I mean that the US has declining religiosity - less observance. Increasing numbers of people identify as having "spirituality" instead of any religion, but spiritual observances are decreasing.
Say what you will, but millions look to him as there spiritual leader and its going to take a lot more than internet rhetoric too unseat him.
Most Orthodox reject him as their spiritual leader over them, but unfortunately it looks like it's going to take more than theologically correct critiques for the P. of Constantinople to return to its Orthodox former doctrine that it is not the "First Without Equals" vertically supreme leader over all Orthodox.
And in the mean time we pray...Thy will be done Lord. After all, it's His Church. His Bride. We pray and guard our hearts and remain watchful as the 5 wise virgins with plenty of oil. Keep the oil. Keep praying. Keep forgiving and loving, showing mercy. Lord, have mercy.
According to statistics from the website of the Assembly of Bishops, the OCA has more parishes than the GOARCH, but the GOARCH has more adherents than the OCA. In terms of number of monasteries, they are the same. ROCOR has 32% of the number of adherents that the OCA has, and 5% of the number of adherents that GOARCH has; however, they have almost as many monasteries as GOARCH or OCA.
Your back to this again. You need the EP more so then Moscow. You know it in the depths of you heart. Yet , you choose to attack him. Lord, have mercy on this man.
OK, you gave good information. It sounds strange to hear that ROCOR's membership is 32 percent of the OCA's. Maybe these numbers are not being counted the same way, because based on my experience, the OCA has a much higher membership number. To give a simple example, the Pittsburgh Metropolitan area has about 8 OCA parishes and only 1 ROCOR parish, and the ROCOR parish was about as well attended as one of the larger regional OCA parishes there. I can give examples of this from other regions of the US and Canada. Conceivably, ROCOR GLOBALLY has 32 percent of the OCA's membership GLOBALLY, since ROCOR has parishes around the world, including in Europe, whereas the OCA has deliberately limited its parishes to the Americas, although the OCA has at least a few representative parishes abroad.
SOURCE: https://www.aoiusa.org/ocl-responds-to-the-ep-about-holy-cross-talk/
Abp. Elpidophoros announced that the OCA is not a "canonical" Church in his 2009 speech, which was approved by the Constantinople Patriarch (CP) Bartholomew. Based on his speech, one should join the CP's parishes instead of the OCA's, Antioch's, ROCOR"s, the Serb's, etc. But most Orthodox in the US, including myself, are not joining parishes under the CP. So apparently we don't "need" the CP, just as we don't "need" the Pope. No one Patriarchate is the "sine qua non" of Orthodoxy.
I see you are a reader of hearts. How marvelous. The Phanar has no function other than what it can arrogate to itself with tendentious self serving misquotes of ancient canons. Since it’s Ottoman overlords collapsed, its fortunes are tied to the British Crown amd now the US State Dept. and its function is a a foil to the MP, for geopolitical goals. Whatever purpose it has ecclesiologically it bungles on purpose, not solving problems only creating more of them.
Wow! Im swimming in a pool of conspiracy theorists.
Why do you have such reliance to the MP than?
Without the link through the MP, the OCA would be dead/out of communion in the eyes of Pat. Bartholomew.
Whether or not P. Bartholomew and Abp. Elpidophoros are running their new "First Without Equals" line for geopolitical reasons, it violates Orthodox Tradition and actually hurts everyone in the Church just like Rome announcing it was the vertical supreme head of everyone hurt Christendom.
Hypnosis come into play?
This is where you're mistaken. Belief in Christ is a monarchy system. Your perverting it by instituting a liberal mindset. Next youre going to claim equality with god himself.
Historically, there is more of an argument that the Const. P. had a closer connection at one point to Protestantism than the OCA ever had. It's kind of a curious historical mystery whether Patriarch Cyril Lucaris of Constantinople was a Protestant. The official position of the Greek Orthodox Church is that he was not, and he was canonized as a saint-martyr. (https://orthodoxwiki.org/Cyril_Lucaris)
No, you won’t hear that from me. As to the Phanar carrying water for the State Dept., it’s common knowledge. See Matthew Namee’s Orthodox History website for a corroborating documents.
Not that I am aware, but I vaguely recall hearing some rumor/allegation of this.
What makes you think such an absurdity, that the worlds largest and richest Orthodox Church should require funds from an autocephalous archdiocese whose entire budget is less than a single large Russian Cathedral’s? Just because you heard an evil and invidious rumor doesn’t make it close to true. The same slander was leveled by hateful deniers of the 1970 Tomos, that it was ‘purchased’ -by a cash-strapped Metropolia to a Patriarchate that couldn’t spend its own funds locally because the USSR forbade it. To substantiate a claim, you have to prove probable cause, motive and means. None of these are present in this vile accusation.
By what dint do you make this claim, which denies apostolicity that is universally recognized? Are you an Old Calendarist? They claim we‘re all schismatics, especially the Phanar.
I think that he is just throwing something out in the spirit of superficial polemics.
No, no old calandarists. I do not recognize the oca's autocephaly at this point but, I do believe they are canonical. I think Its going to take a couple more generations before there is a good shot at some sort of unification. Europeans aren't coming to the usa in large numbers any longer and language won't be a dividing issue. I just don't think its time yet.
What you said makes sense. But on a side note, do you know that what you are saying goes against the thrust of Abp. Elpidophoros' 2009 Hellenic College speech? His idea was that Greek Americans need to keep Greek language and culture going strong for GOARCH to do well.
Abp. Elpidophoros was gate-keeping, and apple-polishing for the Archons who keep GOARCH and the Phanar in funds. Without the support of these blueblood Hellenists we wouldn’t even be having this dialogue. So far they’ve lost at least 85% of descendants of Greek emigres, I’d say give it a couple more generations and the only Greeks left will be the hierarchs. Whatever they are selling isn’t appealing to actual people of Greek ancestry. But you know the saying about the two kinds of people. So they should be able to make Greeks of some of us βάρβαροι.
If you believe in witchcraft.
No, it’s Greeks and those who want to be Greek. Anyone else isn’t really a person.
I’d say this is a solid observation
What language is the Antioch liturgy in?
Yes, it’s pathetic. Even though Abp. Elpidophoros is no dummy and openly calls recently for more non-Greek involvement, they will have Greek leaders kneeling on the neck of the archdiocese until it is dead. That’s just how ‘baked-in’ the Hellenism is. Because the Leadership 100 insists.
They do WAY MORE in English and have been at the forefront of adopting English liturgy for more than a century. The Copts have no love for Arabic language either, ams their churches are burgeoning here.
Where can I read more about this?
I visited 4 Antiochian churches where I recall the language being in English and being made mainly of native English-speakers, and know of 2 others where it was in a mix of English and Arabic and that's 1 just in Arabic.
I meant "I recall one parish that I visited being just in Arabic."
1 Corinthians 14:19 KJV
You might be unaware that the OCA is the Local Church and is primarily oriented towards Americans of no particular origin. At the seminary no prayers in foreign languages are allowed.
For the sake of argument - even if GOARCH's Hellenism were an ethnophyletist mistake, I think it's not in itself a crucial problem injuring the Orthodox Church. By analogy, If the Armenian Churches wanted to devote a lot of attention on being Armenian, understandably trying to preserve their culture in the wake of the Armenian genocide, it wouldn't hurt the OOs.
