

This should trouble us. Good priests can create lasting good. Bad priests can do lasting harm. Bad actors get Razzies, bad doctors bury their mistakes, but bad priests consign their misdeeds to hell for eternity.

But the damage does not end with the priest. It  affects the whole Church. Like all buried waste, the dumping ground can seep out toxins well into the next generation. Bad priests justify wrongdoing while good priests are forced to countenance it. And the wrong doing is not merely procedural (such as where do we move the Chancery?) but –infinitely worse–can also victimize innocent people.

I am describing here a culture, a way of seeing, that I am only now perceiving with any measurable clarity. I’ve been trying to understand how and why the OCA got into its present mess and when it started. What caused the OCA to become as corrupt as it did, and why did it last as long as it did?

I asked myself, what was the nature of this corruption? Why wasn’t it challenged before? How did mediocrity become de rigeur in ecclesiastical circles? One explanation is that Orthodoxy is susceptible to clericalism. While that is true, I don’t think clericalism is a primary cause for the failures of leadership we have seen. Rather, I think clericalism is a symptom of a deeper pathology that shapes not only the clericalism, but many other dimensions of church life.

What is that pathology? It is homosexuality and the subculture it creates. And I believe the pathology explains some of the conflict we are undergoing in the OCA today.

+ + + + + + + + + +

Let me say at the outset that I do not despise homosexuals nor consider their sinfulness to be greater than my own. I believe that a healthy Church can help all sinners who are struggling with their afflictions. (Lord knows, I struggle with mine.) What the Church cannot do is help those who do not think that they are sinning. From the best evidence at hand (i.e. the public record) it does not appear that Mark Stokoe, as one of the central actors in this drama, considers himself to be in need of repentance.

Let’s straighten out another point. We are fooling ourselves if we think Stokoe is first a “journalist” or “reformer.” Stokoe has always been an insider. As the Youth Director of the OCA he was on the fast track in OCA leadership. But something happened in 1990 that caused then Chancellor Fr. Robert Kondratick to fire Stokoe and shunt him to the sidelines. (We don’t know why he was fired. An informed source indicates that his personnel file was purged in the late 1990s.)

I have stated before that I think OCANews performed a service to the Church by revealing the corruption that existed under +Herman. But it is important to remember that the corruption preceded +Herman by decades, well into the earlier tenure of +Theodosius. (The only exception was the Diocese of the South that essentially seceded from Syosset and went its own way under the leadership of +Dmitri.)

+Theodosius and +Herman were very poor choices for Metropolitan of the Church. Today it is clear that everyone in the administration knew of the internal corruption and +Theodosius’ own problems. There is no record that any of them ever attempted to clean house. Some even participated in hiding +Theodosius’ dysfunctions from the press and laity for fear it might cause a scandal in the Church. Membership in the ruling circle had it privileges, as long as you pretended everything was just fine.

Mark Stokoe was smack in the center of this ruling administration until he had the falling-out with Kondratick.

After the firing Stokoe has some dry years. But when Dn. Eric Wheeler blew the whistle on Robert Kondratick’s wheeling and dealing, Stokoe saw an opportunity. +Theodosios had retired. +Herman and Kondratick were in charge. It was pay-back time.

He showed shrewd timing. Stokoe had no loyalty to +Herman. Moreover,  going after +Theodosius would mean that Stokoe would have to go after himself. As an inside player, any revelation of corruption under +Theodosius would also implicate him. More problematic was +Theodosius’ personal problems.  It would not look good.

I’m not trying to unfairly target Mark Stokoe.  But I think it is foolish to ignore the homosexual dimension of the institutional scandal. This scandal replicates the institutional chaos that results when homosexual pathology is in play. It’s not only about graft and corruption. It’s about the culture that made that graft and corruption not only possible, but in some ways even necessary.

+ + + + + + + + + +

Whenever an institution accepts homosexuality into the ranks, whenever it is willing to overlook that homosexuality is a sin that must be dealt with as any other sin (greed, graft, adultery, and so forth), the institution ends up becoming homosexualized. That’s the corrosive nature of sin. It affects thinking, self-image, goals, operations, and so forth. It subverts the internal operations of an institution just as it subverts the internal life of the individual.

We see it in the Catholic Church. It is reeling from the damage caused by active homosexuals in its clerical ranks that will take more than a generation to heal. In the next few years we will see the problem emerge in the GOA as well. Like the Catholics, the GOA is reeling from the Katinas affair ($250,000/month in settlement payouts alone), and the latest scandal in Astoria will cost millions more. Clearly the OCA is not the only church suffering this institutional affliction. About the only major jurisdiction not affected is the AOAC because Met. Philip has zero tolerance for active homosexuals.  (ROCOR and the MP parishes likewise exhibit zero tolerance in this matter.)

Moreover, when homosexuality exists in high places (Metropolitans and Bishops), then sexual sins (of all types) in the priestly ranks are largely overlooked.  Immorality is not seen as a bar to ordination, but a condition to be tolerated as long as the malefactor is never caught. Once caught, the priest is out. With Bishops it works differently. If caught, the crime is covered over. The toxin seeps to all levels of the institution but affects those closest to the source the most.

Closer to home, homosexuality is a threat to Orthodox young men, and not only because the chances of molestation increase (homosexuals make up 4% of the population but 36% of molestation cases involve man on boy contact). It also offers poor role models to young boys for whom sexual self-identity is just forming. Effeminate priests and bishops send the wrong signal to young boys, especially in our Orthodox faith that, properly understood, is virile and patriarchal. Do we really want men with sexual-identity conflicts mentoring our boys? Do we want heterosexually challenged leaders modeling truncated manhood? As the father of two boys (and the godfather of many others) my answer is an unequivocal no.

So let me be crystal clear. The way that I see it the rot that besets the OCA at present is predicated on the existence of Lavendar Mafias. There’s no escaping this fact. All of the cases that have been identified in the SMPAC report by OCANews (illegally I might add), involve charges of homosexual behavior, either between consenting adults or involving young boys. Real crusaders, real reformers — like Fr. Vasile Susan — are hung out to dry. This is how these gay cabals work, baseless charges of “homophobia” and “bigotry” notwithstanding.

+ + + + + + + + + +

I believe that the effort to unseat +Jonah is nothing more than an attempt to reestablish the institutional dysfunctions of a homosexualized subculture that +Jonah threatens to overthrow. The only way that this entrenched culture can be eradicated if it is reformed from the outside — and +Jonah is a man from the outside. There is no man on the inside who can do it, not because he is guilty himself of any wrong-doing, but because the internal workings have been so corrupted that internal reform is impossible. The recent attack on +Jonah by OCANews is evidence of the vitriol, manipulation of facts, and secret dealings (such as the emails) that awaits the reformer.

I believe Mark Stokoe is a part of that culture, and his effort to remove Jonah is nothing more than his attempt to restore his seat at the table. The Russians know this too. That is why they warned the Synod that if any Bishop dares join forces with the corrupt cabal (which unfortunately includes good men who don’t see the big picture) that is seeking to unseat +Jonah, they would face de-recognition by the other Orthodox bishops around the world. The Russians, we have learned, are dealing with the problem head on. We need to do the same thing.

And lest anyone think that I accuse clericalism of fostering these pathologies –you better think again:  it is the laity who are ultimately responsible for the well-being of the Church.  It is the laity which tolerated clericalism in the first place.  It was the laity which viewed the priesthood as a dumping ground for their effeminate sons.  And it is the responsibility of the laity –even if it’s just one man–to stand and shout “ANAXIOS!” whenever a man of questionable integrity is ordained to the priesthood.  The OCA, among all the jurisdictions in American Orthodoxy has the least excuse for allowing this.  Unlike the other jurisdictions which send priests and bishops from oversees and plunk them down on their eparchies in much the same way that imperial powers appoint foreign satraps for their colonial subjects, we in the OCA have chosen our own bishops. The fault is ours.

*From Time: The Civil War, 1861-1862: An Illustrated History, (2011) p 18.

Comments

  1. another anon says

    This is a powerful indictment which rings true. I had once thought that the OCA was the hope of Orthodoxy in the future of America. How naive I was. I applaud you for dealing with the issue head on. Many of the clergy connected with Synosset, for the sake of the Church in America must face the issue head on as well or, it seems to me, the Church is headed for far deeper problems in the future. People keep telling me that the Church has faced far greater problems in the past, and that is true, but still. . . .when living in the midst of a corrupt and deeply sinful secular world, I and many others want to be able to trust (and trust is the word) the Church we love.

  2. Homosexuality is a grave sin, granted there are worse ones, but I don’t understand how perverts get to be priests and bishops in the first place if others in high places in the church know of their characters to begin with, much less keep their positions, unless they, those in high places, are themselves of those inclinations. I always thought that members of church councils , priests , and especially bishops should be above reproach on moral issues, not even to project the slightest hint of any impropriety. At least that’s what the bible says, doesn’t it?

    The OCA seems to have had, and has, more than a reasonable share of scandals and foxes being in charge of the hen house. From what I understand, Stokoe’s priest is fully aware of his homosexual relationship and even supports it. Likewise, the priest of the outspoken blogger of Voices From Russia and OCA member, the transsexual Stan/Barbara-Marie Drezhlo and her/his fiance Nicky. As I understand it they are even to be married in the church. Is it just me, am I way behind the times as to what’s right or wrong ? Isn’t there something very, very wrong with this picture ?

    • Mr. Drezhlo — for man he was created, and man he remains, despite any doctor-contrived camouflauge — does not even qualify to receive the mystery of Holy Communion. I think that is a crucial tragedy for his life. Orthodox medical ethics — (and canon law?) — forbids what I have seen termed “self-mutilation.” This Church viewpoint, then, directly forbids elective vasectomies, elective tubal ligations and, surely by rational extension, physical charades such as that carried out by Mr. Drezhlo. I did not know what jurisdiction is home to him, although your post indicates that it would be the OCA. On the other hand, Mr. D. consistently vomits all over the OCA, so I always have assumed that he attended services elsewhere. I think he is a prime example of someone desperately in need of intense prayer for his soul’s recovery.

  3. Elliott Ness says

    Mr. Michalopolus, you are unquestionably onto something, and onto something big. Unfortunately, only those who are “in the know” about the behavior of the upper reaches of the OCA over the years will give you credit here. Everybody else will jump on you for engaging in “hearsay” or rumor-mongering based on no facts. You can’t come right out and name names, because if you’re anything like me, you are going only on the word of well-informed sources, and you don’t want to risk being accused of libel, or, God forbid, denouncing as an active or formerly active homosexual a bishop or priest who is truly guilty of nothing more than a hateful rumor campaign. The bishop of Limassol, in Cyprus, the holy Athonite monk who was “Father Maximos” in Markides’ books, suffered through this kind of vilification instigated by his enemies, but he was totally exonerated. I read in the media that one reason the Bishop of Rome John Paul II did not act against sexually predatory gay priests is because that was one of the main accusations the Communist government used to try to discredit priests in totalitarian Poland. We can’t forget that possibility.

    I am still sure you are onto something big, based on the things that have been said to me over the years by concerned OCA insiders (even one bishop, who told me that despite our own problems, which are real, the GOA is in far worse shape on this front, sadly). You might have more connections than I do, and I can only guess at what you’ve been told. As far as I know, the only “lavender mafia” figures we know for sure is gay and part of the power structure is Mark Stokoe. We have seen cases in which the power structure, including I’m sorry to say our beloved Met. Jonah, has allowed ordained men plausibly accused of overt homosexuality to continue in ministry. (I’m thinking of the disgraced Fr. Isidore Brittain, and the Deacon Burke in Miami). The best you can say about these cases is that these men showed repentance, at least to the satisfaction of HB and bishops of the Synod, and they were restored to ministry. I think mercy is appropriate (God knows I, a sinner, need it), but mercy does not require the restoration to holy orders. If Fr. Brittain or Dn Burke were in my parish, I could not take them seriously as a spiritual authority. If a heterosexual priest were guilty of serious sexual sin, I couldn’t see him as an authority either. We celebrated the Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt yesterday, and the witness she bore to the uncompromising value of sexual purity is desperately needed today. I don’t think our bishops really understand how important it is to us Orthodox fathers and mothers raising children that we be able to look to our clergy as examples of integrity.

    I am sorry to say that I don’t have confidence that any of our bishops will clean up the mess. Met. Jonah has not been good on this, at least not till now (I hope his Lenten experience has opened his eyes), and none of the Synod has been either. I hope that the Synod’s unseriousness is more a reflection of a misplaced sense of charity than a reflection of how personally compromised some of them are. I know which bishops I am certain are, or were, active homosexuals, and who are therefore blackmailable. And I am certain Stokoe knows them too. These are only a minority of the Synod. What is the excuse of the others?

