(ROCOR) - On Tuesday, May 12, 2020, on the eve of the Mid-Pentecost, a teleconference of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia took place, chaired by His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion of Eastern America and New York, First Hierarch. Participating in the call were: His Eminence Metropolitan Mark of Berlin and Germany; His Eminence Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco and Western America, Secretary of the Synod of Bishops; His Eminence Archbishop Gabriel of Montreal and Canada; His Eminence Archbishop Peter of Chicago and Mid-America; His Grace Bishop Irenei of London and Western Europe and His Grace Bishop Nicholas of Manhattan, Deputy Secretary of the Synod of Bishops. Монреальский и Канадский Гавриил и Чикагский и Средне-Американский Петр, епископы Лондонский и Западно-Европейский Ириней и Манхэттенский Николай.
Opening the session, Metropolitan Hilarion greeted the members of the Synod on the continuing celebration of the Pascha of Christ, wishing them Divine aid in their work. Metropolitan Mark responded on behalf of those gathered by warmly congratulating Metropolitan Hilarion on the anniversary of his election as Primate of ROCOR, expressing profound gratitude for his calm and wise helmsmanship of Church life.
Bishop Irenei then reported on news from the Orthodox world, the actions of the Patriachate of Constantinople in various nations, including in the USA, where Archbishop Elpidophoros established a Vicariate of Parishes of the Slavic Tradition. Unsurprisingly, certain individuals earlier suspended from priestly service or defrocked were already received. His Grace also shared the statements made by several Synodal departments of the Russian Orthodox Church against the existence of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin on the walls of the main church of the Armed Forces of Russia. These statements were enthusiastically supported by the Synod members.
Taking Bishop Irenei’s report into account, the Synod of Bishops deliberated on matters of the monasteries of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, where, in connection with the global pandemic, the monastics are under quarantine but continue to participate in divine services but without pilgrims or regular worshipers. Metropolitan Mark and Bishop Irenei reported that some parts of Europe are already opening churches for common services, but with sanitary precautions required.
Having exhaustively deliberated on the coronavirus situation, the Synod of Bishops has suspended visits to the diocese of the miracle-working Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God "of the Sign", and calls upon all ruling bishops, upon the gradual lifting of restrictions, to renew normal Church life in monasteries and parishes, instructing rectors and other ecclesiastical officials to act in accordance with the recommendations of local governments.
The Synod of Bishops then considered various administrative and management issues, as well as intercessions by its member bishops for ecclesiastical awards for clergymen and laity of their respective dioceses.
The session concluded with the singing of the Paschal zadostoinik.
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Notes from ROCOR's synodal meeting
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"Vicariate of Parishes of the Slavic Tradition"
ReplyDeleteI think the Greek plan is pretty clear: they are developing subordinate, ethnically-segregated jurisdictions to organize the global Church along ethno-nationalist lines, and the Greeks can stay Greek and everyone answers to a Greek ecumenical primate.
This train wreck has been unfolding for the past 150 years, so somebody needs to do something.
Anti: What are the chances, though, that such a plan has any chance of succeeding, or even making much progress? I'm not worried, except for the future of the CP, which doesn't look good to me.
DeleteThe Greek Plan for the Orthódoxy In Diasporá has been and will continue to be Divide and Conquer. While previous cant had the OCA ‘the Russian Church’ in denial of its Moscow-granted Autocephaly, now they have the Local Church slated for absorption into the body of Mother Church as an ethnic diocese (for American varvaroi) along the lines of the Carpatho-Rusyn and Albanian Dioceses of the North American Exarchate, dropping the ‘Russian’ epithet as inconvenient to the new Greek Plan for All Your Bases Are Belong To Us.
DeleteLance: (First, nice use of accents!) I'll say again that anyone in the CP who thinks that the OCA is going to come under its omophorion is dreaming.
DeleteThis "plan" is not 150 years old - it's 1000+, and was an underlying tendency, instinct, pick-a-term even during the Empire (i.e. when the Church had a truly "universal" organizing principle). The Slav's have the same "plan", because it's not a "plan" per se, more of an instinctual (ecclesiology) that is hardly admitted, let alone countered either an opposing instinct or a rational organizing principle...
DeleteIt is natural for a Church to become wed to a Nation over 1,000 years of baptisms, marriages and funerals. And when a national Church attains sufficient dignity and durability, then it should be given (or take) autocephaly.
