The Holy Spirit has sorted through a lot worse problems in the Church's history, so that gives me hope.
I’m with you on that. I desperately hope and pray that it doesn’t. It would mean the cleaving off of the entirety of Greek-Speaking Orthodoxy. Patriarch Bartholomew wants to be the ethnarc of all Greeks and lead them into schism. Luckily there are bishops, priests and I’m sure plenty of laity that are fighting against this.
Nothing against the OCA but I think it will be ROCOR (Serbians, etc) who will be the last one standing.
This isn't a soccer club. You do know there is a health degree of competitiveness and beyond that can lead to destruction. The church is a network and without the EP you're not going to get any air time.
I think he actually turns people off even more to the CP's already bad positions.
If the Church is a spiritual network of patriarchates like a TV network, and Constantinople leaves the spiritual network of Churches for the sake of hunger for power, then Constantinople and its subjects are the ones who lose real spiritual air time.
The OCA is in practice dependant on being in communion with the MP for Constantinople's recognition because Constantinople rejects the OCA's autocephaly.
Constantinople doesn't reject the OCA's Orthodox, it rejects the manner and from who it received Autocephaly from. Im sure if your church would have directly petitioned the EP., Your church would have been on better footing, than the non canonical approach.
Constantinople considers the OCA to be part of the MP and thus considers the OCA to be in the CP's communion to the extent that it is in communion with Moscow. Were the OCA to go along with P. Bartholomew and recognize the OCU, Moscow would suspend communion with the OCA like it has suspended communion with those Greek hierarchs who have recognized the OCU. With Moscow out of communion with the OCA, Constantinople would no longer consider the OCA to be a part of the MP. Thus, Constantinople would not have a basis from its own perspective to be in communion with the OCA.
Why are you sure that it would have been in the interests of Constantinople to give autocephaly to the OCA or to accept it under its omophorion as you suggest?
Which makes a very strong argument about placing so much emphasis on the Phanar as ‘crucial to world Orthodoxy’ etc. They are unreliable because they are beseiged. Should have moved to Geneva or New York by now.
ROCOR and Serbian exarchate are completely different entities, and minuscule jurisdictions compared to the OCA. They are only foreign exarchate and can never fulfill the role of Local Church. They are ‘diasporic’ by nature amd always refer back to foreign locus of meaning and context. The MP granted autocephaly to the OCA 51 years ago and that’s permanent.
Not offhand. I’ll try to find it later.
The section below in his 2009 speech is very relevant to this thread because he advocates a more top-down style of decisionmaking and administration. He starts his speech with a constructive task - the goal of addressing challenges of Orthodoxy in the US. His more vertical administrative approach to GOARCH comes up in his discussion on the "third challenge".
I agree with his listing of the first two "challenges": Having multiple ethnic immigration sources was a factor that led to overlapping jurisdictions in the US, but it was not really an inevitable result. For example, the original Metropolia system under the Russian Church in the US covered multiple ethnic groups in the period before its break-apart around the early 1920's. Theoretically, the Greek churches in the US could have stayed as one jurisdiction in the US.Challenges of Orthodoxy in America and the Role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate
Metropolitan Elpidophoros
By Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr. Elpidophoros Lambriniadis
Chief Secretary of the Holy and Sacred Synod
(Chapel of the Holy Cross, March 16, 2009)
The first and main challenge that American Orthodoxy faces is that it has been developed in a region which, from an administrative and technical point, is that of diaspora. By the term “diaspora” we indicate that region whose ecclesiastical jurisdiction is been unfortunately claimed by a variety of “Mother” Churches, which wish to maintain their pastoral care over their respective flocks, comprised by the people who, over the years, immigrated to the superpower called USA.
A second challenge of the Church in America is that it was brought here by people who left their homelands at a time that these homelands were economically underdeveloped. Economic immigration created, from the very first moment, the need for these people to assimilate to their adopted land in order to achieve, as soon as possible, the high living standards of the privileged Americans and therefore to enjoy the fruits of the American dream.