    In my opinion, his recent experience might have forced His Beatitude to wake up to the true dimensions and nature of the threat. If so, I hope it forces him to act. On the other hand, if he’s all alone, how much can he really do? He’s not a pope. If Jonah survives all this, then we have a chance at cleaning out the stables. If he does not, then the OCA will continue to decay. As you say in the end, Mr. M., the fault of this will at some level lie with us in the laity. You should never, ever underestimate how much the laity wants to keep its head in the sand and not pay attention to troubling issues like this. The “lavender mafia” knows this too. That’s why they are going to denounce you now as a bigot and a crank. You know the truth, and I know the truth. Please let’s pray to God that the whole truth comes out, no matter who it hurts, because we can’t let the Church go on like this.

    • A. Rymlianin says

      It should be remembered that Met. Jonah directed bishop Nikon to remove Burke but Nikon and archbishop Nathaniel had other plans and did not remove Burke. In the case of Fr. Brittain, people in his home parish told me that he was received back with the stipulation that he undergo psychological and alcohol treatment and rehabilitation. He is still in that process.

    • Mr. Ness, George-WOW! Sadly this makes sense with Mark’ s opening post to this drama. What he brought to our attention as “+Jonah’s flaws” didn’t make sense with his anger level to get rid of +Jonah and left us all thinking there was something more. Well perhaps there is something more, but it’s with Mark! I didn’t know all the background on him. Thank you George for putting yourself out there with this stuff, even when you have a family. Commendable. Maybe you should apply for the (soon to be opening ) job of Orthodox for Accountability.

    • Michael Carney says

      I am deeply convinced that the fight Metropolitan Jonah is waging is for the benefit of the entire Church, and for all – period. Perhaps the other bishops of the OCA have been fighting the same fight, though in an underground, guerrilla fashion – there is no need to pit +Jonah’s tactics against those of his brother bishops.

      I am also convinced, in part due to a long acquaintance with clerical circles, that Metropolitan Jonah’s insistence on naming things as they are – and especially his pronouncements concerning our nation’s favorite politically protected perversion, contribute in a major way to the hysterical (sic) insistence by some on his disgrace and removal.

      We are facing a new kind of gnosticism, an anthropological heresy which denies the reality of gendered human creation. Metropolitan Jonah’s forthright stand for the traditional Orthodox understanding of gender is a voice needed in our times. And it needs to be expressed in the language of our times – as he is doing in an articulate and compassionate way.

      Precisely because it is such a central issue, with a bearing on salvation itself, it is being attacked with fury and savagery by the spirit of this age and the prince of this world. And this prince has been used to wearing a clerical cassock (among other costumes) for a long, long time.

      There are many who struggle, seemingly without hope, against passions they were not aware of choosing but feel instinctively are destructive and shaming. The therapy offered them by a psychiatric community made impotent by political correctness can, at best, “adjust” such sufferers to a life of bitter, frustrated endurance. More often it subjects such needy ones to a “re-education”, teaching them through bogus “science” to embrace an intensely felt but ultimately superficial and false persona. When a person lives out of such a phantom persona, that which is NOT is put forward as that which IS; everything becomes false, perverted, twisted.

      Homosexuality is by no means the only sin – though St. Paul uses it as an “icon” of human fallenness in Romans – but it does open fissures in human personality that make plenty of room for envy, compulsion, anger and a host of other ills. And of course, no one who is not fully a man can be a spiritual father any more than he can be any other kind, no matter how many yards of brocade he’s wearing.

      How desperately the children of God need to know the truth: that such passions are not genetically determined, but are the result of sin (very often the sin of others at least initially); that Christ, the Image of the Father, can heal those who through the dead end of homosexuality are subconsciously searching for their own lost gender identity; and that the path to this healing is known BY EXPERIENCE in the Church.

      Metropolitan Jonah is not alone in stating these truths. But he has stated them forthrightly in a contemporary idiom, with courage, fatherly love and the authority of his apostolic calling. Some hear him with joy and a renewed hope, some with bitter but saving recognition of their own need for repentance, and others with a response which marks them as children of another father entirely.

      The largest group of all, I suspect, is made up of people who recognize the truth of what Metropolitan Jonah is saying, but fearing the consequences of identifying themselves with the message or its bearer, lack the courage to agree with him publicly.

      • Axios!

        Well said!

      • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

        Amen, amen, amen.

      • Since the Axios and the Amen are already taken, I will say: Thumbs up…! Thank you!

      • Ditto Axios! Very well said.

      • Well said! There’s a great deal of truth and insight covered in the post. I especially liked this key point:

        no one who is not fully a man can be a spiritual father any more than he can be any other kind, no matter how many yards of brocade he’s wearing.

        • Fr. Michael Carney says

          Chris,

          I should acknowledge my sources. The main gist of the sentence you quoted was something I took from a statement of His Holiness, Pope Benedict.

          No, I don’t think the man is infallible – except of course when he’s speaking the truth!

          But credit should be given where it is due.

          On a similar subject, credit should also be given to the small group of Orthodox laymen who are fighting for the integrity of the Finnish Orthodox Church, and who have made some pretty hair-raising texts available to the 99% of the world’s Orthodox who DON’T speak Finnish.

          Look at this online publication of the Brotherhood of St. Cosmas Aitolos:

          http://www.kosmas.fi/PDF-files-veljeston%20paasivu/Finn_Ort_Probl_2009_Autumn.pdf

      • Grace McLoughlin says

        Axios.

      • George Michalopulos says

        VERY well said, Alexios!

      • David Yentzen says

        Dear George and Michael,
        Thank you for the courage in what you say. I do not fear the consequences of identifying myself with the message or the bearer of the message. May God defend Metropolitan Jonah and every great shepherd that rightly divides the word of our Lord’s Truth. I stand with him in public. To quote Virgil( in the Latin):
        Tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito
        that is to say: Do not give in to evil but proceed ever more boldly against it.

  4. cheryl fairchild says

    Very well written George. Concise, to the point and ties everything together. Kuddos to you and ditto everything the first commentor wrote. I for one am listening and watching AND paying attention but more importantly praying. One note, I trust the Trinity more than I trust man, I am therefore not afraid.

  5. Shall we not believe the holy Apostle Paul when he says in Romans 1:26-40 (NKJV):
    “… God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. 27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
    28 …, God gave them over to a DEBASED mind, to do those things which are not fitting; 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality,[a] wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, …, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, 30 backbiters, …, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, …, 31 undiscerning, untrustworthy, …, unforgiving,[b] …; 32 who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things …, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them.

  6. A. Rymlianin says

    The OCA- the Village People jurisdiction of Orthodoxy? If we don’t want such a monicker, then we must act immediately to reverse this perception, not only by fully restoring our Metropolitan to leadership, but also by finally dealing with these people who have attempted to usurp authority within the Church.

    • So-how is someone removed from the MC? Can we, the little people who hold no office but run the church, have a say in that?

      • Mark probably needs a break from the web site, too.

        WOW, it’s happening! I can hardly believe it!

  7. Al and Marie Maruskin says

    Monomakhos,

    Thank you for your clarity and courage to write the truth — something very lacking in the media. Today, so many journalists write very cleverly, but slanted to reflect their own agenda. Keep up the good work. We need you, now more than ever.

  8. Ivan Vasiliev says

    Just curious,

    What is to be done with those priests who may have transgressed but have repented? I am thinking particularly of those who did not scandalize their parishes (in other words, whose transgressions were hidden) and who returned to the right path. Should they be sought out and expelled in order to purify the Church of this obnoxious disease?

    My question is not meant to be facetious. This was the bone of contention between Nehemiah and Ezra after the exiles returned from Babylon.

    • I would like to say first that I have close relatives and friends who are homosexuals. I know that this has to be extremely difficult and painful stuff to read for Orthodox Christians who are homosexuals or who have family and friends who are. I hope they don’t feel condemned, and they shouldn’t be condemned. A wise pastor, basing his knowledge and wisdom on the teachings of the Church, can judge, guide, discern and counsel, so that these people can find healing, and live their lives in peace and repentance, just like all of us broken humans. A good pastor will shepherd his flock according to the individual need of each. I’m sure it’s being done all over the place.

      But, on the other hand, if a priest commits adultery or fornication of any kind, even if he repents later, what does that say about his ability to control his passions and thus, his ability to lead? Most likely he “scandalized” the parish whether the parish knew about “it,” or not. And, I’ll bet you anything there were some in the parish who suspected something was going on. Sometimes the hair goes up on the back of your neck, and you don’t quite know why, but you find out later on that you were right.

      On Forgiveness Sunday the priest asks forgiveness of all, and we forgive him back. Is the priest making a mockery of Forgiveness Sunday if he is committing sexual immorality or embezzling money or robbing banks or looking at pornography ? What if that priest, who has such a great reputation, knows about the ongoing sin of his own bishop and continues to support him vociferously and publicly? Has that ever happened? Yes, it has, and OH, YES!!! It is a sham! God does not take kindly to hypocrisy. Read Isaiah.

      King David repented privately after the Prophet Nathan nailed him, and then wrote Psalm 51, making his repentance public (thank God for that Psalm!). The Prophet Samuel called him “a man after God’s own heart” (1 Sam 13: 13-15). So, there is hope, folks.

      The Lord Jesus blasted the woman at the well to kingdom come with the light of truth. He told her everything she had ever done. She repented before Him, then ran into town and told them all about it and her sins. She had no fear or embarrassment. She admitted her sins publicly. She led them all to the Lord and converted the whole town, making herself a Saint in the process. Saint Photini. Light.

      For my part, the destruction going on in the Church has at its core the fact that there have been religious leaders who have lived a lie for decades. These men have accepted praise and adulation while their hidden hearts are dark. They have committed these things in secret, furtively, and continued to serve at the altar (imagine!). Then there are those who have kept silent even though they knew. As Prophet Isaiah says to Israel, “Your sons lie asleep at the end of every street like a half-boiled beet, full of the Lord’s anger and forsaken because of the Lord God.” (Isaiah 51:20, OSB). These are the people who have not directly committed “it” but have known about it, and kept silent. Even worse if they openly supported them.. guess I’d better click on “post comment” before I decide not to.

      • Ivan Vasiliev says

        Thank you, Rachel.

        I had always been of the opinion that if a priest or other clergy had fallen and repented before his bishop, then it was within the bishop’s economia to determine whether or not to permit him to serve, as the bishop is our father in God. But, I had no idea of how widespread this sickness is and how compromised the bishops themselves are. In theory and by tradition the use of economy and strictness still applies, but it is very painful to know that we are not dealing with a rare case here and there but an endemic problem.

        I think we have managed to light our OCA house on fire and that it will burn to the ground. With God’s help (and, I hope, the help of the mature and tested Russian Orthodox Church) something beautiful will be built on its foundation.

        • George Michalopulos says

          Ivan, suppose in a well-ordered Church (i.e. one that doesn’t go after bishops who wish to engage the culture), the answer to your question would be: the bishop decides on the repentance of the priest in question.

          As I understand it, if a priest commits certain sins (i.e. murder, fornication, simony), the canonical prescription is to be removed from the priesthood. This does not mean that there can be no repentance, far from it.

          Let me relate a story from the life of St Basil the Great. When he was bishop of Cappadocia, he defrocked a certain priest who committed adultery with a woman. This priest repented and became quite holy. About 20 years later, the ex-priest was at a funeral and when he went to kiss the departed in his coffin, the man came back to life. Everybody was shocked. St Basil was there as well. This priest asked Basil if he could return to the priesthood. Basil refused he said: “your repentance is between you and God. Your sin however was a public affront to the laity.”

        • Anonymous says

          Economia is an exception to the rule. It can only be economia if it is rare. If a bishop is constantly granting “economia,” he has not deployed economia but merely disregarded the canons.

          • Ivan Vasiliev says

            Yes, it seems that “economia” is now the rule, the standard is rare, and strictness (akribeia) is unheard of. As I mentioned earlier, we have lit the fire, and God willing it will burn hot and bright so that God may rebuild something beautiful on the foundation (which I believe is “gold”, as it is Christ–for all our human failures)

  9. Patrick Henry Reardon says

    It is refreshing, George, to read all these posts by people with names.

    I always wondered why so many correspondents at ocanews.com preferred anonymity.

    The recent cabal of homosexuals against Metropolitan Jonah sheds no little light on that preference.

  10. Thank you, George, for putting your name and reputation on the line to drag this whole sad and perverse situation out into the daylight, where it can be openly discussed. I have been in the Orthodox Church for almost 14 years, and if i had a nickel for every time I have heard these rumors from cradle OCA and GOA laity, and not a few clergy, I would be wealthy. I have never heard much offered to corroborate these stories, but the persistence and consistency of the rumors certainly calls for a very thorough investigation, if for no other reason than to clear the good names of those who may have been falsely maligned over the years.

    As Nikos points out, it is not in the least surprising that tolerating this particular sin would have such a corrosive effect on the Church. Thank you to “Elliot Ness” also for pointing to St. Mary of Egypt as the ultimate example that there is forgiveness, restoration, and glorification for those who are truly penitent and willing to let God restore them to full health.

    • George Michalopulos says

      Cal, perhaps you could shed some light on the unfortunate experiences that Fr Daniel Byantaro had to undergo because of a Lavender Mafia in Indonesia.

