According to the below logic, Constantinople and ONLY Constantinople can see that someone has been deposed, un-depose him, and place him under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Orthodoxy is not large in Lithuania, but it is certainly under the Russian Church. This isn't some liminal space of overlapping jurisdictions or some far-flung location in Southeast Asia. This is clearly and historically bound territory.
Does this mean these men will now be operating inside of the country for Constantinople even as the rest of the clergy dutifully stay under their canonical hierarchy?
I worry about the tit-for-tat that is about to ensue. I worry that we are truly building a parallel Orthodoxy here and that EP claims of authority are going to further fracture the situation.
(Orthodox Times) - Some months ago, the Very Reverend Archpriests from Lithuania, Vladimiras Seliavko and Vitalijus Mockus, and the Reverend Presbyters Vitalis Dauparas, Gintaras Sungaila and Georgy Ananiev, who were imposed the penalty of deposition from the priesthood by the Patriarchate of Moscow, addressed His All-Holiness Bartholomew, Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch by letter to exercise the petition of appeal before Him, as they are entitled.
Ecumenical Patriarch, who exclusively bears the responsibility of receiving appeals, in accordance with the Holy and Sacred Canons (namely, Canons 9 and 17 of the Fourth Ecumenical Council) and the sanctified practice of the Church, received these submitted petitions.
Following thorough study of the relevant circumstances, it was ascertained on the one hand that these cases were made final before the ecclesiastical authority that imposed these penalties, and on the other hand that the reasons for which the penalties were imposed do not at all derive from ecclesiastical criteria, but from the justified opposition of these clergymen to the war in Ukraine.
Wherefore, irrevocably adjudicating these petitions of appeal, His All-Holiness recommended to the Holy and Sacred Synod that the imposed deposition from the priesthood be lifted and that they be restored to their former ecclesiastical rank of priesthood, which was unanimously decided.
Moreover, after the above-mentioned restoration, upon their request, the Ecumenical Patriarch received these clergymen under His venerable omophorion, taking into consideration the long-established right of the Ecumenical Throne, as it is also indicatively reported in the interpretation by Theodore Balsamon of Antioch to Canons 17 and 18 of the Council in Trullo and Canon 10 of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (namely: “From this canon, note explicitly that only the Patriarch of Constantinople is allowed to receive foreign clergy, even without a letter of release from their ordaining hierarch”).
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"...I worry that we are truly building a parallel Orthodoxy here and that EP claims of authority are going to further fracture the situation...."
ReplyDeleteWell, we (i.e. the faithful of this 'imperial church of the east') have been "building" parallel hierarchies and interpreted "canonical" structures since the fall of the Roman Empire. Canons 9 and 17 were written in, and made sense in, and were properly applied in the centralized (culturally, legally, civilizationally {is that a word? :)} hierarchical church of the Roman Empire.
For 1300 years or thereabouts, the letter (and to various degrees, the spirit) of these canons have not made any sense in the actual context of world Orthodox-ies. The EP is applying an "originalist" (to borrow a concept from American constitutional debate) interpretation of the letter of the canonical law. It's to his advantage given the irrelevancy of his Patriarchate to the vast majority of Orthodoxy and his goal of making Istanbul great again. This is of course against the grain of non-orginalist compromise that has prevailed over now de facto ethno/nationalistic "churches" of the fallen and broken up eastern Roman Empire (+slavs) for the vast majority of the last 1300 years.
All to say that your "worry" is a bit late - it has already happened. Time to acknowledge this reality and build from it. Unfortunately, facing reality is not Orthodoxy's habit...
And so is encroachment, so not supporting brethren, so is causing discontent. We refuse to recognize that non canonical and vagamte bishops and dioceses exist,,,,yet we love to create our own
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as a Slav, Russophile and Russophone - in the end what furthers the mission of the Church? pedigree, breed, and tribalism is nothing - Jesus Christ is everything. if someone looks at the Church and instead thinks of the 'enemy' how does that advance the cause of Jesus Christ? removing a political barrier that otherwise would prevent an encounter with Christ due to an unfair bias of guilt by association, must surely be the preferable option.
ReplyDelete(I frown at any idea of neo-papism, but let's be real - such thinking isn't contained only to Istanbul both historically and in the present.)
One of the big differences between the EP's new presence in Lithuania and Russia's new African Exarchate is that the prime minister of Lithuania specifically appealed to Patriarch Bartholomew for his help to do this.
ReplyDeleteIngrida Šimonytė, the Prime Minister of Lithuania, requested permission from the Patriarch of Constantinople for the Lithuanian Orthodox Church to break with the Moscow Patriarchate. That's a huge and important difference.