The third challenge of Orthodoxy in America concerns the manner of its ecclesiastical organization. The Orthodox faithful organized themselves in communities of lay people, who, in turn, became identified with the ecclesiastical community in the manner of the traditional organization of Christian communities. Thus, the parish (κοινότητα) being now governed by lay elected members, builds its own church, school and other such institutions, and provides the priest’s salary. On the other hand, however, four very concrete dangers lurk behind such a communal organization of the local Church:
- a) That the priest might become alienated from his administrative duties, and from being the spiritual leader of the parish would become a clerk of the parish council, (etc.
- b) That the parishioners would find it difficult to comprehend the rules according to which the Church is governed and instead they would follow their own secular reasoning,
- c) That the structures of the parish would become influenced by the prevalent Protestant models and thus they would replicate and imitate practices that are foreign to the Spirit of Orthodoxy, and
- d) That the parishes would degenerate into nothing more than membership clubs, invested with some ecclesiastical resemblance.
SOURCE:
livingchurch.org
www.aoiusa.org
I don't think anyone likes to leave there home unless there forced to. In that case martyrdom may be a solution.
Oops, I misspelt! It’s <<τα έθνη>>, “the nations” in the sense of ´οι βάρβαροι, the ones who say ‘var-var’.
Then in the meanwhile they Pugh to quit prating about how crucial the Phanar is to World Orthodoxy, because they don’t function in a healthy, salutary way, for the last century and more now. All they do is engage turf wars with Moscow and flirt with Rome reminiscing about Florence-Ferrara. Not a good way to ‘run World Orthodoxy’. You already read my quote about the coffee cups…
I disagree. Would you consider relocating Jerusalem? It's the nostalgia factor.
Thanks for the diligence I was unwilling to muster. I just assume people have long memories like I do.The section below in his 2009 speech is very relevant to this thread because he advocates a more top-down style of decisionmaking and administration. He starts his speech with a constructive task - the goal of addressing challenges of Orthodoxy in the US. His more vertical administrative approach to GOARCH comes up in his discussion on the "third challenge".
I agree with his listing of the first two "challenges": Having multiple ethnic immigration sources was a factor that led to overlapping jurisdictions in the US, but it was not really an inevitable result. For example, the original Metropolia system under the Russian Church in the US covered multiple ethnic groups in the period before its break-apart around the early 1920's. Theoretically, the Greek churches in the US could have stayed as one jurisdiction in the US.
But I'm inclined to disagree that the third "challenge" on his list is a problem, that is what he calls "the traditional organization of Christian communities" and "a communal organization of the local Church". Since Orthodoxy is based on tradition, one's immediate reaction should seem to tend to be to sympathize with the "traditional organization". But Abp. Elpidophoros complains about it and favors a more top-down administrative model.
To give some background, my understanding is that the Roman Catholic model is relatively very top-down, and the dioceses directly own the RC church buildings. As a result, there is an occasional practice of the RC dioceses today "combining" and closing parishes where the parishioners don't want them to close and have enough funds to keep them running. Further, the RC priest runs the parish, not a parish council. At the top, the Pope is the head of the RC churches in the US.
In contrast, I heard that the OCA model for many parishes has been considered to run kind of like a "labor union" model, where the individual parishes own their own buildings and parish members pay dues. This has an influence from immigrants coming to work in Industry in the Rust Belt at a time when labor unions were an important aspect of their lives, social, and work experiences. Further, the OCA at the top is run by the All-American Assembly made of delegates voting at the assemblies, and between Assemblies the Metropolitan Council is autocephalous as the head of a Local Church (OCA).
GOARCH on the other hand is under the EP, who appoints the head of GOARCH, in this case Abp. Elpidophoros who is advocating for a more top-down model. One way in which a top-down model shows itself is the ownership of parishes. As I understand it, GOARCH has been going in the direction of owning its own parish properties. I am not sure how widespread this is.