  11. Here a list of what I hope will in the end transpire:

    Return Metropolitan +Jonah,
    Close down Syosset and fire all administrators.
    Sell the place and move the administration to Washington where the Metropolitan resides.
    Hire from the large pool of qualified OCA lay-members new administrators. Why do priests, who should be working in parishes, want to be bureaucrats?
    Screen all MC member for suitability. Anyone not in good standing with the morals and the teachings of the church should be automatically excluded.
    Expand the HS threefold, to receive fresh blood into this body and prevent it from becoming cliquish. Yes all the arguments for married bishops are making more and more sense… Any bishop with dirty “finger-nails” should be retired… and prevented from spending his days in front of a computer. Aren’t these men monks? Shouldn’t they live the live of a monk in a monastery? Under the guidance of an abbot? Where in the daily services of a monastery is the internet placed? Before or after Matins?

    It is funny, but the longer I read about all this, my mood is changing from despair to the confidence that this is God Himself cleaning His church from this huge pile of Augean manure…

    • Hire from the large pool of qualified OCA lay-members new administrators. Why do priests, who should be working in parishes, want to be bureaucrats?

      The Chancellor has to be a priest; it’s part of the job description.

      As for moving the chancery, that’s one argument that bewilders me. They could surely at least break even on getting a similar-sized location around DC, but for some reason some people are just determined not to let the Syosset chancery go. It’s quite pretty, but it’s expensive and way out in the boondocks. I can’t imagine how they would go wrong with a more conveniently-located chancery in DC, where the cost of living is lower by a large margin.

      • Lola J. Lee Beno says

        With a good real estate agent, I’m sure they can find a suitable property. It won’t be difficult to find one who is Orthodox and knows the unique needs of a chancery.

    • Fr Simeon Johnson says

      “the arguments for married bishops are making more and more sense”

      Not really. If you have married Episcopacy, every parish priest with a degree and ambission will always have one eye on the episcopacy. The “Married” bishops will be the same priests who want to be bureaucrats that you are complaining about now.

      Fr Simeon

      • Fr. Yousuf Rassam says

        Bingo!!

      • Yes, I can see that…. but how do we get a larger pool of eligible men for bishops? Maybe restrict the age for the priesthood to 30 years and for (married) bishops to a minimum of 50years…? That would leave a life of at least 20 years in parishes and some time in the real world for a potential priest…
        I see a big problem with our HS as being too small. We should have a bishop in every state and province. This would bring the bishops closer to the people and make the HS less susceptible to insider cliquishness…
        But where to find good men?

        • George Michalopulos says

          Joseph, I completely agree with you. A HS of 50+ men would be a good bulwark against clericalism. If that’s unwieldy, then perhaps the idea would be to take 12 bishops from the entire pool of 50+ men, rotate them in a rotating fashion in which four bishops serve for 3 year terms. They would be elected by the other bishops in an at-large election. The Archbishop of Washington DC would be the permanent chairman of the Holy Synod.

      • Harry Coin says

        Right. However, if the Holy Spirit is not taking a little nappy what’s what will be known. One of the bigger answers to flush the chaff from the wheat is to NOT make the bishop part of the money stream from all the parishes, but just the one who serves the biggest parish in a region and oversees a dozen or two others — tops. Take the money away and those who love money will move on as well.

        • “….is to NOT make the bishop part of the money stream from all the parishes, but just the one who serves the biggest parish in a region and oversees a dozen or two others — tops.”

          He could be replacing the dean of a province (I am in Canada). He could reside at the cathedral church of his province (with a helping priest for the cathedral duties) and the provincial parishes will be responsible for his up-keep…. So that the bishop would not be any “richer” as his parish priests. He would be truly the Father of his flock … and could even show up for BBQs… 🙂

          I like that idea…. that is how the bishops of old lived, among their flocks…

          • George Michalopulos says

            Joseph, I’m presently developing this idea in a paper that I’ll submit once the tumult dies down. One of the criteria is that no diocese should be larger than 3 contiguous states. Another would be that the furhest any parish should be from its diocesan seat is a 5 hour drive (that’s easy for parishes east of the Mississippi).

          • Harry Coin says

            That’s the model for growth. It would also put an end to this scapegoating of functionaries to enable misdoing or continuance in office of the higher ups. Right now we’re seeing even those here complicit to do to Fr. Garklavs, on the basis they like some part of the message of one (and not the only one) being protected. Seems in the Orthodox church, we’re often reminded about how authority stops at the top (like in the Vatican’s model)— but the buck stops at the rump of those married one step down.

            A lesson to the next one being offered a job serving the leader at ‘the sacred center’. The next big problem will have your name on it as you depart in disgrace, because, well, you were there.

        • George Michalopulos says

          Right you are Harry. Plus, it would defang the worldly elites who think that they can hold a bishop hostage by withholding their money. I do think however that every parish in a diocese should give 9% of their monthly income to the diocese and 1% to the central chancery. That’s reasonable and not onerous.

          • Harry Coin says

            I think using words like ‘should’ and ‘ought’ relative to the finances of how a group of a dozen or so parishes led by a bishop who actually lives in and leads one of them is their business.

            Last, the people in the real sized diocese can manage their own affairs relative to getting the work of ‘the central administration’ done. As soon as you start to pool money in a central pot with authority figures dependent upon it but with no real people there– you start an aspect of the problem we’re seeing now. Let the big conferences rotate around the various diocese, spread the expenses that way.

            • George Michalopulos says

              I respectfully disagree. 10% of a parish’s budget is reasonable and realistic. It sets the standard –which is tithing. It would reinforce to the people of the parish that it is their obligation to tithe. If they don’t want to, then they should leave. People who don’t tithe evince a hardness in their hearts which causes their own toxins to seep into the body politic. I know this sounds harsh, but let’s not forget how we got The Dumping Ground in the first place: because the people of God were niggardly in their giving. You get what you pay for.

              • I agree absolutely. YES. The people sit in their cozy homes judging and judging, so glad they are not like *those* people. Lips pursed, purses closed, closed-minded, mindless, faultless, not to blame. grrrrr….

              • Being careful here, however. Orthodox “get” far more than what they “pay for” in reality, that is, if it’s all true.

              • Harry Coin says

                George, tithing was established when the church did what the state does now.

                Now we see examples of high church leadership using victims of disaster to raise funds — then keep the cash. How long did the OCA not deliver the money people donated to to the 911 charity, for example? Only after it was a scandal.

                You speak of ‘hard hearted’ folks as if these many tremendous abuses of money didn’t happen, as if people aren’t required to be stewards instead of stupid.

                No, money should be kept locally and overseen locally. If non-local things need doing, then the parishes should do those things on a project basis.

                Once people see the right thing happening with money, the people will donate more of it on their own.

                Pronouncements by the unaccountable demanding money “because it’s written in the bible” would gain more support if the distant leadership wasn’t so selective about what else in the bible they ignore– particularly concerning requirements to continue in leadership.

                • George Michalopulos says

                  Harry, the problem with America is that the federal government has become the church. The federal gov’t should only do those things which are enumerated in the Constitution: coin money, treat with foreign powers, defend the borders, maintain and standing Army and Navy (and Air Force). That’s about it.

                  Everything else that the nation does now –Dept of Education, Health and Human Services, etc.–are the province of the Church. That would whack down our budget by at least half. Think about it, right now our annual deficit is $1.6 trillion. Our society will crumble in short order if the federal govt doesn’t give up its profligate ways.

  12. Janet Kirby says

    I will gladly return to OCA if such “church housecleaning” can be accomplished!

    • Janet, please pray for it. I surely do…. and I trust in God that He will not have his church dirtied by these machinations of unrepentant sinners…

    • Christopher says

      I would consider it also. However, we don’t really have any history to go by. Has any Orthodox or non orthodox traditional church successfully cleaned house in this way? Not that I am aware of. We have seen the wasteland this issue has made of the protestant “mainline”. The lack of good examples is of great concern…

      • Christopher,

        You ask a very good question–has any “traditional Church successfully cleaned house”? At the risk of starting an argument, I would say yes–I’m thinking here of the Roman Catholic saint Peter Damian (1007-1072). Peter was a monastic who labored tireless to reform the corruption in the Church of Rome.

        In the Orthodox Church we have, among other examples, the monastic reforms of St Sergius in the 14th C. Among other things, he is responsible for the monastery of Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, one of the most important monastic communities in Russia.

        While there are differences between these two men–they share some important traits. Both were monastics who lived lives of rigorous asceticism. Both men attracted many spiritual disciples who themselves lived the monastic life in obedience and imitation of their spiritual fathers.

        While Peter was involved in secular affairs, Sergius wasn’t. But Sergius did bless St Dmitry Ivanovich Donskoy to fight the invading Tatars–so he certainly understood prayer and asceticism alone are insufficient.

        So can the OCA reform itself? I think we can.

        I do think however that it will require not only a reform of the clergy–not only spiritually but intellectually–but also of the laity. Frankly, and forgive me if I offend here, I don’t think as a whole the laity want all that much from the clergy. The question isn’t do you want your priest to be a saint but do you–do all of us–want to be a saint?

        Looking at our parishes, I see many very good, generous men and women who (in the main) are not disciples of Jesus Christ. And so I’m not mistaken, I’m including here the clergy. In a community where people are committed personally to conforming the whole of their lives to Christ, the foolishness afflicting the OCA doesn’t happen.

        What’s need is a serious, systematic emphasis on the spiritual formation of the laity. This isn’t to blame the laity. Rather it reflects the reality that before a man is a deacon, priest or bishop, he is a baptized Christian. If he doesn’t know what he has received in baptism or if he is not confident in the exercise of his baptism, then he will fail as a clergyman. Why? Because I can’t give what I don’t have. Clergy who never had the confidence of the first order of the Christian life–the order of the laity–can’t offer anything more than theoretical guidance to their parishioners.

        This theoretical guidance might be, and often is, theologically justifiable. But because it isn’t grounded in his personal experience as a layman, it doesn’t reflect an appreciation of the gifts God has poured out on the parishioners. Again, I can’t give what I don’t have–if I don’t appreciate what God gave me in baptism, as a priest I can’t respond with appreciation to the gifts God has given you and that you bring to the parish.

        Does this make sense?

        In Christ,

        +FrG

        • Christopher says

          I do think however that it will require not only a reform of the clergy–not only spiritually but intellectually–but also of the laity.

          This we can agree on, and it’s something George is talking about also. What has most surprised me the most about the recent comments in the OCANews is just how liberal (by which I mean a non-Christian disposition concerning the moral landscape) so much of Orthodox laity is. I see it in my own non-OCA parish as well. It really does appear we are X (50, 75?) years behind the Episcopalians.

          So both the clerical class and the laity are equally to blame – both are failing to find the minimum “conforming the whole of their lives to Christ” that would make the Church a viable witness to and sanctuary from the world.

          I agree with another thing you said, ” Frankly, and forgive me if I offend here, I don’t think as a whole the laity want all that much from the clergy.” I fall into that category but for different reasons. I simply have experienced too many bad priests/bishops to expect anything more. For myself and my family, I expect 2 things: Say/sing the services and perform absolution without all the pop psychology “pastoral counseling” that the laity normally suffers through. As you point out, the clerical class is merely a reflection of the laity. Just goes to show we are all fools and the Church does not save…

  13. Michael Bauman says

    We must not go on a witch hunt to counter the witch hunt agains Met. Jonah. The first real hint that Mr. Stokoe did not like Met. Jonah was after the Met’s proposal to diminish the authority of the MC. He pretty well flew of the handle then and is still rolling around without one.

    Lust of power and lust of body are not that far removed from one another just as neither is far removed from gluttony.

    The house will never be clean only well lighted with people carrying out their own night soil on a regular basis instead of throwing it into the corner or down the stairs and trying to climb higher up to avoid being dumped on.

    Whether it is homosexuality, greed or lust for power, the corrosive effects are complimentary.

    • Fr. Yousuf Rassam says

      Dear Michael,

      You write “We must not go on a witch hunt to counter …” too late. Way too late.

      • George Michalopulos says

        Fr Yousus, there were no witches during the great witch hunts. There are however unrepentant immoral men (both straight and gay) within the priesthood.

        Do I want a “witch hunt”? No, I would be happy if we went about this discreetly as the ROC is doing. And I’d be real happy if we adopted the recent position of the Roman Catholic Church, which has no tolerance, even if the men in question are chaste and want to remain so. (Better late than never.)

        See this article: Catholic Church to set ‘gay-test’ for new priests.

      • Michael Bauman says

        Father, I don’t believe the threshold has been crossed. Certainly the temptation is there and it is quite difficult to resist, but there are many, many in the OCA who aren’t in that mode.

        What needs to be done is de-personalize the issues. Scape-goating is perhaps a better characterization than witch hunt. A community that is intent on ‘cleansing itself’ without really changing anything looks for people to pour all their sins onto: In this case Met. Jonah or Mark Stokoe or the Holy Synod or, or, or. That process is an enternal regression.

