Monday, May 16, 2011

Town Hall meeting held in Dallas cathedral


Locum Tenens of the Diocese of the South, Bishop Nikon, on being told there was unrest at St. Seraphim's Cathedral, travelled to Dallas last week. He spent time with local clergy and laity during the week with a town hall held last Saturday for people to air their concerns on a number of topics.

These topics included some issues related to Bishop Mark (administrator of the diocese and hopeful for the open episcopal spot): removal of the blessing of a priest from serving at the cathedral, the perceived changes in the way services are done at the cathedral, the forwarding of emails from Fr. Joseph Fester's email account to the Holy Synod and/or Mark Stokoe of OCANews, if he could be release from his duties or told to perform them somewhere else. Also, there were numerous concerns about the position Met. Jonah is in: his ability to travel, his treatment by the Synod, etc. Questions were also raised about the diocese itself: its future geographic makeup, episcopal candidates, etc.

All in all, I'm told it was - not surprisingly - quite an emotional affair.

Posted by Byzantine, TX

10 comments:

  1. Matushka AnnaMay 16, 2011 at 11:35 AM

    Were there any answers to those questions raised?

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  2. Byzantine, TXMay 16, 2011 at 11:43 AM

    The primary response was that His Grace would send a letter to the synod and then things would go from there. So not much was answered, but that the priest was reinstated for now.

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  3. EricTheTexanMay 16, 2011 at 5:29 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. EricTheTexanMay 16, 2011 at 5:33 PM

    I doubt +Mark is much of a contender for the DOS episcopal slot anymore.

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  5. RJMay 16, 2011 at 6:06 PM

    Were you there?

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  6. AnonymousMay 16, 2011 at 8:09 PM

    I'm heartened to hear this happened. I hope some good will come of it. I'm sure it must be a discouraging time for my brothers and sisters in the DOS.

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  7. John WattonMay 17, 2011 at 6:47 PM

    Who is the man standing up front?

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  8. UnknownMay 17, 2011 at 11:54 PM

    I attended this meeting and it was like a lynch mob. Personally, I could live with Bishop Mark ruling the Diocese of the South....by moving myself to another diocese. But I had hoped the much needed evisceration would be gentler. Let us grieve for Bishop Mark. His totalitarian style will prevent him ever keeping a diocese.

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  9. Steve RobinsonMay 18, 2011 at 9:52 AM

    It's interesting to me that whenever +PHILIP axed someone the internet kneejerk was to lynch +PHILIP. Then it turns out the people he axed were indeed problems (the priest who was allegedly moved for "wearing a cassock" ended up in a non-canonical old calendarist cultic group IIRC). But there's usually very little follow up on this kind of thing until the next jurisdiction that snatched up the "treasure" finds out that someone else's "chaff" was cast off for a reason.

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  10. Parascheva1014May 18, 2011 at 10:42 AM

    Yes I noticed the same thing. Perhaps people should not listen to the orthodox enquirer/ocanews.org anymore or at least put it in the category of shameful gossip where it belongs.

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