St. Vlad's summer conference update

As posted on earlier there was a conference held at St. Vladimir's Seminary on church unity over the weekend. Podcasts are available here. I really enjoyed listening (and watching the videos when possible) to many of them. The video versions are scheduled to be available on the 23^rd. Some of the material is dry, but some of the statements made were quite surprising (e.g. 'the "myth" of autocephaly'). Here's a quote from Metropolitan Jonah (complete text here):

It can be asserted that the Tomos also recognized that the autocephaly was not “final,” but in some way relative. I quote: “The newly established local Orthodox Autocephalous Church in America should abide in brotherly relations with all the Orthodox Churches and their Primates as well as with their bishops, clergy and pious flock who are in America, and who for the time being preserve their de facto existing canonical and jurisdictional dependence on their national Churches and their Primates.” The Tomos does not allow for the full consequences of autocephaly to be proclaimed, that all other churches on the territory of the OCA are thereby uncanonical. Rather, it allows for the preservation of their ties to their mother churches until such time as all can be brought into a new unity, a single Church for America.

Thus, the OCA’s charter and vocation is for it to disappear: it is kenotic. Either it is to become the basis for the unity of the rest of the Churches in America; or it must enter into a new organization that will be fully autocephalous. We await this day, eagerly, so that the mission of the Orthodox Church and the proclamation of the Gospel are no longer compromised by the scandal of disunity.

I stand before you, gathered here, in great humility, as the ‘least among equals’, the youngest head of the smallest and youngest autocephalous Orthodox Church in the world.