        Preach the gospel standard, repent (not expect everyone else to repent), but also exercise real pastoral discipline based on the canons of the Church, the moral teachings and the Gospel. If the bishops and the clergy will confess their own sins (and at some point it has to be relatively public to stop the scape-goating) and accept penance, then have a consistent pastoral policy in approaching the issues of homosexuality, sexual misconduct, financial wrong-doings, etc.

        Stone-walling leads to scape-goating. Merely telling folks not to do it won’t help much. Until there is sincere acknowledgement of the systematic problems and each person’s participation in those problems, not much will change.

        As Fr. Gregory Jensen on another web site commented, the real cure is a concentration on making disciples and the spiritual formation of the laity, i.e., feeding the sheep.

        • Chris Plourde says

          A salient observation:

          A community that is intent on ‘cleansing itself’ without really changing anything looks for people to pour all their sins onto: In this case Met. Jonah or Mark Stokoe or the Holy Synod or, or, or. That process is an enternal regression.

          As Fr. Gregory Jensen on another web site commented, the real cure is a concentration on making disciples and the spiritual formation of the laity, i.e., feeding the sheep.

          Lord have mercy.

          • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

            (1) Part of the laity’s “spiritual formation” is plainly telling them what is not permitted and then not permitting it.

            (2) Discipline is unavoidably personal. If we are to have any rules, then we must hold individuals to account.

            (3) For many centuries, the Church fixed terms of penance for members who broke the rules and even designated a special place in church for them to stand.

            • Michael Bauman says

              Dn. Brian: Absolutely. It is one of the best tools the Church has. I don’t say this theoretically. I recently was given a penance and even though my bishop shortened the length of the penance from the canonical maxium for the time away from the cup, it has been one of the most formative experiences I’ve had in twenty years in the Church. I submitted to the penance and was obedient. Even thought the penance came to an end almost a year ago, it is still bearing fruit in my life. I’m still learning from it.

              The penance was given in love and received in love. It was never seen as punishment.

              There was also a separate place for the catechumens to stand.

              Too much taken for granted in the life of the Church.

              What is the penance for insulting and disrespecting a bishop by the way?

              • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                Michael, I knew you’d agree, but I sensed here in the comments of others a suggestion that we are wrong to make an issue of Stokoe’s . . . uh . . . rule-breaking. The left does so often complain of a “witch hunt” when it wants us to overlook something not merely wrong but subversive.

                • Chris Plourde says

                  I want to address your concern about anyone wanting to “overlook something” and maybe reframe it just a bit:

                  I ride a bicycle stupid long distances on crowded city streets and old rural highways and everything in between. It’s an inherently dangerous sport. In training we learn to spot multiple dangers and how to avoid them. We know from experience that failing to avoid hazards causes real damage.

                  There is one practical lesson that many people have trouble with: You always go where you’re looking. Always. If you’re distracted by something on your left your bike will veer left, and if you’re distracted by something on your right your bike will veer right. If you focus your attention on a hazard you’re going to hit it.

                  But if you recognize the threat and stay focused on the path around it, you can get through even the gnarliest situations without a scrape. Most people have seen the TdF footage of Armstrong going into a field to avoid a crash directly in front of him, and then back onto the road and on to win the race.

                  That’s what our spiritual life is like as well, isn’t it? We need to know clearly, as you put it what is “not permitted,” because engaging in those do real damage to us. (An aside: Penance doesn’t exist to punish us, the damage done by our sin is punishment enough, but rather to assist in our healing.)

                  The self-discipline we require is the discipline to recognize but not be enthralled with the hazards we face, with what is “not permitted,” and to keep our focus on the route around those hazards, those dangers, those temptations as we race toward our goal.

                  It’s not about wanting to “overlook something” in anyone else, but rather about keeping our focus where it does our race the most good.

                  Make sense?

                  • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                    You don’t bike with blinders on, do you, Chris? Neither should we blind ourselves to gay “marriages” in our midst. If we do, we will only encounter more of them.

                    • Chris Plourde says

                      We agree that lust is sin. We agree that sexual relations outside of marriage is sin. We agree that the Church does not and should not recognize marriage between members of the same sex. We agree that the Church should be clear about its teachings and enforce its disciplines.

                      But in my effort to become a better disciple of Christ I have found it absolutely necessary to blind myself to those extraordinarily few temptations that afflict others but do not afflict me.

                      I do not view this as “tolerance of evil,” to the contrary it is a commitment to putting my limited energies against evil where they can be the most effective, in my own hardened heart, in my own desecrated soul.

                      And what little energy I have to witness against the moral depravity of secular America I witness to the moral depravity in which I partake. The greed and indifference of the well-heeled, the mainstreaming of pornography, the use of anger as an entertainment and outrage as a ratings booster, the gluttony of our fast food culture, the envy of our advertising, the sloth of our exceptionalism, and our narcissistic pride.

                      If I advance enough spiritually, perhaps then I can join the battle against that depravity in which I do not partake and those passions that do not war against me. I’m nowhere near that yet.

                    • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                      But in my effort to become a better disciple of Christ I have found it absolutely necessary to blind myself to those extraordinarily few temptations that afflict others but do not afflict me.

                      I’m impressed by your craftiness, Chris. What you’ve written sounds so pious and so humble. How convenient for you that your piety and humility spare you the pain of bearing witness against anything controversial! You only have to bear witness against politically correct sins. Right here you are slyly bearing witness against the PC sin of homophobia, attempting to shame the rest of us for focusing on the un-PC sin of sodomy.

                    • Chris Plourde says

                      Deacon Brian,

                      My knee-jerk reaction is that yours is the least charitable possible reading of my post.
                      My next is that clearly I’ve become a stumbling block for you.
                      My last reaction is that I need to follow this advice:

                      A true exile, despite his possession of knowledge, sits like some- one of foreign speech among men of other tongues.

                      Your tongue longs to jump into argument, but restrain it. It is a tyrant, and you must fight it daily seventy times seven.

                      When we are bitten by rebukes, let us be mindful of our sins until the Lord, seeing the determination of our efforts, wipes away our sins and turns to joy the sadness eating our hearts.

                    • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

                      Chris, I might be wrong about the spirit in which your post was written, but I didn’t give you the benefit of the doubt because so many of your posts seem aimed at making the case that the rest of us are wrong for making an issue of Stokoe’s homosexuality. It’s one thing for you personally not to make an issue of things you feel are beyond your spiritual competence, but it’s another thing for you to argue publicly that other people shouldn’t. It’s also best when being humble not to use your humility as a teaching point for others.

            • Fr Patrick,

              Let me add my voice to yours and Michael’s! Moral theology has been sadly neglected in favor of a most unfortunate an antinomian spirit. It seems that moral relativism has taken hold among many Orthodox Christians.

              +FrG

            • This is right on the money, Fr. Gregory and Fr. Dn. Bryan….!

          • Nick Nicoloff says

            “….the real cure is a concentration on making disciples and the spiritual formation of the laity, i.e., feeding the sheep…”

            It’s all about the sheep…

    • Completely irrelevant here, but I was tickled by your image of “He pretty well flew of [sic] the handle then and is still rolling around without one.” Immediately I envisioned numerous handle-less household implements colliding during uncontrollable perpetual motion. Thanks for the smile !

  14. John Panos says

    George, it is not merely the OCA with this problem of homosexual culture, which it seems Met. Jonah is about to purge (thank God).

    The GOA is rife with it, and there we also see a ‘dumping ground’ mentality for the priesthood, at least in the recent past. The move by HCHC to scholarship believers (Oratorical Festival winners) as opposed to ethnic Greek kids, may herald a significant change in this ideology.

    Regardless of that, many GOA bishops are still active homosexuals, and it is just a matter of time before that house of cards can no longer afford the payoffs, and the whole things comes tumbling down.

  15. Whether it is homosexuality, greed or lust for power, the corrosive effects are complimentry.

    A slightly off topic question here. Could this sentence also apply to many of the bishops of the churches under the EP becoming Turkish subjects? I hear 27 out of 35 have applied for Turkish citizenship….

    How long are we, the Orthodox people, going to suffer these false teachers?

    • Joseph, you touch on one of the things that vexes me most of all. As a Greek-American, I cannot tell you how appalled I am that other Greek-Americans like me (in this case bishops) are willing to trade their birthright for pottage. I will develop this further as time allows.

      What I REALLY want to talk about is why this scandalous turn of events isn’t be addressed by OCANews? Let’s explore the ways in which this is a scandal for American Orthodoxy:

      1. It negates the central premise of the Episcopal Assemblies, that all the canonical bishops in a region are gathered togetherr in order to for them to discuss issues that are salient to their region.

      Question: how can a segment of the American episcopate allow itself to be segregated out from their brothers for purposes of future promotion outside of their region?

      2. It makes the future unification of the various jurisdictions extremely difficult.

      3. It makes American autocephaly with these bishops impossible. (Although not without them, which is what the OCA has now.)

      Therefore, we are forced to come to one of two conclusions:

      1. The entiree EA process was a not-too-well-thought-out sham to begin with, or

      2. It was nothing but a ruse to force unification of all the jurisdictions under the GOA.

      Question: why isn’t Turkish citizenship extended to all bishops in America?

      • George, I believe conclusion #2 may be pretty close to the truth:

        2. It was nothing but a ruse to force unification of all the jurisdictions under the GOA.

        • Chris, that was my first instinct as well when it was first announced. The question now becomes, what will the other non-GOA bishops say or do when the next EA meets? After all, how can an EA exist when its primary purpose is to “order” ecclesial life in a region if there’s an ethnically-segregated bloc that has rights that they don’t have (i.e. the right of “election” to the patriarchate of Constantinople)?

          Was this even discussed before hand? How would the GOA feel if the Holy Synod of the OCA proclaimed its metropolitan “patriarch”? Etc.

          The HS of the OCA should be particularly vexed because in its statement last November, it was “not the leader of autocephaly in America but its servant.” In other words, the HS is the guarantor of autocephaly. Instead, it sends petulant letters through its secretary (in reality, Kishkovsky) to the WaPo crying about the laudatory piece they did on +Jonah. They shold be firing on all thrusters about what these GOA bishops are doing instead. In fact, they should disinvite themselves from the next EA.

          • Christopher says

            Yet they won’t. There is a strange acceptance of the behavior of GOA/EP. I wonder if it is a despairing acceptance – the sort that says “this is our lot – it’s in God’s hands now”…

          • In fact, they should disinvite themselves from the next EA.
            Yes, that would make a statement! We have autocephaly and any shenanigans by any other jurisdiction can’t change that.
            If Istanbul doesn’t want to recognize us, so what. How long did it take Russia (Serbia, Bulgaria, even Greece, etc.) to get recognized?
            Let’s do what we do now (evangelizing NA and at the same time learning how to walk without tripping over ourselves) and see who is the last man standing. Yes that includes doing really, really stupid things like we are doing right now in the OCA. At least we are learning to find our way around being independent. Any being or institution growing-up, and that is what we are doing, is liable to screw-up on the way to adulthood.
            Let us be free, and not envy our brothers who are dependent on some “Venerable Fathers” in lands far over the oceans who are less interested in them growing up, but in keeping them dependent and most of all keep the money coming…

      • Peter A. Papoutsis says

        #2 George, unification of American Orthodoxy under the EP. C’mon you knew this. Otherwise, why push canon 28?

        I am a faithful member of the GOA, but we as Orthodox separated from Rome because of Rome’s heresy of the Papacy, why should I, as a Greek Orthodox Christian, accept it in the EP? Being faithful does not mean being stupid.

        Finally, I still think Moscow is quietly supporting the HS removal of Met. Jonah. I know people think that it is not, but Moscow is now working together with the EP and Antioch to unite American Orthodoxy under THEIR control (i.e. EP, Moscow and Antioch). Just look at who is heading and leading the EA (i.e. GOA, AOCOA & MOSCOW). The EP did not want the OCA via Met. Jonah. Moscow said Nothing! Antioch, through Met. Phillip said Nothing!

        be very careful and do not misread and do not be naive about Moscow’s visit with the OCA HS. Remember after the metting the DOW under Bishop Benjamine issued it proclamation. Has Moscow said anything? Has Antioch, via Met. Phillip? Has any other Orthodox clergyman come to his Beatitudes defense? Wake up guys, this is just not an OCA thing.

        Just my 2 cents.

        Peter

        • Peter A. Papoutsis says

          In addition, under a united American Orthodox Church, who do you suppose will be on OUR HS? Why whoever the EP, Antioch and Moscow appoint. They are running the EA in much the same way an American Orthodox HS would be run with ann three Jurisdictions heading up that HS.

          The fly in the ointment, Met. Jonah, is not even there. Think about it. Who has the power to remove Met. Jonah? Why is he really being removed, and who would benefit from his removal. To answer these questions just go over to the EA website and see who is heading the EA and you will get your answer.

          Peter

          • George Michalopulos says

            Peter, good food for thought. However the rumblings I’m hearing is that the EA process is going to go the way of SCOBA. The last Chambesy conference ended with things not going Istanbul’s way. In fact, the rebellious OCA bishops have handed another strategic card for the MP to play –the guarantor of the OCA’s autocephaly.