Let me illustrate with a recent court case. The Episcopalian Church USA recently had a series of legal challenges because it adopted some new controversial policies. As I recall, they related to homosexual marriages or homosexual clergy. As a result, some Episcopalian churches in the US South like in Fort Worth decided to leave the national Episcopalian Church USA for the ACNA and wanted to take their parish properties with them. Here is a brief article about the split in the ECUSA.
A Painful Divorce in Fort Worth
By Kirk Petersen A long-simmering dispute between rival religious denominations in Fort Worth has escalated after a decisive court ruling. Congregations have been forced out of the church buildings…
The issue went to court and this past November, GOARCH submitted an amicus brief on behalf of the national Episcopalian USA and against the Forth Worth ACNA parishes. GOARCH's position that the courts should agree with the national EC USA because parishes should not be allowed to take parish properties with them if they leave a national Church.
BRIEF OF THE GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE OF AMERICA AS AMICUS CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH’S PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI in Episcopal Church v. Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth
The GOARCH amicus brief is arguing that GOARCH should be considered to own all its parishes' properties because "Only the church hierarchy is vested with the authority to determine if a parish is carrying out the faith and purpose of the Greek Orthodox Church".
In any case, the point I want to make is that GOARCH's new leadership is arguing here for an increasingly top-down administrative model, and this reflects Abp. Elpidophoros' point of view in his 2009 speech that seems to see parish-level control over churches to be one of the main "challenges" for Orthodoxy in the US.
Further, the individual "dangers" that he lists from the parish-based ownership model seem very doubtful. For Danger #1, he is complaining that in the traditional communal arrangement (like the OCA has), priests cease to be "spiritual leaders" and become just mere "parish council" "clerks." But whatever the problems of the OCA, I do not consider this to be one of them. In fact, I find OCA priests to typically be very good spiritual counselors for people, and NOT just mere administrative secretaries.
Dangers #2-3 historically seemed to come about as much from GOARCH's hierarchy as from GOARCH's lay membership and clergy. For example, one of his main complaints regarding these two Dangers is what he calls "secularization". As an example, he notes that in the 20th century, "Orthodox clergymen became indistinguishable from the clergy of other denomination; choirs in the western style were adopted". But in fact it was only a few weeks ago that a priest of Greek heritage who studied at a US Greek seminary decades ago told me that the regional bishop (I believe it was Bishop Iakovos) told an immigrant priest at that time that he would have to lose his beard and cassock if he wanted to be a priest in his GOARCH diocese. So this process of what the Archbishop is labeling "secularization" of GOARCH Church life was in fact something advocated by the GOARCH hierarchy, even over and against the wishes of individual GOARCH clergy and laity.
That is, historically, the GOARCH hierarchy was part of Dangers #2-3, and in fact a more communal, traditional based administrative style could in fact have addressed these dangers better by allowing individual clergy to at least resist the problems that Abp. Elpidophoros is complaining about.
As a result, Abp. Elpidophoros is attributing dangers that were historically worsened by a hierarchical authority to a more traditional, communal model. It is like attributing a problem ("secularization") to a solution and labeling a cause of the problem (hierarchical heavy handedness) as its solution.
To be clear, I am not advocating some kind of bottom up church model like the UCC has. Rather, I am disagreeing that "traditional" "communal" parish-level management of the workings of Orthodox parishes is one of the top problems damaging Orthodoxy in the US.
Abp. Elpidophoros goes on in his speech to address other issues in ways that you will probably find even more polemical.
Here is a response addressing and critiquing Abp. Elpidophoros' speech from an opposing Orthodox POV:
OCL responds to the EP about Holy Cross talk
George Michalopulos, Orthodox Christian Laity board member and frequent contributor to the AOI blog, penned the official OCL response to Arch. Elpidophoros Lambriniadis recent talk at AOI. Original article is posted on the OCL website. An OCL Board Member Responds to the Message of Chief...
