That's correct, but when a dispute arose, the EP stepped in because he was asked to from one of the parties in the dispute. The EP then obliged to settle the dispute.
Jesus doesn't say that one brother gets to be Supreme Leader when someone requests him to rule against another brother. It says that none of the brothers are the supreme ruler. period.
In a dispute, usually both sides claim this.
In the case of the OCU, the CP had already been telling them for decades that they were noncanonical and at one point wrote that only the MP had authority to overturn the decision.
The CP misinterprets Canon 28 to give them authority over all "barbarian" areas, when in fact it only states that it pertains to three specifically named dioceses.
Canon 17 has something similar.
He notes that Canon 9 can be read to give appeal powers to Constantinople that are within the powers Canon 28 gives to Constantinople, ie. appeal powers limited to the bishops that Constantinople ordained within its own limited boundaries. This is apparently the most reasonable reading of Canon 9, because otherwise clergy under Rome, the foremost see, could appeal to Constantinople, a lower see.
Source
This is just your interpretation. Can you site an orthodox source that agrees with it?Canon 9 has:
Canon 17 has something similar.
John Ramsey notes that this wording means that the appellant could appeal from his local metropolitan's decision and take his appeal up to EITHER his bishop (the "Exarch of the Diocese") OR to Constantinople, but could NOT appeal against a decision by his bishop and take his new appeal to Constantinople.
Further, notice that in the wording of Canon 9, there is no mention of appealing a decision by a Patriarch and taking the appeal up higher next to Constantinople. In fact, the only patriarch mentioned in the canon's discussion on making appeals at all is the Patriarch of Constantinople. This context implies that Canon 9 is specifically talking about appeals made WITHIN the realm of Constantinople. So the canon is NOT talking about a clergy appealing against a decision by the Pope of Rome or by another Patriarch and taking the appeal "up" to Constantinople.
Ramsey continues:
He notes that Canon 9 can be read to give appeal powers to Constantinople that are within the powers Canon 28 gives to Constantinople, ie. appeal powers limited to the bishops that Constantinople ordained within its own limited boundaries. This is apparently the most reasonable reading of Canon 9, because otherwise clergy under Rome, the foremost see, could appeal to Constantinople, a lower see.
Well it will be interesting to see what happens next month when the Church of Russia meets to decide what to do about Patriarch Bartholomew (formally anathematize him?).
I'm always on the fence about this re: Monasteries. The thing I don't like is that some of the parishes have the same attitude. While the monastic communities have the excuse that they are only responsible truly for their own community members, the parish communities are to be not mere caretakers for their parishioners' needs, but are to be evangelistic outposts, with a royal priesthood (the membership; vs. the sacramental priests who are charged with sanctifying their flock) seeking to sanctify the world around them.
St. Gregory Palamas Monastery, near Perrysville, OH (Ashland County). It's not an Ephraimite monastery, so the others would never look to it for spiritual direction. In its early years it was largely idiorhythmic, but for the last 14-15 years its been under the direction of Fr. Joseph Morris (an import from the Romanian Episcopate of the OCA). Small community, but good people, creating a spiritually peaceful environment.
There is way too much pettiness between some of the groups, but it also seems to go in cycles. The humility some people show (esp. Met. Tikhon) always smooths things over, methinks. I don't know that the lines are always as clear as you've experienced them, though - esp. outside of NY/Bos/Chi. In the areas where I have a lot of experience (Great Lakes / midwest / South) there's a lot of inter-jurisdictional respect and sharing, good participation in the panorthodox brotherhoods, etc. I've known a good number of GOA priests who use the OCA's translation of the Great Book of Needs for rarer texts, the Antiochian Liturgikon for its rubrical precision, etc. And while we have our own HC/HC Press, SVS churns out too many high-quality texts (original and translation) to ignore. (And this isn't even getting to the big crossover - the number of GOA folks who use Ancient Faith Ministries for podcasting and blogging, vs. OCN which was started by a GOA priest.) I'm always an optimist, so consider it both a strength and a weakness of mine, but I'm around a lot of clergy who benefit and utilize the resources and friendships across the aisle (so to speak).
Our Eparchial Synod is governed by the Patriarchal Synod. No, there is no impeachment mechanism for the Clergy-Laity or Archdiocesan Council to push for the removal of a hierarch - they can, of course, petition, but only the Patriarchal Synod can remove (and have demonstrated a reluctance to do so officially - preferring, instead, to "transfer" to a vacant titular see, as they did with the former Met. of NJ).
Kinda. Any administrative changes have to be approved by the Patriarchal Synod (who have, by our documents, a 90-day window to do so... but the Patriarchal Synod has repeatedly said they are not bound by our documents, only we are). This is why we don't claim to be even semi-autonomous.
I have yet to see any document anywhere that convinces me that a synod of Hierarchs - especially a Patriarchal Synod - would submit itself to the doctrinal decisions of a clergy-lay body, even if it's described as the highest administrative and legislative body. The Synods of Hierarchs are canonically and historically the arbiters of faith and ecclesial practice in their regions - a reality borne out by the historical record in a way that transcends territorial peculiarities.