            You know, if Istanbul was smart, they could get back in that game. They could have its exarch (+Dimitrios) issue a “gentle reminder” to the rebellious bishops that if they are de- recognized by another autocephalous church, then they won’t be “canonical” and can’t come to the EA. The Phanar could do that but it’s not that strategic of a thinker.

          • Harry Coin says

            The term ‘united’ in ‘american church’ if led by a variety of overseas potentates has oxymoronic qualities which will destroy it quickly.

            • George Michalopulos says

              of course. It’s up to the OCA bishops now to put their foot down and demand that no American bishop should continue being under a foreign potentate. If they’re really mad at +Jonah for being squishy on autocephaly, they should be even more outraged at this. But they’re not.

            • The term ‘united’ in ‘american church’ if led by a variety of overseas potentates has oxymoronic qualities which will destroy it quickly.

              It will be stillborn…. never breath, never walk and never fly….

        • George Michalopulos says

          Peter, the only problem with this is that Bp Benjamin did not attend the HS meeting with +Hilarion. He’s definately gone rogue with his DOW resolutons. And even though we can’t know the complete ins and outs, I can say that the ROC would never countenance rebellions in any OC against a primate. It’s just not done. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Benjamin effectively committed political suicide by doing what he did.

        • Harry Coin says

          The tea leaves have something to do with Jonah’s being obliged somehow to cause the OCA to give up voluntarily the autocephaly. Maybe if they make the carrot nice enough and the stick hard enough they’ll get enough of the synod to go along. If they cared about the people they wouldn’t be pushing for autocracy in the leadership. Autocracy only serves distant authorities as it makes focusing pressure easier on a smaller space.

          Notice the ‘self ruled’ non-diocesans poof presto at the AOA.

  16. I’m wondering if Met. Jonah is in a very difficult or even no win situation.
    I’m wondering if he “goes” he will either be confined to “the retirement home for OCA ex-Metropolitans” or have to go into exile, and if he “stays” he will have to work with the cobal which will still be entrenched and constantly working behind his back to sabotage his every plan and effort to “clean house” and to find new ways to get rid of him.
    I’m also wondering what would happen at a new AAC held to elect a Metropolitan to replace +Jonah if the cobal “wins.”
    And finally I’m wondering if we are now in one of those times of our Church history when the laity had to act to save the Church from a faltering hierarchy and if so, what do we do and should it be done at the upcoming AAC.
    But then, maybe I’m just wondering too much.
    But at least I am praying hard for our Lord to act.

    • And finally I’m wondering if we are now in one of those times of our Church history when the laity had to act to save the Church from a faltering hierarchy and if so, what do we do and should it be done at the upcoming AAC.

      Yes, but I would wait what will take place after Pascha. If the cabal continues… then we should act at the AAC…

      • A. Rymlianin says

        In fact, the Union of Brest Litovsk, signed in 1596 by metropolitans Cyril Terlecky of Lutsk and metropolitan Poteyi of Vladimir , which united the curch in Galicia to Rome was opposed by a mainly lay movement which restored the integrity of Orthodoxy in the Ukraine. Also, gives the big razzie to the Brum doctrine.

      • My guess is that the “plan” would be to simply extend the leave of absence until after the AAC so as to sidestep another election, at least in the short term.

    • Niko, Ill answer that question with just a hint of sarcasm: Since some of my critics have said that I’ve gone overboard in my criticisms of the anti-+Jonah bishops, that me and OCAT have overstated the case, etc., then there won’t be any problems at all. So in other words, +Jonah won’t have any problems working with them at all since this whole escapade was a tempest in a teapot dreamt up by internet busybodies like myself. (How I wish that that were true!)

    • Harry Coin says

      Remember that all these issues of getting active the public sphere, rallying the voices we see here and so forth I think surfaced in the timeline only after whatever bombs there are in the sexual misdoing report became known in high places.

      Maybe it’s not more than some sort of serious mishandling of the Canadian situation leading to financial exposure.

      Rereading some of the source materials relative to ‘leave of absence’– the minutes on the OCA website are quite clear about that. Check them here: http://www.oca.org/PDF/NEWS/2011/2011-0301-public-minutes-santafe.pdf

      “After further discussion, the Holy Synod determined that a sixty day Leave of Absence for His Beatitude would be beneficial. Metropolitan Jonah accepted to do so. The Synod asked him to request to do so, as it would be better seen that he acknowledged the need for this. Metropolitan JONAH then requested a Leave Of Absence for not less than 60 days during which time he would see a physician and devote himself to his own spiritual and physical health without concern for the burdens of the primatial office. This could include a time of retreat at a monastery. His Grace Bishop Benjamin asked if he was ready to make this decision or if he needed additional time and the Metropolitan said he did not need more time to make the decision.”

      Last, why boot Fr. Garklavs? It goes back to that report– if he’s not there is doesn’t have to answer questions nor prevent editing of the problematic report to eliminate anything he knows to be true or prevent adding anything he doesn’t know to be so.

      That report must have some wicked serious financial or personnel consequences. Based on who’s screaming loudest and hiding and so forth, I’m worried the consequences are financial against those who would be in a position to generate personnel issues by speaking. So, the ink needs to get put back into the bottle. Which, when you look at it over time, is what the Synod did all during Theodosius’ time, and Herman’s time. It appears to be what they do.

      • George Michalopulos says

        Harry, re Garklavs: it was the HS which fired him. I would have done the same thing had I been on it. Once it was aware to them that he was actively undermining +Jonah, nobody else in his right mind would want someone unsubordinate. Plus his tampering with the SMPAC report is highly irregular. From a legal standpoint, they had to get rid of him.

        • Harry Coin says

          No evidence there of tampering, I think that one might be spin to scapegoat the departing guy who then won’t be obligated to answer hard questions.

          • skeptical says

            Harry, is that sarcastic? This has been hashed and rehashed… the Skordinski email clearly gives substance to the speculation of tampering.

            • Heracleides says

              Ah, but for Harry it seems that the emails either don’t exist or can somehow be parsed into signifying anything but that which they actually state.

  17. Anonymous says

    I am still of the opinion that it is the passion for decadence that is driving both our financial, political and homosexual problems. I really wish we could go back to deposing bishops for wearing silk or perfume…

    • Yes, me, too, anonymous. We humans do have a tendency toward gluttony… to take more than we need, to take more than we give. But we don’t have to be that way. I was raised in a non-Orthodox church by pious parents. The church was large, and was committed to supporting many, many missionaries. This church gave. There was a big board in the hallway with a world map on it. Photos of the missionaries were around the borders. You could press on a button below the photo and a little light lit up on the map where the missionary was working. The map was covered with lights. This was ingrained into my memory and helped shaped me as a person. All the children loved to press those buttons. The people gave their money generously, and the money was distributed by the church board where it was needed. I’ve known of an Orthodox parish that had over a hundred thousand dollars invested in various places, but when the Sisterhood got together, they debated over whether a hundred dollars or fifty dollars a month should be given to the local food shelf. Just sayin’.

      • Rachel, I hear ya’! Anonymous, we could enforce the canons once we get back to having real men as bishops. That’s one of the reasons that some of the OCA bishops were so exercized by +Jonah I expect.

        To my critics: you want proof? Look at how some of these bishops reacted to the WaPo story on HB. Real men wouldn’t have acted so cattily but would have patted him on the back and said “wait to go, guy!”

      • Lola J. Lee Beno says

        I’m with you on this.

    • ……..deposing bishops for wearing silk or perfume…

      What? Not even perfume with incense flavour? No silk, I can understand, especially yellow silk. That is reserved for the Son of Heaven…

  18. Again from the holy Apostle Paul (Ephesians 6:12-13, NKJV):
    “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand”

  19. Aren’t there dozens if not something like over 100 members of the Metropolitan Council? Where is everyone else other Than Fr. Bobosh, Stokoe, Faith S. ? If I were a member of the MC I might feel compelled to speak up, if anything to say “I am concerned about all this stuff and plan to bring it up for serious review at the next meeting.” But I haven’t heard from anyone who (admits to being) is on the MC.
    Weird.

    • Takes all of 2 minutes to get the correct answer:
      32 members + 3 officers + Met. Jonah >> Grand Total = 36.

      The Metropolitan Council – OCA
      http://www.oca.org/CAmetcouncil.asp?SID=8

      • Thanks for the answer. The exact number wasn’t really my point, what I meant to say was that I was just wondering how concerned the other members of the MC are about all this. Why so silent? I would be tempted to speak up, if anything to let anyone who was wondering know that we take it seriously and plan to look into it.

        • Not sure why the MC has not issued a public statement on this. There may be internal issues going on, they may be waiting for the Synod to meet first, there could be communication/consensus issues or practicality of agreement difficulties when not in session, or waiting for Pascha to arrive? Who knows?

      • Lola J. Lee Beno says

        Okay . . . I’m surprised that the council is so large. Is that really necessary?

    • Ian James says

      You bring up a very good point Elijah. How many of the other members of the MC know what Stokoe, Faith S, and the other people who signed the emails are up to? The emails show that he is working with a few other people to get +Jonah but is doing it behind the backs of his readers. But is he doing it behind the backs of other members of the MC too?

      I think the MC needs to investigate this. If Stokoe and his friends did this on their own, they need to be fired. He is making them all look bad.

      • You can ask them: http://www.oca.org/CAmetcouncil.asp?SID=8
        I’m going to e-mail my reps for the DOS just to see what they think. Let them know that I take the allegations seriously and that I hope that they as my reps for the DOS will too and that they will give me reassurance that those issues will be addressed at the next meeting.

  20. 62
    Joseph says:
    April 12, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    And finally I’m wondering if we are now in one of those times of our Church history when the laity had to act to save the Church from a faltering hierarchy and if so, what do we do and should it be done at the upcoming AAC.

    Yes, but I would wait what will take place after Pascha. If the cabal continues… then we should act at the AAC…

    Maybe at least a formal proclamation of “No Confidence” in the HS, MC, and Soysset Adm. for not working out, in accordance with the teachings of our Lord, their differences with our canonically elected Metropolitan.

    (Plus maybe even an admonition to them to henceforth refrain from preaching to their laity that which they themselves cannot practice.)

    • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

      Maybe at least a formal proclamation of “No Confidence” in the HS, MC, and Soysset Adm. for not working out, in accordance with the teachings of our Lord, their differences with our canonically elected Metropolitan.

      It’s official. It’s a cult.

      • 88
        Anonymous since it’s all the rage says:
        April 14, 2011 at 12:18 am

        It’s official. It’s a cult.

        It’s official: You’re a “Plant” for OCANews and Stokoe.

        • Ivan Vasiliev says

          Nikos,

          It isn’t nice to call people plants. Plants don’t even have central nervous systems, never mind brains. Besides, if the Metropolitan Council/Soviet can’t even manage to keep their “private” emails from public scrutiny, how are they going to manage to keep their plants watered?

          Anonymous since its all the rage is as much an independent person as are the various brands of anonymities who are on this and other blogs. It is amusing to have someone like ASIATR throwing in an outrageous comment or two now and then. It lightens up the all too grim, “we take ourselves so seriously” tone that can often emerge in any of the blogs (OCAT, OCAnews, etc., etc.). Uncle Screwtape was always reminding the unfortunate Wormwood that hell has no place for humor. I think he referred to it as having something to do with dignity.

          Anyhow, I suspect that, with their grasp of technology, the MC is quite capable of monitoring this and other blogs as carefully as people here monitor the one hosted by their spokesperson(s).

          • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

            It is amusing to have someone like ASIATR throwing in an outrageous comment or two now and then. It lightens up the all too grim, “we take ourselves so seriously” tone that can often emerge in any of the blogs

            Thanks. I think.

            (Admittedly, the off-kilter, drive-by blog comment is a specialty of mine. It’s part of my nature, for good or ill. And you’re right: we take ourselves far too seriously far too much of the time.)

        • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

          Hardly. But what I am is someone who owes no “obedience” to Met. Jonah, as he is not my bishop, and neither am I enthralled with the folks who seem in a rush to turn us into Southern Baptists. Folks seem on a “crusade” to purge the Church of sinners, as they see them. Pharisaical, to say the least. I’ve always taken the view that the narrow path appears to run straight up the middle, politically, if you can even put a political label on concepts like love and forgiveness and charity and salvation.

          The reason I say it’s becoming a “cult” is that there seems such overweening loyalty to this one individual, regardless of his weaknesses, and without any actual knowledge of what is behind this dispute. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: much is hidden here. When it comes out, I think you’ll find that Met. Jonah has been covering up some pretty nasty stuff, and others in leadership know it. It won’t matter to the cultists, just as they can so easily ignore the statements of such respected leaders as Hopko and Oleksa. They follow not their own bishops, as they should, but this one man in a far off diocese. To quote His Beatitude himself: “If we wanted a Pope, we’d submit to the real one.”

          • Covering up “nasty stuff”? Evidence? Inquiring minds want to know.

            Cultists? Because they have no “actual knowledge of what is behind this dispute”? Evidence? Inquiring minds want to know.

