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.
So what specifically are they supposed to do? Just tell other Orthodox (OCA, AOCNA, GOARCH members) and tell them that the CP is like the Pope and the OCU is legitimate?
I haven't heard much from regular GOARCH people on this topic. Not many of them on this forum they have been defending the CP's new ecclesiology. Tsimis is practically the only one here parrotting the line.
R. Catholics might be happy to hear that GOARCH believes in primatial supremacy, but that undercuts EO arguments against papal supremacy, so it's not very helpful for interchurch dialogues.
On August 30, 2019 Abp. Elpidophoros met Greek clergy in Long Beach while on his Victory Tour. He told them at that time that the OCA would soon become part of GOARCH.
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The news of Elpidophoros‘ speech was told me by a simple priest in GOA who was excited to share good news.
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The CP "dissolving" the "Russian Exarchate of Western Europe" was the most immediately self-defeating self-serving measure that came to mind. I never heard much explanation of why the CP did this. It's as if they wanted to tamp down on "Russian" cultural organizations, but the result instead was most of the Exarchate leaving for the MP, and the CP allowing a competing remnant to stay under the CP with reduced powers.
I recall a conversation with a Romanian priest serving the Greeks here where he told me the OCA would soon become part of the Russian Orthodox Church again, because Putin.
It would take much more than the Russian government being authoritarian to make the OCA go under the Russian Church, based on history.
In 1945-1970, the Metropolia/OCA said that they wanted to be independent of Moscow, and this was a decision at an All-American Sobor/Council of the OCA. This decision was one of the two main reasons why in 1945 the MP confirmed its excommunication of the Metropolia. The other reason was that the OCA wanted to be allowed to criticize the Soviet government, whereas the MP was demanding that the OCA would not criticize it. Then in 1970, the MP acceded to the OCA's two positions.
The normal conclusion is that the Metropolia/OCA is more resilient on its desire to be able to criticize the Russian government and to have independence/autocephaly. And Stalin was more authoritarian than Putin, so.....
He may very well think that because Metr. Tikhon concelebrated, or invited him to tea that he now already owns all our churches.
Yeah.... individual parishes in the US are better off under the OCA's ecclesiology structure. Going under the CP would entail
1. GOARCH owns all our parish property (according to GOARCH's leadership's brief to the Supreme Court)
2. We are under the CP
3. The CP Eparchial synod can practically veto all our assembly decisions and our hierarchs' decisions.
4. We recognize the OCU as the only canonical church in Ukraine
5. Little transparency or accountability with funds to GOARCH/CP projects like the St. Nicholas Shrine that go missing.
To believe for a moment that the OCA would have anything to gain by becoming another ethnic (representing the American ethnos) satrapy languishing alongside the moribund Carpatho-Rusyn and Albanian dioceses here, shows sublime lack of insight and empathy.
It is hard to see where the OCA could even fit into the CP's US Church structure because it would be a matter of fitting (A) an "All-American" Church (the OCA) within (B) a structure (the CP's US structure) divided along ethnic lines.
(A) The OCA sees itself as a Church for America and as having Russian heritage, but the "Russian" component seems more historical (like how we had Sobors) and not thorough (the OCA people are to a big extent Ukrainian and Carpatho-Russian).
(B) The CP's structure on the other hand has a GOARCH Greek Church in the US with a lot of Greek language, plus Ukrainian, ACROD, and a new miniscule "Russian" CP jurisdiction in the US. It does not have an "American" Church to the degree that the OCA sees itself as. Abp. Elpidophoros it seems does not
really countenance having American church
per se, considering how much emphasis he is putting on Hellenism. Don't get me wrong, he sees GOARCH as being Greek-American. IMO, the OCA and GOARCH are both finding their way in the American landscape, but the OCA is putting more emphasis on being "American" (whatever that means) than GOARCH is.
Personally, I like it most when there is some ethnic component in the Church, like 1/3 of the service being in Greek or Slavonic. But when it comes to trying to fit the OCA into the CP's Church structure in the US, it's like fitting a square peg into a round hole, because the CP's structure here does not really countenance that.
The CP's attempted failed dissolution of the Russian Exarchate in Western Europe into the Greek metropolises in Europe shows how unrealistic and non-discerning the decisionmaking is on this kind of structural planning. Based on what the CP tried to do in Western Europe, it seems like GOARCH might try to make OCA parishes into GOARCH parishes, but based on Abp. Elpidophoros' visions of Hellenism for the US, he would probably try to grow the GOARCH parishes hellenistically at the expense of growth within the former OCA parishes.
It would actually make much more sense administratively for the GOARCH parishes to join the OCA, because the OCA does have a structure for ethnic parishes/sub-jurisdictions within the OCA's structure. For example, the OCA presents itself as an American Church with a structure set up for ethnic sub-jurisdictions like the Romanians, Bulgarians, etc. Theoretically, GOARCH, ACROD, and UOCC could fit within the OCA's structure for ethnic parishes/sub-jurisdictions with the structure and the new entrants remaining intact.