That's not what our governance documents claim. Parish property is to be titled in the name of the parish (per both local law and our governance documents), but if there is a split where even a vast majority of parishioners want to exit the Archdiocese, it is the group staying loyal to the Archdiocese that maintains control of the parish property. Very specifically, "the Archdiocese wants to own our property" was a cry from those who wanted to become congregationalists and reject any kind of overarching authority over their parishes. But this was never the case administratively - the GOA doesn't want to own the property.
nor does it depend on a single hierarch.
And your Ethnarch with his Muslim Lord Erdoğan?
The same way the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch removed the heretical Vatican by not honoring its pope at the Divine Liturgy as long as he insisted on being commemorated as "supreme pontiff."
Nice to hear that in some places Greek clergy have humility. Add the Metr. of SF to your list of places where GOARCH clergy (and laity taught by them) form a world of ethnic church life unto themselves. Not to be outdone by the chauvinism of much smaller representation of Romanians, Greek clergy here behave and teach an ethnocentrism that leaves no room for ‘the Russians’ as they still call OCA. Since Bp. Spiridon Kezios’s Narthex Press is so prolific I don’t think any Greek priest west of the Great Plains has ever heard of SVOTS & STOTS presses or seen a red-bound Book of Needs . I can’t verify this beyond anecdotal evidence, it’s just that most every kleros and clergy office shelf in these parts is stuffed with hardbound Narthex imprints for every service you can think of. Each feast gets its own volume, replete with every word of the service in idiot-proof fashion, and the Phone Book semi-annual Orthros book still enjoys wide subscription.
Regarding this analysis of Canon 9, suggesting that Constantinople cannot hear appeals from everywhere in the world against other Patriarchates, I was quoting from Fr. John Ramsey, whose self description says:
When the MP defrocked Denisenko/Filaret, who became the "KP Primate", Denisenko appealed in 1992 to P. Bartholomew in a letter published in June, 1992.
After Denisenko was defrocked in 1992, His Holiness Patriarch Alexei II of Moscow sent a letter to the primates of the other autocephalous Local Churches to inform them of this decision. In an August 26, 1992 letter, His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew responded to Pat. Alexei that he accepted the Moscow Patriarchate’s right to rule on this matter, assuring him that “our Holy Great Church of Christ, recognizing the fullness of the Russian Orthodox Church’s exclusive competence on this issue, synodally accepts the decisions regarding the one in question, not desiring to bring any trouble to Your Church.” [See the article for the Documents in Greek and English]
..
Moreover, Denisenko had appealed at that time to Pat. Bartholomew and the other Orthodox primates to lift the ecclesiastical sanctions against him. This appeal was also published in the June 1992 issue of the “Kiev Patriarchate’s” Orthodox Herald. As can be seen from Pat. Bartholomew’s August 1992 letter to Pat. Alexei, the Ecumenical Throne did not accept this appeal.
...
After the 1997 anathematization of Denisenko, Pat. Alexei again addressed his brother primates to inform them of this decision, and Pat. Bartholomew again responded to Pat. Alexei, acknowledging and accepting this decision of the Russian Orthodox Church, noting that the Ecumenical Patriarchate would have no ecclesial communion with Denisenko.
His original 1997 Greek letter is now also available:
Patriarch Bartholomew’s 1997 acceptance of anathematization of Philaret Denisenko
After the 1997 anathematization of Denisenko, Pat. Alexei again addressed his brother primates to inform them of this decision, and Pat. Bartholomew again responded to Pat. Alexei, acknowledging and accepting this decision of the Russian Orthodox Church.orthochristian.com
You are talking about making them "auxillary bishops," I believe. You need to talk alittle bit more to explain how this would be a disaster for the CP.
This never happened though, Its fake Russian propaganda. You choose to eat it up.
That's correct. It was a appeal to the EP and the EP handed down his judgement on the matter. The MP never felt compelled to do it on his own. But seeked approval.
He only stated that the border were never really defined. The world as we know it today is different than at that time and it was purposely left open.
It would cause some upset in GOARCH but maybe not amount to a disaster. I typically underestimate the cynicism of GOA clergy and their ability to simply suck it up, knowing which side of their bread is buttered. But to my mind the generational flip-flop from Iakovos’ time when they were just called Bishops of the Exarchate to the post-Iakovos current situation of calling them Metropolitans requiring their Turkish citizenship (with frequent expensive visits to Istanbul with their entourages to keep their citizenship current) to serve on the Synod Endemousa and which renders the American Synod a moot entity, I think, back to making an exarchial synod of them again now that they trust the Abp. to function as the Phanar’s agent, will demonstrate how flimsy the GOA is and its utility not for American evangelism of Orthodoxy but as a tool of the Phanar to work its exigencies regardless of the necessities of evangelism.
Yeah, I have a friend who knows Latin and converted from the RC Church a few years ago, partly because it was getting too modern for him. He visited an Ephraimite convent that is beautiful and the service feels quite special. A nun asked him giddily how he liked it, and he said he couldn't understand it because he doesn't understand Greek.