            Anonymous postings carry a penalty. Everyone knows that. You love your drive by “humor”. Most of us just tolerate it. But please, no analysis, no innuendo, while hiding behind the moniker. Even Stokoe knows better than that.

            • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

              Covering up “nasty stuff”? Evidence? Inquiring minds want to know.

              No evidence. I’ve admitted whole-heartedly in the past that it’s pure speculation. However, in my analysis, that’s the direction everyone’s behavior is pointed.

              Cultists? Because they have no “actual knowledge of what is behind this dispute”? Evidence? Inquiring minds want to know.

              What else do you call folks who jump straight to the defense of “their guy” at all times, with no regard for the opinions of highly respected elders? Who want a “no confidence” vote on the whole Church administration, except of course for “their guy”? It’s knee jerk. And this whole “culture war” thing is a chestnut, as is the “conspiracy”, the “Lavender Mafia”, the “cabal of homosexuals”, etc., said cabal appearing to be one allegedly gay man with a blog. It’s made up by the knee-jerk loyalists in the absence of actual information.

              • George Michalopulos says

                ASIATR, “cultists”? Really? How many times have I praised Stokoe in the past (even within my latest post)? How many times have I and the OCATs taken +Jonah to task for not going far enough?

                But I despair not and relish the self-delusion of all liberals such as yourself. Please keep on believing that those of us on the Right have no sense, intelligence, discernment, perception, historical knowledge, and common sense. Please keep on believing that we’re just a bunch of brain-numbed robots. That way, when we mop up the floor with your ilk, we’ll get a special thrill out of it because as we do so, you’ll never be able to process how morons can be winning such battles against witty, urbane sophisticates such as yourselves.

                • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

                  Me? A liberal? Well, I did vote for that Democrat once. He was a buddy of mine that lost the R primary for County Engineer and ran as a D to snub his nose at the local party establishment. All good fun. He almost won, too.

                  Please keep on believing that we’re just a bunch of brain-numbed robots. That way, when we mop up the floor with your ilk, we’ll get a special thrill out of it because as we do so, you’ll never be able to process how morons can be winning such battles against witty, urbane sophisticates such as yourselves.

                  Wow, George. You’ve really got your knickers in a twist. “Mop the floor?”. Such martial allusions. “Urbane sophisticate?” I just came in from trying to get a ’48 tractor to start and I smell like gasoline. Then I have to take some scrap to the recycler, and maybe put new lights on my boat trailer. How “urbane” does that sound? Fact is, I’m one of the few members of the “Redneck Orthodox Church”.

                  Here’s the thing, George. When the truth about what’s going on comes out, and it will, I think you’ll see that my speculation is about 75% correct. That’s my standard track record. And you’ll see that you’re about 75% wrong. We’ll meet back here when it happens, possibly, God willing, in a few weeks, so we can get this behind us and move on to more important things.

                  • “I just came in from trying to get a ’48 tractor to start and I smell like gasoline. Then I have to take some scrap to the recycler, and maybe put new lights on my boat trailer.”
                    So you are a rural sophisticate then? A member of the red-neck OC?
                    Don’t kid yourself, pouring gasoline on one’s clothes doesn’t make one a red-neck. It is more likely a sign of someone with poor hand- eye coordination.

                    And bringing something to the recycler doesn’t get you there either… never mind boat-lights.

                    Shovelling manure, now that might get you closer to becoming a catechumen of the red-neck OC…. and it seems, from what I read, you are good at the shovelling part at least…

                    • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

                      This is the first spring we haven’t raised hogs in several years. Why? Because, of course, I tore down the hog house last fall. Right before pork went to $1.10/lb carcass price from its usual 45-50 cents.

                      Been there, done that.

                  • Please, in a nutshell, can you outline your speculation for me. Save me from reading pages and pages and pages of this stuff. Please and thank you.

                    • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

                      Cheryl, my speculation is thus: there’s been some sexual shenanigans, and +Jonah is not following the OCA procedures for such matters. He’s getting called on it because his failures here put the Church at real and significant risk legally and financially. Also, it’s the final straw to a lot of people after putting up with other flighty behavior from him.

                      That’s what I think is happening. It’s pure speculation based on the behavior of the people around him.

                    • George Michalopulos says

                      ASIATR, forgive me for calling you a liberal, urbane, sophisticate, etc. I too agree that +Jonah dropped the ball. if you read OCAT, you can see that they do as well. What you are NOT highlighting is that the liberals who are behind +Jonah’s ouster are not being forthright about sexual sins. Far from it. We already know from what has been leaked about the SMPAC report that those sexual sins that do not make +Jonah look bad (and in fact make the Old Guard look bad) have not been brought out.

                      My main point is that Stokoe has engaged in selective outrage. And yes, he is a liberal who at the very least does not want the Church to engage the culture.

                      When the truth does come out (and I have my own recollection of correspondence with Stokoe from about 2 years ago), we will see that +Jonah signed his death-warrant (in Stokoe’s eyes) when he signed the Manhattand Declaration. HB only aggravated the situation when he tried to remove +Stokoe from the MC at t the behest of +Philip, and tt’s been downhill since that time. (At the risk of beating a dead horse, Stokoe defied +Jonah –that’s in his own words. How could he do it? Because he had the goods on a lot of people).

          • As an avid reader of this blog, OCANews, and OCAT I conclude that “Anonymous since it’s all the rage” is actually Mark Stokoe. His writing style and sense of humor are identical. So Mark – OCAT said that “OCANews is about to come back in a big way” and you hint as much here. Please, tell us what we need to know and don’t delay just to make OCAT appear wrong. More details please on “much is hidden here”.

            • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

              Not Mark. Sorry. As for delaying a post to make OCAT wrong, that’s exactly what I thought when they posted that statement. Then again, I’m still waiting to hear more about the “blistering letter” the Russians supposedly sent us.

          • cult members don’t sit around talking about their guru’s flaws, as this blog has been doing for the last month. You have really twisted what’s happening here. I do believe we have our eyes wide open.

          • what I am is someone who owes no “obedience” to Met. Jonah

            You owe Metropolitan Jonah some measure of respect as the primate of your local church.

            neither am I enthralled with the folks who seem in a rush to turn us into Southern Baptists.

            Hardly!

            Folks seem on a “crusade” to purge the Church of sinners, as they see them. Pharisaical, to say the least. I’ve always taken the view that the narrow path appears to run straight up the middle, politically, if you can even put a political label on concepts like love and forgiveness and charity and salvation.

            Metropolitan Jonah has not promoted any political party. He represents the social teachings of the church where the civil authorities have failed to uphold them. If there were laws against giving charity to the poor, I have no doubt that he would be out there fighting those laws just as fervently as he fights Roe V. Wade.

            The reason I say it’s becoming a “cult” is that there seems such overweening loyalty to this one individual, regardless of his weaknesses, and without any actual knowledge of what is behind this dispute.

            Well, Metropolitan Jonah has always been good and kind to me, and to everybody I know. I don’t worship him like an idol. I support him because I think he is being victimized. He cannot be thrown out of office without charges being proven in a spiritual court, and none have even been made. Attempting to talk him into resigning or retiring is circumventing canonical process and violating the good order of the Church. The only thing I see is repetition of the same hysterical accusations of the “disobedience” of the Accursed One. It gives a lot of credence to the longstanding theory that the Metropolitan is being treated as a scapegoat.

            For “actual knowledge”, the SMPAC report is one big MacGuffin. Nobody who’s actually seen the thing is speaking out, the contents are confidential so anyone who did spill about it would expose himself to a lawsuit, and according to at least one source there has been an attempt to alter its contents illegally.

            As for “what is behind this dispute”, I think it is silly to discount the ethical and culture war aspect of this. Metropolitan Jonah’s two most fervent opponents in the blogosphere are a transsexual and a partnered homosexual. His most fervent opponents on the Metropolitan Council include that same partnered homosexual, the priest who has been keeping that partnered homosexual (and his partner) in good standing with the Church, and a third individual who is also said to no longer be in good standing with the Church for reasons unknown to me. And his most fervent opponents on the Synod include three bishops who turned and looked the other way while the church was looted. These are hardly the white knights of integrity and sexual morality.

            It won’t matter to the cultists, just as they can so easily ignore the statements of such respected leaders as Hopko and Oleksa.

            Fr. Hopko may be a “respected leader”, true. Metropolitan Jonah has been pretty widely respected, too, but it hasn’t lifted him above all scrutiny, obviously.

            Fr. Oleksa, I’m inclined to give a pass. He is an unabashed fan of Mark Stokoe, with good reason, saying, “Mark Stokoe’s website saved Alaska. I am forever grateful.” Fr. Oleksa can hardly have any direct knowledge of this situation, and he appears to have lifted his viewpoint directly from OCANews. I am disappointed in him, but I can’t say I’m surprised.

    • “Maybe at least a formal proclamation of “No Confidence” in the HS, MC, and Soysset Adm. for not working out, in accordance with the teachings of our Lord, their differences with our canonically elected Metropolitan.

      (Plus maybe even an admonition to them to henceforth refrain from preaching to their laity that which they themselves cannot practice.)”

      I am with you on that….!

  21. God has given Metropolitan Jonah to the OCA not simply for our renewal as a jurisdiction but for the renewal of the whole Church in America. This is I think the only thing that makes sense of the criticisms that have been leveled against him. The enemy of souls is afraid of what God will do through the Metropolitan.

    Talking with a Catholic friend this week, she asked if there are people interceding for his Beatitude. While I said there are those who are praying for him, myself among them, there was no organized intercession for him. But there needs to be. We all need to pray for the Metropolitan that he draw closer to God and remain steadfast in obedience to the divine will. This is I think is the one thing that matters most right now–that we intercede for his Beatitude and that he be supported by our prayers in doing what God would have him do.

    +FrG

    • George Michalopulos says

      Fr, excellent idea. Can we ask you to create a petition that all of us who love HB can say daily?

      • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

        While your at it, Father, you can create a petition for those of us who do pray for the Metropolitan even though we’re not absolutely cocksure that he’s correct as so many here claim to be. Perhaps along the lines of “And we pray for those whose arrogance has gotten the better of them even though they’re admittedly working off of innuendo, rumor, presumption, and half-baked info.”

        • I’ve been praying a reader version of the Paraklesis. I try to do that once every few days at least for “Jonah the metropolitan and his whole family, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America, the Metropolitan Council, and everyone involved in the present situation.” Perhaps you would do well to cut the snarkiness and do likewise, ASIATR.

        • you sound like such a nice man . . . .

    • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

      God has given Metropolitan Jonah to the OCA not simply for our renewal as a jurisdiction but for the renewal of the whole Church in America. This is I think the only thing that makes sense of the criticisms that have been leveled against him. The enemy of souls is afraid of what God will do through the Metropolitan.

      Father, I beg your forgiveness, and your prayers, but I believe this to be beneath the dignity of a priest of Christ’s Church. To attribute an honest disagreement, based on incomplete facts, to demonic possession is beyond the pale. If I have misread your statement, please forgive me, but I do not think that I have.

      Let us assume for a moment that there is a conspiracy to oust His Beatitude. According to the folks here, said conspiracy involves the Synod of Bishops, the Metropolitan Council, the Sexual Misconduct Committee, a couple of the most respected priests of the Church, and a fair number of the laity. I would submit that, if this is so, another name for “conspiracy” would be “the conciliar decision of the Church”.

      When you, Father, attribute the opinions of this conciliar process to the machinations of the Enemy, you discredit yourself and those who share your opinion, and you separate yourself from the governance of the Church for which all of us share responsibility.

      I would ask you, in all respect, to clarify the statement that I have highlighted.

      • 118
        Anonymous since it’s all the rage says:
        April 14, 2011 at 5:16 pm

        Father, I beg your forgiveness, and your prayers, but I believe this to be beneath the dignity of a priest of Christ’s Church. To attribute an honest disagreement, based on incomplete facts, to demonic possession is beyond the pale. If I have misread your statement, please forgive me, but I do not think that I have.

        Let us assume for a moment that there is a conspiracy to oust His Beatitude. According to the folks here, said conspiracy involves the Synod of Bishops, the Metropolitan Council, the Sexual Misconduct Committee, a couple of the most respected priests of the Church, and a fair number of the laity. I would submit that, if this is so, another name for “conspiracy” would be “the conciliar decision of the Church”.

        That sounds to me like pure “Stokoeese”

        • Maybe it belongs at the recycler?

        • Ian James says

          If this isn’t Stoke, it certainly is one of his groupies. Look at the motif: collapse of all of +Jonah’s authority into the Byzantine substructure of the OCA — with, of course, Stokoe in charge! (We know this because the leaked emails reveal Stokoe and cohorts are manipulating the MC behind the scenes.)

          +Jonah is a “rogue” (Stokoe’s term) which really means that +Jonah won’t submit to the manipulations. Stokoe, maybe one or two (but probably just one) bishops, and the handful of MC members named on the leaked emails crafted a narrative that Stokoe pushed on his website. (He calls it “news”.) He expects everyone to fall for it. Most of us didn’t but ASIATR sure has.