DeleteOf course, that's not really what the Greeks have in mind.
Abba - I don't know if it will succeed but I think CP (I assume this means "Constantinople Patriarch") will be cynically planting a lot of parallel jurisdictions while it can. The longer they do it the harder the reform.
Delete"It is natural for a Church to become wed to a Nation over 1,000 years of baptisms, marriages and funerals. And when a national Church attains sufficient dignity and durability, then it should be given (or take) autocephaly."
DeleteIf Autocephaly is a necessary condition/consequence of Unam Sanctam, is it sufficient?
Honest question. You see, even if "the Greeks" have are really motivated by a nefarious 'False Union' and 'Popish' notion of Unam Sanctam, or some peculiar Greek notion there of (as many of us "Traditional" leaning Orthodox believe we see when we read the tea leaves), the question still stands - and the question has stood and been answered in various ways since the even before Constantine legalized the Faith.
Jake - Not sure what you're asking. There are a number of non-autocephalous Churches in communion. But to illustrate my thoughts on the issue, it obviously made no sense for Russia to keep vetting her bishops through a Christian ghetto in the Ottoman Empire after a point. Conversely, Americans are frankly not ready for autocephaly, we'll screw it up, and there's no "American Church," just a group of exarchates. And it's the pluralist part that the Mother Churches need to figure out but they can't, because nobody can figure America out.
DeleteThe OCA has a claim obviously and they are doing exactly what they should: if you get a tomos, you better act like it because I don't think there's a canonical or theological way to unring that bell.
Thanks for your reply Anti-Gnostic. In my opinion, too much is loaded upon the back of 'autocephaly'. As you point out in various ways (i.e. Russia, Istanbul ghetto, nothing that can reasonably be identified as "American Church", the lack of cultural and *canonical* meaning vis-a-vis the OCA), it means various things to various people. Erickson and others who have studied it historically point this out all too well.
DeleteI agree with your original suggestion that "someone should do something". In my opinion, one reason why we are "stuck" so to speak is that we are thinking about the wrong thing - we should admit that Unam Sanctam is the question, and a right autocephaly only flows from getting Unam Sanctam nailed down first. Unam Sanctam is theologically prior to autocephaly. Hope that makes sense...
I don't have an Unam Sanctum question. My question is ecclesiological: who is, or should be, my bishop? And again, the bishops can't figure it out because they can't figure America out. To be fair, they've always been told America is a nation-less country so it seemingly made sense for respective immigrant nations to each have their own bishops. But this gets problematic because first, the immigrants (mostly) out-marry and their kids don't want to join an ethnic social club and second, if the Carpatho-Russians, the Mayans, the Ukrainians et al. can get their own Churches, why can't Matthew Heimbach? (And third, it looks like America isn't so nation-less after all).
DeleteThere are a couple of ways out of this. One is to all go under the Greek omophorion like +Philip of blessed memory brilliantly and with a deep sense of irony dared +Bartholomew to do. But then the Greeks would have to consecrate non-Greeks, so they won't do it.
At some point I expect two or more of the American jurisdictions to merge and tell the Mother Churches this is how things are going forward, and probably pay a tithe to make it go down easier. The American primate can call himself a Metropolitan, since there's a lot of context behind the term "Patriarch" which really doesn't fit America.
Abba, of course the OCA has nothing to gain but the Hope-bearer needs his NoAm coup in order to insure his easy accession to the Ecumenical Throne.
ReplyDeleteJake, I see nothing like that ethnophyletic tendency in Slavic or other Orthodoxy.
"...I see nothing like that ethnophyletic tendency in Slavic or other Orthodoxy..."
ReplyDeleteReally? So it's natural for services in to be in Slavonic in the heart of San Francisco, or for the the Ukraine to have a Russian (obstinately 'self ruled') Church?
Unless and until we pull back from the us vs. them, Greek vs. Slav paradigm and where "autocephaly" is made to bear that which it can not theologically, historically, and culturally, we are not going to get to the heart of the matter.
In Europe, at least, the only jurisdictions where you can regularly find services in the local languages are the Russian ones.
DeleteThe Ukrainain Church is administered by Ukrainians. How can people not know by now that there is a difference between Russians and Ukrainians?