When FIlaret wrote to Constantinople, the Constantinople Patriarch explicitly stated that it accepted the MP's judgement and that the MP has exclusive competence on the issue.
Well, thanks for the discussion, Tzimis. I don't recall having arguments/debates with you elsewhere on the forum, and recall typically liking where you defended Orthodoxy there.
I like you too, But, its a little dishonest to quote only part of my reply, in an attempt to look victorious.
My intention was to reply to you in general, and that was the first sentence of your message to me.
Uh, thanks, I guess?
This is really strange, and certainly a localized feud (akin to Boston's), but that's not normative for the GOA-OCA as far as I can tell. The Archbishop and Met. Tikhon have a seemingly very good relationship, and have concelebrated on a number of occasions (including, iirc, when Met. Tikhon concelebrated at the Phanar for Sunday of Orthodoxy a number of years ago - I've heard members of the OCA administration rave about the hospitality and kindness they received at the EP); the same is definitely true here, and (again, iirc) in Chicago. They've been nothing but kind to us, and we've done our best to reciprocate. But the West Coast is its own ecosystem, different from East even in the ethnic enclaves. "Flyover country" seems to be better adjusted to the need for cooperation, and you tend to see more routine concelebrations, pan-Orthodox celebrations, etc.
As one who’s been on the scene for decades, I see the bad state of relations here since winter 2018 is just the solidification of episcopal and communal relations already present. Bp. Tikhon Fitzgerald of San Francisco, who preceded Abp. Benjamin had already established a chill toward Metr. Gerasimos’ antecedent Bp. Anthony. Greek clergy who were cordial toward OCA clergy have been replaced in places by incoming junior who never bother to introduce themselves.
The reason he changed course is because in the interim Ukraine became an independent nation. So it fell back into the EP's jurisdiction.
This is just the latest failure that echoes the Phanar’s relationship with the OCA. it was the EP who instructed the Metropolia to seek its autocephaly from its ‘mother church’ Moscow. And when they did, amd handily received it, His All-Holiness refused to recognize it. They uniquely hold the opinion that even when they recognize another‘s jurisdiction, it still doesn’t matter. They only recognized the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church in 1990, when it had been granted it by Antioch BEFORE THE ECUMENICAL THRONE WAS EVEN ESTABLISHED. The late recognition did not mention, if I recall correctly, that ancient establishment but only dealt with the post-WWII normalization of relations with Moscow which had swallowed up the Georgian church by the end of the XIX c. but which relinquished it at the Sobor of 1917-18.
That’s an absurd innovation with no canonical meaning. When the EP ruled the Metropolis of Kiev it was nowhere near the extent of the modern national borders.
Ukraine was an independent nation in August 1992 and 1997 when P. Bartholomew declared that the MP had exclusive competence and that he accepted the MP's decision.
When is Ukrainian Independence Day?
...
Independence Day is always celebrated on August 24th and marks Ukraine's declaration of independence from the U.S.S.R. in 1991.
Independence Day in Ukraine in 2022 | Office Holidays
Read about Independence Day in Ukraine in 2022. Commemoration of the Declaration of Independence from the USSR in August 1991.www.officeholidays.com
Even the absurd innovation had meaning, the argument would still be wrong because Ukraine was independent in 1992-1997.
I am curious whether GOARCH is catechizing converts to believe that the "EP" is the supreme head of all Orthodox Christians. My sense is that this is a relatively new "party line" since 2018, because for example in 1992-1997, P. Bartholomew said that the MP had "exclusive competence" to deal with Met. Filaret. I kind of recall the CP asserting some powers earlier in the 20th century when granting Tomoses, but outside of those incidents, I don't recall the CP or GOARCH typically talking this way about the CP, as if he was the supreme head over all Orthodoxy. The CP's "First Without Equals" ecclesiology seems really pushed alot by Abp. Elpidophoros since a couple years becoming GOARCH's head when he wrote a declaration by that title.
I wouldn't interpret it as directed straightly at the OCA. It comes across more as red-baiting-style anti-MP false polemics.
I find it pretty ironic that Met. Evangelos of NJ was "transferred" to a comatose "diocese" for western Turkey by the CP, since Met. Evangelos seemed to be pompously towing the CP's "party line" on Ukraine in accord with the CP's supremacy ecclesiology.
You really think Abp. Elpidophoros can't afford to lose the OCA's fellowship? In his 2009 Hellenic College speech he complained about the "so called" OCA and criticized Met. Jonah. GOARCH would lose alot of interactions in organizations that have the OCA like OCMC and OCF, but Abp. Elpidophoros seems not to care about that as much about following the CP's "church politics." Further, on the other side of the coin, I think that the OCA collectively would not be real happy to cut fellowship with GOARCH.
They drew up there constitution in 1996. So the time line does fall into place.
Metr. Gerasimos read the EP missal enjoining reaction against Moscow among American parishes. He specifically told the gathering to carry this war to their communities. Since Greek Orthodox are trained not to distinguish the OCA as Local Autocephalous Church and always call it ‘The Russian Church’ I cannot imagine how this would not affect GOA-OCA relations. As I wrote before, the chill here is not new.