          The false piety has familiar ring too: Father I beg your forgiveness and prayers, BUT…

          Yeah, this is “pure ‘Stokoeese'”.

          (Stokoe or his buddy here has to learn that OCNews doesn’t amplify like it used to.)

          • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

            False piety? To show respect to a priest?

            What am I supposed to say? “Yo, Greg?”

            • Ian James says

              Yeah, it rings hollow, especially with the recitation of the powers allegedly aligned against +Jonah which we now know to be contrived. That drumbeat is what makes your post “Stokoeese”. I’d have more confidence in your assertion if the people named on the emails explained what they were up to. So far we’ve only heard from one or two surrogates, and those explanations are too weak to be believed. You seem to think, like Stokoe, that if you say “+Jonah is a rogue” loud and long enough, people will believe it.

              • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

                I’d have more confidence in my assertions if those people spoke up, too.

      • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

        Oh, come off it, Anon. First, the “enemy of souls” works on all of us in little ways we never notice, and so pointing the finger at the enemy himself (as Fr. Gregory does) does not attribute “demonic possession” to everyone whose actions serve the enemy’s purposes. Second, the Church has never taught that councils never err. Instead, it has been rather picky about which councils it chooses to regard as inspired, as Fr. John Behr shows in The Nicene Faith.

      • ASIATR,

        God forgives!

        Whether or not there is a conspiracy I can’t say. One thing to keep in mind in all this is the danger of a mob mentality. Again, I’m accusing anyone of anything but I do think that anger and hurt, disappointment and fear, are contagious. The absence of a conspiracy does not necessarily mean the absence of a mob mentality.

        Looking at recent events it seems to me that passions–on both sides–are running too high to be simply an honest disagreement. I’m not suggesting that anyone in particular is evil or sinning–I am however saying that the Enemy can use even our best intentions against us. Would you disagree with this?

        In Christ,

        +FrG

        • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

          Thank you for your reply Father, and clearly, I did misread what you wrote. I am sorry.

          Certainly, passions are high. While I’ve gotten my digs in, certainly, I think I’ve been pretty consistent in saying that the information is minimal, and I see conclusions being jumped to all over the place. (What me? Sin? Never!)

          You’re right: it’s not an honest disagreement anymore. Sides are being drawn that unfortunately cannot be abandoned when this dust-up is over. (And it will be. Soon, I’d figure.) I just don’t understand the knee-jerk “defend +Jonah at all costs” mentality, regardless of the paucity of information regarding the actual issues.

          Again, I’m sorry.

          • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

            I just don’t understand the knee-jerk “defend +Jonah at all costs” mentality, regardless of the paucity of information regarding the actual issues.

            If there’s any knee-jerking going on, it’s going on on both sides and is explainable by the fact that we have all taken positions and dug ourselves in for the fight. Your own admitted misreading of Fr. Gregory is just one example of such a knee jerk.

            But the initial reaction of those of us defending the Metropolitan was hardly a knee jerk in his defense, as if we all already owed him unquestioning allegiance. We rose to his defense only after it became plain that some people were indeed conspiring against him and that none of their complaints justified pushing him out of the way. Nothing knee-jerk about that, just a very rational alarm that he was being treated very unfairly despite having done so much good.

            • Chris Plourde says

              If there’s any knee-jerking going on, it’s going on on both sides and is explainable by the fact that we have all taken positions and dug ourselves in for the fight.

              Absolutely.

              The real damage being done to the OCA is not being done by Metropolitan or Synod, despite the claims of the “sides,” but the digging in for the fight by those who have made themselves partisans. Many of us have had the experience of visiting a parish where such a fight was going on, the poison in the air is palpable even to someone who is merely passing by.

              That cloud of suspicion and antagonism is not easily dispelled.

              Lent is ending, but it’s not over yet. It’s still possible to arrive at the Paschal Feast free from knee-jerkiness. 😉

      • skeptical says

        God has given Metropolitan Jonah to the OCA not simply for our renewal as a jurisdiction but for the renewal of the whole Church in America. This is I think the only thing that makes sense of the criticisms that have been leveled against him. The enemy of souls is afraid of what God will do through the Metropolitan.

        ASIATR,

        It seems like your issue with Fr. Gregory is the conclusion he draws as to why we are in this situation. How then could his asking for prayers for HB be beyond the pale? Even if Met. Jonah was ENTIRELY what is wrong with the OCA, how would such a request (misguided or not) be something to take issue with?

        And are we to suppose that you think the devil is not concerned about the good ANY Metropolitan might do? Especially one with such promise, such zeal, one that so excited American members accross jurisdiction?

        As for the issue of the “conciliar decision of the Church”, the point is in fact moot. If Metropolitan Jonah was disliked by everyone in the world (which is certainly NOT the case) what canonical issue would there be for removing him? Disagreement? Disagreeability? As it so happens, I would NOT bet the Synod is united in efforts to remove +Jonah. Likewise with the MC. As for the faithful — I think you’re claim to a majority there is dead wrong.

        What this looks like to me is that you are offended by even the semblance of support for Met. Jonah. You seem to jump at the proposal that he might be able to stay in his role as Primate. You seem shocked to hear suggestions that he might improve, or that his behavior might be acceptable.

        What, pray tell, has happened to you to illicit such an uncalled for response?

        P.S. Responses like yours only serve to help people believe that there is a group of people who uncontrollably hate our Metropolitan, refuse to work with him, and will do anything to get him gone because they think they know better.

        • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

          You seem shocked to hear suggestions that he might improve, or that his behavior might be acceptable.

          Disregarding the other drivel you typed, for it was, the fact remains that none of us know what behavior of the Metropolitan’s is at the heart of this. Oh we presume that for example “he’s upholding the Church’s teachings on sexuality!” or that “he’s engaging the culture!” or some such that has incensed the liberal homo-lovers.

          Or, on the other hand, we presume that “he’s screwing up his job!” or that “he’s trying to give away the autocephaly!” or such.

          But, in fact, none of us KNOW. Again, there are things here that are hidden. I’d bet my life on it. These presumptions are causing this split.

          • skeptical says

            If that’s the case, I see no reason why you should have any problem with Fr. Gregory’s statements.

      • The reality of Satan’s persistent attempts to involve himself in every person’s everyday life is NOT the same thing as “demonic possession.” I’m surprised that anyone could read Fr. Gregory’s post and make such a mental jump worthy of Evel Knievel.

    • Dear Fr. Gregory:
      Father, bless!
      As I commented before, I am praying hard “for our Lord to act,” because, I too believe:

      [W]e do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12-13, NKJV).

      I also believe that, whether our canonically elected Metropolitan “stays” or “goes,” the HS, MC, and Syosset adm. are going to have to apply the teachings of our Lord and his holy Apostles in the New Testament, without any “additions or subtractions,” as a “Handbook for Interpersonal Relations” with each other if they are going to succeed in geting us out of this mess that they got us into. If they don’t, then I think that the present “mode of operation” will continue with the foreseeable future of the OCA being rather bleak.

      O Lord, save thy people
      bless thine inheretence
      by the power of thy holy Cross
      which we fall down before and worship

  22. “When you, Father, attribute the opinions of this conciliar process to the machinations of the Enemy, you discredit yourself and those who share your opinion, and you separate yourself from the governance of the Church for which all of us share responsibility.” I have noticed this being done within the Othodox church quite a lot lately – mostly amongst the converts…newly converts…it is a most protestant practice ….if you ask me. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly believe in the evil one…but I don’t put the blame there everytime someone disagrees with me as it appears it is becoming more and more the practice of some Orthodox Christians just to attribute quilt or shut someone up. God have mercy on us all.

    • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

      Cheryl, you are reading too much into Fr. Gregory’s statement. He is really only saying what the Metropolitan’s critics no doubt are saying in reverse — that the devil is using some people to harm the Church. Our disagreement is over whom he is using and what harm is being done. Some of our disagreement is no doubt attributable to innocent error, but some of it is also no doubt attributable to the desire of some of +Jonah’s critics to quietly overthrow the Church’s teaching on sexuality.

      • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

        Cheryl, you are reading too much into Fr. Gregory’s statement.

        As did I.

        He is really only saying what the Metropolitan’s critics no doubt are saying in reverse — that the devil is using some people to harm the Church. Our disagreement is over whom he is using and what harm is being done.

        I can’t speak for what others are saying, as it relates to the first sentence, but I would wholeheartedly agree with your second sentence.

        Some of our disagreement is no doubt attributable to innocent error

        Absolutely.

        but some of it is also no doubt attributable to the desire of some of +Jonah’s critics to quietly overthrow the Church’s teaching on sexuality.

        Utter balderdash with zero, zip, nada evidence to support it. That is just flat made up out of whole cloth. Please name an individual who has ever stated that the teachings of the Church on sexuality need to be changed.

        • Anonymous since it’s all the rage

          It’s not the rage anymore.

        • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

          Regarding:

          Utter balderdash with zero, zip, nada evidence to support it. That is just flat made up out of whole cloth. Please name an individual who has ever stated that the teachings of the Church on sexuality need to be changed.

          The preferred strategy for overthrowing the Church’s teaching on sodomy involves (a) not teaching the teaching, (b) misrepresenting the teaching, (c) complaining against “unilateral” public statements of the teaching, (d) misrepresenting the empirical facts relating to same-sex attraction, and (e) shaming those who don’t go along as insensitive and “homophobic.”

          All of these tactics are on display in public statements by Mark Stokoe and others active in making the case privately if not publicly against the Metropolitan. You have to be willfully blind not to see the connection. I’m not saying this is the only or even the main motivation for the attacks on the Metropolitan, but it is one of the main motivations, and so Fr. Gregory is right.

          • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

            The preferred strategy for overthrowing the Church’s teaching on sodomy involves (a) not teaching the teaching, (b) misrepresenting the teaching, (c) complaining against “unilateral” public statements of the teaching, (d) misrepresenting the empirical facts relating to same-sex attraction, and (e) shaming those who don’t go along as insensitive and “homophobic.”

            All of these tactics are on display in public statements by Mark Stokoe and others active in making the case privately if not publicly against the Metropolitan.

            OK. You’ve named the strategy. You have alleged that Stokoe has made public statements that conform with the strategy. Please cite one of those statements.

            As for your “and [unnamed] others, &c.”, I continue to see nonsense.

            • Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says

              Regarding:

              OK. You’ve named the strategy. You have alleged that Stokoe has made public statements that conform with the strategy. Please cite one of those statements.

              Just one? How reasonable of you. For your reasonableness, I’ll go the extra mile. Here’s a comment from last month you might have missed, thoroughly documenting Stokoe’s implementation of the strategy:

              Dn Brian Patrick Mitchell says:
              March 19, 2011 at 3:07 am
              J’accuse

              In my previous post, I accused Stokoe of arguing the gay view of gayness on his website. Here’s evidence, taken from a discussion of the link between homosexuality and pedophilia in late November of last year. I’ll spare you the comments of others, which raised the issue, and just cite Stokoe’s “editor’s notes” on the subject, in italics:

              (Editor’s note: Homophobia is not a virtue, even when preaching to homophobic cultures. Secondly, if you suggesting that homosexuality and pedophilia are related, you are mistaken, in the same way rape has nothing to do with heterosexuality. It is about power, not sexual orientation. The allegations concerning the Archbishop are not about homosexuality. So if we are to have this important discussion, let’s do it free from phobia, stereotypes and cheap rim shots, please. Otherwise, it risks trivilizing your serious points.)

              (Editor’s note: You are wrong. The following is just one citation, taken from UC-Davis: “The empirical research does not show that gay or bisexual men are any more likely than heterosexual men to molest children. This is not to argue that homosexual and bisexual men never molest children. But there is no scientific basis for asserting that they are more likely than heterosexual men to do so. And, as explained above, many child molesters cannot be characterized as having an adult sexual orientation at all; they are fixated on children.” That being settled, let’s move on.)

              (Editor’s note: Possible, but not the case. According to the latest academic research most researchers are coming to agreement that most true pedophiles have no adult sexual orientation, but are fixated only on children, of either sex. They are best described not as homosexual or heterosexual – but pedophiles. I hope this puts the matter to rest. )

              (Editor’s note: I am glad this has been helpful for you, but it is not the purpose or goal or expertise of this site to discuss these matters. There are many other places to that; while there are precious few to discuss matters in the OCA and lately, the AOCNA. So, while not wanting to limit anybody’s concerns, I think the point has been made that there is no direct, indirect, or causal link between homosexuality and pedophila.)

              Notice how Stokoe handles the issue:

              In his first note, he disparages “homophobia” and “homophobic cultures.” Then he asserts that pedophilia is about power, as if sexual gratification plays no part in it at all. Then he belittles the commenter’s opinion by warning him not to engage in “phobia, stereotypes and cheap rim shots.”

              In his second note, he quotes the summary conclusion of an unnamed study by unnamed persons at UC-Davis that gay men are no more likely than straight men to molest children. Then he urges the posters to “move on.”