DeleteWhich MP churches in EU do regular services in the local languages?
DeleteThere's over 20 in France that do, not counting ones under Rue Daru: http://foi-orthodoxe.fr/carte-des-paroisses-orthodoxes-en-france/
DeleteThen in Belgium and the NL, the MP parishes in Amsterdam and Leuven are good examples of using both Dutch and to some degree English alongside Slavonic and Romanian.
Though, playing around with that map, it does exaggerate how much French is used in services across the board. In Paris, at least, there are 2 MP parishes that have always been 100% in French, one on the new calendar, and then the French-using Rue Daru parishes are also now under the MP. There's one French-speaking parish in formation of former Rue Daru people who prefer to be under the Greeks, but until that happens, the only French-language liturgy not under the MP is a once-monthly Saturday evening liturgy at the Greek cathedral.
DeleteAnd Saturday evening liturgies are an abuse. But that's the EP for you, with their fool innovations. There is only one day in the church year when one can have liturgy on Saturday evening; that would be the Vesperal Liturgy of Holy Saturday. The typikon calls for that Liturgy to begin at 4:00 PM, usually in parish practice, it is served earlier.Note that if Christmas Eve or Epiphany Eve fall on a Saturday, the usual Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil isn't served. Instead, you'd have a morning liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, while on the Feast itself, St. Basil's liturgy would be at the normal time, in the morning.
DeleteSo the use of local language is a thing in France and not a policy that extends across the EU. I will go out on a limb and say that the reason for the local language usage is due to the fact that the descendents of the post-Revolution migrants are today more comfotable with French than church slavonic. So the local language usage is more the result of practical concerns than of "missionary zeal" or something else that would undercut Jake's point.
DeleteAlso, the Athonite monastic metochia under the EP serve the liturgy in French.
It's more complicated than that, since a lot of the Russians who came to France after the Revolution spoke French as their everyday language even before they came to Russia. The first MP parish to go 100% French (and New Calendar) in the 1920s, Notre Dame des Affligies in the 5me, did so because the Lossky's and some other intellectuals wanted to practice Orthodoxy fully integrated into French life. In terms of missionary zeal, in France at least both the MP and Rue Daru have always had fairly noticeable numbers of converts and convert clergy. The new Russian cathedral in the center offers courses to the public in Orthodox theology and patristics in French, given by pretty serious academics. So at least in France and the Low Countries, where I have firsthand experience, the MP has much greater linguistic (and calendar) flexibility and makes more effort to make the faith available to the world than any other jurisdiction, by far.
DeleteSo the local language usage is more the result of practical concerns than of "missionary zeal" or something else that would undercut Jake's point.
DeleteIt's always been a practical concern. It is important for liturgies to be in the parish's vernacular because the brain doesn't respond to a second language in the same way. A person who's spoken French from childhood participating in a Liturgy in Slavonic or Koine Greek is mostly just memorizing sounds. For aesthetic reasons, the formal and highest vernacular usage is preferred.
As far as "missionary zeal," everybody knows where to find us, and for the most part we're "evangelizing" other Christian sects. Nobody is going out witnessing to their Jewish neighbors or their Hindu and Muslim doctors.
"...As far as "missionary zeal," everybody knows where to find us, and for the most part we're "evangelizing" other Christian sects..."
DeleteI wonder if this as essentially different than an ethnocentrism. I also don't see us as "evangelizing" other Christian sects so much as receiving their refugees as the slide deeper into secularism. When they come over, they are expected to accept our cultural particularities and ecclesial assumptions (e.g. a parish patter of life that assumes an Orthodox village) of this Christendom of the East.
Remember Moscow is the third rome,,ergo who is the alpha bishop not black bart
ReplyDelete"...that's the EP for you, with their fool innovations...The typikon calls for that Liturgy to begin at..."
ReplyDeleteWell well, someone knows his rubrics. Does he know his canon law? Tell us Boris, what is the canonical basis upon which you assert a bishop is, what's the word, 'below' the rubrics? While your at it, explain to us which rubrics, and where (which Council) these rubrics/Typikon was elevated 'above' a bishop?
"Unsurprisingly", ROCOR also uncanonically receives suspended clergy so it is not in much of a position to complain about this. Maybe it's just me but this ecclesiological inconsistency is a much bigger deal than what time of the day liturgy is served..
ReplyDelete