Once again you help me prove my point despite yourself. Nostalgia is the last sentiment according to which you govern something as important as the Church. You can’t even run a football team on nostalgia, because it denotes a weakness in the present moment with a preference for the bygone. It means literally, a painful regret at leaving home. This may explain why 90% of Greek-descended Americans don’t give a fig about Greek Orthodoxy.
You have no clue what cosmology is do you? The historical accounts of millions of people forgotten through time, waiting to be vindicated at the second coming of Christ.
Sacred Memory is the reality, Nostalgia is the sappy doggerel poem penned to sell it at Walgreens.
Where did you hear this? I could not find it online. Maybe it's a French source since they spelled one word "affaires."
There are two chief considerations, IMO. One is whether Turkey is allowing the Patriarchate to stay there, which it is. The other is whether Turkey is messing secretly with the Patriarchate to achieve ends going against Orthodoxy, like if they are manipulating the Patriarchate to announce itself as the masters of the Orthodox world. I'm inclined to think that Turkey's government per se is not responsible for this problem and that something similar could have happened if the Patriarchate was based in Greece, or for that matter Switzerland. Soon after the Cold War began, when Pat. Athenagoras came in from the US, his patriarchal predecessor Maximus V (who had a more neutral stance during the Cold War) was in effect shipped to a mental asylum in Switzerland. It seems that one factor though is that due to being in Turkey with its pressures against Christianity, the Patriarchate is highly dependent on Western benefactors for political protection, and this in turn could serve as a pressure on Patriarch to take stances reflecting geopolitical preferences more than canon law, like in the Ukraine.
I'm not really trying to argue for "bottom up" decisionmaking. On one hand, the Roman Catholic model with a dictatorial Pope at the top and bishops and priests dictating parishes seems too heavy handed for me. The UCC model on the other hand seems extremely decentralized. It's like a loose confederation of congregations whose teachings may not be very similar. I think that to a big extent the UCC was originally "Congregationalist."
It's nice to see you love your church.
Or maybe, god has him under protection.
Any model that aligns with extreme positions is going to fail.
GOARCH's November 2020 Supreme Court legal brief seems to be asserting that GOARCH, not the parishes, using this logic:
I don't know whether in this statement (A) GOARCH is trying to make the argument that it should legally be entitled to all parish properties, or if (B) it is just matter of factly informing the Supreme Court that GOARCH and its parishes are already aware that GOARCH owns all parish lands and assets. My guess is that (A) is the case in reality.
Didn't the archdiocese recently bailout some churches in the US and Canada that were in bankruptcy?
I'd love for the OCA to take the helm, and I believe as the autecephelous Church in America they should indeed be doing that.
Last time I checked OCA was the 2nd largest jurisdiction, after GOARCH. ROCOR is way down the list and is only big in San Francisco. A small fraction of the size of the OCA.
Which doesn’t translate into approbation of Phanar overlordship over the whole Orthodox commonwealth. It’s clear though that being Rûm milet başı for all those centuries and then losing it with the Ottoman collapse really hobbles the Phanar.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. It’s too late for Phanar autocracy in America. GOARCH is shriveling on the vine and is enormously corrupt with no ability to correct itself because transparent governance is anathema to their autocracy. It will eventually collapse as do all poorly-managed edifices. The OCA has health of good practices and few of the vices of the larger jurisdiction.
FYI, the OCA nationally has about 5 to 10 times as many members as ROCOR. Compared to any other EO Church in the US, the OCA is not miniscule. The problem for the OCA in terms of membership nationally has rather to do with declining membership. My guess is that the main cause for the decline are assimilation to the majority religions (Protestantism and Catholicism), partly through marriages over generations, and declining religiosity in general.