              In his third note, citing “latest academic research” by “most researchers,” he makes the highly dubious claim that pedophilia isn’t homosexual or heterosexual because pedophiles have no preference for sex and are merely “fixated on children, of either sex.” He adds that he “hopes this puts the matter to rest.”

              In his final note, he says the issue is not relevant to the discussion or the purposes of the website and that “the point has been made that there is no direct, indirect, or casual link between homosexuality and pedophilia.” That ends the discussion.

              NOW HERE’S THE KICKER:

              Expecting that Stokoe wouldn’t accept a summary conclusion from an academic study contradicting his own summary conclusion from UC-Davis, I myself provided Stokoe hard statistical data on 117 cases of students sexually abused by faculty and staff of New York City schools from January 1999 to June 2001, as reported by the New York Post. Of those 117 cases, the Post wrote, “Nearly 20 percent of the offenders are homosexuals and in most of these cases, the attack led to sexual relationship with the student.” (Source: Douglas Montero, “Secret Shame Of Our Schools: Sexual Abuse Of Students Runs Rampant,” New York Post, July 30, 2001) So unless homosexuals make up 20 percent of the faculty and staff of New York City schools, this is hard evidence that homosexuals are indeed more likely to molest children.

              I provided this information to Stokoe in a comment between his second and third editor’s notes, but did he post it? NO! He did not allow his readers the benefit of the information. Instead, he continued to cite unnamed research on his side that “puts the matter to rest,” finally concluding the discussion with an outright denial of any “direct, indirect or causal link” between homosexuality and child molesting.

              So, not only does Stokoe preach the gay line on the issue dogmatically, he also does so DISHONESTLY. That’s who we’re dealing with, and the Church ought to know about it.

              • Harry Coin says

                Dn Brian, It’s always a welcome thing to see folk do as you have done: when citing an authority to actually give folk a way to check for themselves.

              • Dn Brian, Those comments from Stokoe are pretty damning and represent a serious distortion of the truth. Thank you for pointing them out.

              • Anonymous since it's all the rage says

                I will not say that your evidence here is thin. I disagree with Mark’s conclusions, though what Mark is saying is what I’ve always understood the general consensus to be: that homosexuality has a rather tentative, but slightly correlative [though he doesn’t say so], relationship to pedophilia. (Much of course has been made of the RC sex “pedophilia scandal”, when, in fact, the victims were generally not little kids, but post-pubescent young men. That’s not pedophilia, but straight up “I like ’em young” homosexuality.)

                Still, I asked you, I thought (though I realize, not explicitly but in context), to provide a quote where he calls for the overthrow of the Church’s teaching. While he quotes academic studies in his responses, perhaps with an agenda, I certainly don’t see any explicit “change the Church’s teaching” being proffered.

                Hey. You’ve moved me a little towards your position. Keep going.

                • Michael Bauman says

                  ASIATR: Do you really expect a direct frontal assualt on the teachings of the Church? No, it is always disguised as tolerance. The very use of the term ‘homophobic’ is a sign to me that Mr. Stokoe does not feel the teachings of the Church are correct. It is a made-up word designed as a lever to induce institutional and societal acceptance of all homosexual behavior as equivalent to hetrosexual behavior. It is a word that, by it’s nature, denies that homosexual behavior and same sex attraction are sinful or wrong or disordered.

                  The use of the word is, in and of itself, an attack on the teaching of the Church.

                • Ian James says

                  ASIATR,

                  You won’t find a direct quote supporting homosexuality from Stokoe. The guy isn’t stupid. You will get instead what Michael Bauman already pointed out: Stokoe’s vocabulary is an attack on the teachings of the Church.

                  Dn. Patrick’s pointed out that Stokoe argues “the gay view of gayness on his website.” He is absolutely correct. Stokoe is providing an ideological defense of homosexuality because he employs the language, reasoning, and ideas of the homosexual movement.

                  Catholic Culture has a comprehensive article: Child Molestation by Homosexuals and Heterosexuals.

          • George Michalopulos says

            Deacon, I truly appreciate your distillation of the crusade to normalize homosexuality within the Church. As I’ve said often: if those in the ECUSA wing of Orthodoxy can’t openly sanction such sin, the next best thing is to make sure that the bishops don’t speak up.

    • 138
      cheryl says:
      April 14, 2011 at 7:21 pm

      I have noticed this being done within the Othodox church quite a lot lately – mostly amongst the converts…newly converts…it is a most protestant practice ….if you ask me.

      The Desert Fathers of way back then, and all our hesychast saints since then, talk a lot about it, and none them were Protestant.
      Of course the Devil (who loves and endeavors to remain “out of the picture”) would be of no consequence in purely human affairs if it were not for the fallen human nature shared by us all.
      As with Ephesians 6:12-13, I personally never question, purposely overlook, or dismiss anything St. Paul (and all holy scripture) says. I take what ever is written as truth, and try to understand things from there from the writings of our saints and personal experience.

      (BTW, just so I don’t mislead you (and any one else), I am “cradle Orthodox,” and a “Publican.”)

    • Cheryl,

      If you read the writings of the contemporary holy people — for example, Fr. Paisios, Fr. Porphyrios, and many others — you will understand that Satan always has continued his evil efforts among us on earth, never has stopped, and never shall until he is overcome permanently in the end. This is not a Protestant incursion into Orthodox territory. Rather, it may be one of the rare elements of the true faith that has survived within Protestantism.

  23. I find your responses very telling…you are assuming you know what personal situations I have experienced and those I speak of. You do not. I know about the desert fathers, I know of the things you are refering to..how dare you Antonia, Nikos et al. assume so much. I suppose you are also filling in the gaps of this situation with assumptions. I simply said, in my circles and on many occassions when disagreements arise, individuals I have personal contact with like to accuse the “other” side of doing Satan’s work. Personally, I haven’t a clue what the truth is in any of this nor do many of you (therefore, I’ll withhold opinions), but what I’ve just witnessed here, assuming is good enough to fill in the gaps.

    • Dear Cheryl and friends,
      it seems we have now arrived at Godwin’s Law and its corollary for religious discussions….. We have arrived at “Satan”

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
      It states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler Satan and his helpers approaches 1.”[3][2] In other words, Godwin put forth the hyperbolic observation that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope— someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis. Satan and his helpers

      • Michael Bauman says

        Well, Joseph, it is a pretty poor Christian that does not understand that Satan and his demons are the source of many temptations. Indeed this whole converstation began (as I recall) with George’s homage to C.S. Lewis Screwtape letters. Which, if I recall further, he posted after a comment of mine that Uncle Wormwood would understand quite well the nature of the conflict in the OCA.

        Anytime a group, especially a Christian group, starts consuming its own, it is a clear sign that the flesh and the devil are in control, not our submission to Christ. That is what scapegoating is all about.

        Is there a canonical reason to depose Met. Jonah? If there is, what is it? If there is not–shut up.

        Is Mark Stokoe’s membership on the MC in violation of the OCA statues? If it is then he needs to step down or be removed. If it does not–then it is purely a pastoral matter to the extent that he and his pastor leave it there.

        Without any clear non-canoncial behavior on the part or Met. Jonah, he deserves the support of everyone in the OCA as the duly elected and enthroned Metropolitan. Whether you like him or his ‘style’ or not is simply of no consequence. He is your hierarch.

        Since it is obvious that the scapegoating spirt is roaming wildly, it behooves everyone to simply and without rancor support the continued service of Met. Jonah as the Metropolitan with all the authority and responsibility of the office.

        I don’t much like my hierarch or his leadership ‘style’ or much of anything about him actually, but he is my hierarch and I owe obedience to what he says, if not what he does, because of that. It is up to me to find the love that allows me to offer that obedience. It is a spiritual challenge worth the effort.

        May the Holy Spirit descend on Met. Jonah, the Holy Synod and all Orthodox bishops to enlighten, strengthen and empower them with humility and truth. May we also be given the wisdom and humility to receive their words in the love of Christ.

        Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered, lte those who hate Him flee from His presence. As smoke vanishes, let them vanish; as wax melts before fire so let the demons perish before those who love God and who sign themselves with the sign of the Cross and say in gladness, Hail most precious and life-giving, for thou drivest away the demons by the power of our Lord Jesus Christ crucified on the, Who went down to hell and give us thee, His venerable Cross, for driving away all enemies. O most precious and life-giving Cross of the Lord, help us with our holy Lady, the Virgin Mother of God, St. Herman of Alaska, and all the Saints throughout the ages. Amen.
        Cross of

        • Chris Plourde says

          Michael,

          Another clear and concise post. It’s right to pray both for the Metropolitan and all our Bishops, as they have to deal with us, and not just when we’re all acting out. 😉

          Thanks,

          cp

        • Michael, I should have included this part of Wikipedia:
          Godwin’s law (also known as Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies or Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies)[1][2] is a humorous observation made by Mike Godwin in 1990[2] which has become an Internet adage.

          Having done my pre-paschal confession today, believe me I am aware of the workings of Satan. For that matter I will upstain from posting during Holy Week. To just read and say nothing will be temptation enough for me.

          Were my loyalties and sympathies are is easily ascertained from my postings. I will pray for Metropolitan +Jonah and our bishops. I will also pray that God may cleanse our church from evil…

    • Dear Cheryl:
      I apologize for giving you that impression, but I wasn’t and am not now assuming anything at all about you.

    • I am sorry that you are angry, Cheryl. I thought it POSSIBLE that you were less aware of Orthodox writings on the subject, and that POSSIBLY you thought the concept(s) native to Protestantism. As I reread posts, I detect nobody judging your nor making assumptions about your life experiences.

      • Antonia – Wow! You are sorry that I am angry? I’m not at all angry, I simply disagreed with what you are saying because what you ‘assumed’ was incorrect and I called you on it. Regarding your re-reading posts, the fact that “you” didn’t detect judgement tells me all I need to know….regardless, there is much assuming going on and that’s not to say some assumptions are right and some are wrong but we must avoid the “temptation” of judging people and events based solely on our limited personal experiences…it will be the nail in our coffins if we we allow this internet too much lattitude. I am done.

        • Normally, the phrase “how dare you” connotes anger. If I did make any incorrect assumptions about other people, I believe that you and I both erred in the same way.

          Posted peacefully. . .

  24. Ivan Vasiliev says

    It looks like we are nearing the end of this extraordinarily enlightening discussion. I do have one “off topic” observation and it has to do with beloved anonymity.

    If I recall rightly it seemed as if “anonymous since its all the rage” was being “identified” by some as the writer of a rather crazy east coast marxo-russo-traditionalist-transgendered site and is now being identified as the author of another east coast blogournalist. To be logically blunt “if, ASIATR: BM Drezhlo, and, if ASIATR:Mark Stokoe, then, BM Drezhlo:Mark Stokoe”.

    I suppose this demonstrates either the danger of drawing logical conclusions from minimal information, or, reveals a hysterically funny truth. I believe it demonstrates the former.

    Maybe its time for all “sides” in the current OCA civil war to take a look at how demonstrably foolish the debate has been and to work out how damaging it will be if it continues. The trajectory of the arguments on both sides will lead to monstrous harm to good and God loving people. The “logic” of the arguments on both sides is leading in a very bad direction, down a very wide road.

    On the other hand, if the logic in the proposition above is correct, then the world is too strange to bother with all this, anyhow.

    • @ Ivan, as I said, I am done EXCEPT to say – well said and Hear! Hear! Now I’m done 🙂

  25. It seems that Stan/Barbara has reconciled his/herself to the fact that the OCA is here to stay:
    “In short, the OCA/Metropolia survived an incompetent and boobish fool as First Hierarch before. It shall do so again, no doubt. ”
    http://02varvara.wordpress.com/2011/11/17/17-november-2011-yes-virginia-there-was-a-st-platon-russian-orthodox-seminary-in-tenafly-nj/
    I guess that makes it official, so it is only a matter of time before Met. Jonah ends up in the Greek Church’s diptychs.

    • George Michalopulos says

      Well, Isa, that settles it! Stan the Man has given the OCA his seal of approval. Once all the “konvertsy” are gone then he’ll be gracing us with his presence once again.

      Glad for the heads-up! Don’t be a stranger!

      • Heracleides says

        Once again? I believe Stan, having been booted from ROCOR, has long been and continues to be at home in an OCA parish – why am I not surprised.

        Yes, yes… time now for Carl, Stankovich, or some other enabler to trot out the tired and trite “the Church [read OCA] is a hospital” cliché (to which I respond: More like a hospice where the terminally ill are made to feel all fluffy, comfy, and snuggly with no thought of actually effecting a cure).

        • Geo Michalopulos says

          Herc, I fear that now that a vacuum has been created with the shutting down of OCAN, Stan will become the “go-to” guy for all news & info.

          If I may say a kind word for Stokoe, at least he was consistent in what he wanted to do –liberalize the Church and have it run by a select cadre of like-minded people. With Drezhlo, there’s no consistency at all. His site is a giganitc reductio ad absurdam in which his every argument refutes itself.

          • Lola J. Lee Beno says

            I refrain from visiting that site because there are too many verbal Gordian knots over there.