"I am the door. By me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture." - John 10:9 At every parish where I have had the pleasure of attending services, there is always a small group of people who find their way all the way up to the church building but don't actually attend services. At one parish it was a group of male gypsies who talked on cellphones or smoked cigarettes. At another it was a few Protestant husbands who, though they never attended services, opened the parish doors for people as they filed in. At yet another parish the men stood in the narthex and chatted until it was time to receive and then got in line. Latin or Greek Catholic, Eastern or Oriental Orthodox I see the same small throng of men standing next to the front door, but not standing, sitting, or kneeling amongst the people. If it were me (and I can only speak for myself here) this option would be an unsavory one. The boredom would be immediate. The anxiety of som...
Good.
ReplyDeleteHere I am going to point out that if you are in fact the trespasser, entering into the canonical territory of another church, then "taking the high road" in this way (whether in appearance or reality) is just the optics your would want ;)
ReplyDeleteGiven EP's interpretation of its canonical position, why would they not...
Guerrilla vs. Gorilla tactics.
ReplyDeleteThe EP has nothing to lose by doing this; they already know they're seen poorly. They lose nothing by trying to appear as the "poor downtrodden EP".
They don't call it byzantine intrigue for nothing!
They are not the trespasser. They are the mature adult in the room. The Ukrainians are tired of being subjected to a church that doesn’t realize it can’t be in back pocket of a dictator bully and still hold credibility with the subjects of the bullying. Putin wages war against the fellow Orthodox Christians and Kirill looks the other way? Threats made by the Moscow church do not reflect the ethos of Orthodoxy, we should PRAY for our “enemies” and an enemy is one who vaues real estate and power above the good of the entire Church and the souls which she keeps under her wing. Their ceaseless public relations machines just spews out threats and virulence as if they are street thugs and not monks intent on peace in the Church. Yes the EPs relative silence speaks volumes...
ReplyDeleteTotally agree!
DeletePrior to a few months ago, the EP recognized that the Russian Church had exclusive jurisdiction on the Ukraine. Patriarch Bartholomew said say himself in a letter after Filaret Denisenko was justly deposed. He promised not to do what he is now doing in the presence of the heads of all the local Churches in 2016 at Chambesy. He is the schismatic in the room, and as St. Ignatius of Antioch said, "No one who follows another into a schism will inherit the Kingdom of God."
DeleteFr. John,
DeleteIf you could would you clarify, but you appear to be saying that because the EP changed his mind (for whatever reason) that in of itself makes him a "schismatic".
Also, what would you do with the millions of Ukrainian who are in fact Orthodox in every sense of the term except "canonically". These folks are part of a people who have been pressed upon nightly by the vulgarities of history, and have now found themselves (yet again) separated from the communion. Are they actually responsible for Denisenko's sins, cast into the outer darkness as you and St. Ignatius would seemingly say? Is it really that simple? Is there no context to this complicated situation? If schism is a "sin against Charity" as St. Basil says, is it really in this situation merely one sided?
Are you suggesting that the only way back into canonical Orthodoxy for millions of Ukrainians is to "repent", go back under Moscow which for very good (and many not so good) reasons they are never going to do, unless and until they are put forcibly back through the point of the sword?
Then there is the question of just who gets to decide who in fact is or is not a "schismatic" in the Ukraine or anywhere else. Certainly not ROCOR priests sitting in their safety and luxury in Texas with their easy logic and legalism(s). Certainly not me, sitting in my safety and luxury in New Mexico...
The Patriarchs of several venerable and ancient Sees disagree with +Bartholomew so, depending on which is yours, there's your Church's position on the matter. But in any event, the EP has enlisted on one side in a purely nationalistic struggle which we are told repeatedly is an absolute no-no.
DeleteIt's as if the US Antiochians declared that they needed their own Church rather than be under the heel of those awful Lebanese and Syrians, with whom we are occasionally at war, and asked the EP to grant us autocephaly. +John would of course declare that +Bartholomew has no such authority since he is not the Roman pope claiming universal jurisdiction. That's basically what's going on here. This is not to deny that Russia, including her Church's hierarchy, have their own nationalistic motivations for the Ukraine. Some of those motives are good, some are bad, but that's a different debate.
Let us remember that an autonomous Ukranian Orthodox church already exists and is recognized by all the Orthodox world, including the EP until a matter of days before.
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