Wednesday, July 13, 2022

Parachute not likely to be deployed in effort to save assembly

Orthochristian.org updates us on another attempt by American bishops of numerous jurisdictions to implore the Greek Archdiocese to not consecrate the head of their Slavic Vicariate into the episcopacy. Should Abp. Elpidophoros not pull the parachute cord soon, it seems the Assembly of Bishops will strike terra firma at full speed. 


Your Eminence, Beloved Brother in Christ,

Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

We have received your individual letters to us in response to our common request for reconsideration of the planned consecration of Alexander Belya. We delayed answering you because we did not want to detract from the joy felt by all Orthodox Christians in this land at the consecration of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and Shrine at the World Trade Center and the celebration of the Greek Archdiocese’s centenary during your recent Clergy-Laity Congress. We pray, despite this difficult situation we face, that those occasions were full of blessings for you and all the hierarchs, clergy, and faithful of your Archdiocese.

Since you have often expressed concern that our Orthodox witness is hampered by acting as a confederation of churches rather than one Body of Christ, we were disappointed that you replied to us not as a unifying Chairman to the Assembly partners but merely as the head of one jurisdiction to the individual presiding hierarchs of other jurisdictions. This disappointment is compounded by Your Eminence’s choice to disregard the impact this proposed episcopal consecration will have on all of us, not just the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

Beloved Brother in Christ, our letter acknowledged the right of your Mother Church to elect Alexander Belya but, at the same time, lovingly asked you to reconsider this decision in light of the consequences for Orthodox unity. Curiously, your letters to us merely restated this right (which we have never disputed) while completely ignoring our concerns. In the words of the holy Apostle Paul, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful, but not all things edify. Let no one seek his own, but the other’s wellbeing” (1 Corinthians 10:23-24).

Our letter asked Your Eminence to remember, as Chairman of the Assembly, that your actions impact all our jurisdictions. Surprisingly, your letters in response reprimanded us for our choice of letterhead. Yet it is precisely because we wish to maintain our unity in the Assembly that we are expressing our concerns in this way. As a majority of the Executive Committee, we are addressing our Chairman in order to prevent harm to the Assembly. This is a matter of vital importance to this body, and it should indeed be addressed in this way – corporately and in an official context – regardless of nitpicks over procedure.

Our previous letter expressed concern that creating even more nationalistic ecclesial bodies would further confuse the faithful and muddy our canonical situation in this land. Your response to us, in turn, made a passing reference to preexisting ethnic jurisdictions that joined the OCA during the chaotic era of the Cold War (not dissimilar to the ethnic Albanian, Carpatho-Russian, and Ukrainian jurisdictions in America that exist within your own Patriarchate). Your justification for creating your own new ethnic vicariates – if the OCA has something similar, why can’t we? – is not pastorally sound logic and ignores the historical context that gave rise to those realities.

Likewise, establishing a vicariate within an existing ethnic jurisdiction with the sole intent of poaching dissatisfied people of another canonical jurisdiction is unprecedented and could prove to be destructive and undermine our stated goal of unity. In this particular case, the so-called Slavic Vicariate is actively soliciting churches and clergymen from other canonical jurisdictions to join it (see their webpage, www.slavonic.org/en/requirements). This is uncanonical and, frankly, offensive to all of us. Needless to say, Your Eminence would not appreciate one of our jurisdictions creating a Greek or Cypriot vicariate in order to take advantage of discord among members of your own community. We are painfully aware of your very recent attempt to procure a blessing from your Patriarchate to create a Moldovan/Romanian vicariate under your Archdiocese, based in Chicago, despite the existence of two Romanian Orthodox jurisdictions in America. We are grateful to the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate for its wisdom in declining to bless your proposal.

Our letter asked Your Eminence to reconsider a decision that would further complicate the return of our Russian brothers to the Assembly. Instead of addressing this concern, your letters deflected and changed the subject to whether or not individual jurisdictions have condemned the invasion of Ukraine strongly enough. Let us, however, focus on the matter at hand.

Our letter charitably refrained from detailing our concerns about Alexander Belya. Your replies seem to discard all of our concerns as mere hearsay, so we are compelled to specify the two most glaring examples, putting aside some of the more personal ones. First, you received Belya in October 2019, after he was canonically suspended by his competent church authority on September 3, 2019. Any prior “general” letter of release (which itself is not canonically normative) purportedly signed by His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, our brother of blessed memory, would thus mean little to nothing from a canonical perspective, even if it were authentic. The fact of Belya’s suspension is beyond dispute, and (to our knowledge) he has not even appealed the canonical judgment as provided in the canons. You often point out that, while the Russian Church broke communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has not reciprocated this action and thus remains in communion with the Russian Orthodox Church. If this is so, how do you explain receiving a clergyman from a Church with which you are in communion without first resolving with that Church the matter of his canonical discipline? You stated that Metropolitan Hilarion (and ROCOR, more generally) never contacted you, but did you bother to make inquiries with them in light of this strange letter of release and knowing that the former Archimandrite was under suspension and investigation for serious canonical and ethical charges?

Second, Belya has brought a civil lawsuit against the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in direct violations of both Holy Scripture (1 Corinthians 6:1-8) and the Holy Canons (Canon 9 of the Council of Chalcedon and Canon 6 of the First Council of Constantinople). This fact alone should prevent him from becoming a bishop. We cannot recall another instance in which a man has been proposed for consecration to the episcopacy in America and, by extension, membership in our Assembly of Bishops while carrying on such a clear and public violation of the canons. In addition to being blatantly uncanonical, this lawsuit threatens the legal interests of all our jurisdictions and, indeed, all hierarchical churches in the United States. The Roman Catholic Church has even offered their legal services to ROCOR because they realize the devastating consequences of such a lawsuit as this, which is being actively prosecuted by a cleric supposedly under your omophorion. We do not understand how you can endorse the episcopal consecration of the very man who is pursuing such an anti-hierarchical action against a fellow Orthodox jurisdiction, which could be detrimental to all of us – first of all, to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America!

Your Eminence, Beloved Brother in Christ, the issue we have brought to you is a simple one: will we function merely as a confederation of jurisdictions or as the Body of Christ in America? We are called to rise up to the challenges of this historical moment rife with civil discord, rejection of the evangelical commandments, famine, pestilence, and war. Our broken culture needs the Orthodox Faith, not a broken Orthodox Church in this land. This moment requires more from us hierarchs than simply a reassertion of our jurisdictional rights, especially when doing so harms our united witness to a land thirsting for the life-giving Faith “once and for all delivered to the saints.”

Once again, we ask Your Eminence and the Ecumenical Patriarchate to show an example of love and service, for the sake of all the Orthodox Christians of this land, and to uphold the canonical order bequeathed to us by the Holy Fathers, particularly when it comes to such a fearsome responsibility as choosing men for the Sacred Episcopacy. We reiterate our position, which cannot be compromised, that we cannot and will not concelebrate with Alexander Belya or his vicariate, and we cannot continue to participate in the Assembly if this man is elevated to the episcopacy and thereby, according to the Chambésy rules, joins the Assembly as a member. You are, of course, free to consecrate him; we, in turn, are free to avoid any dealings with him.

We offer our fervent prayers to the Holy Apostles for a renewal of the conciliar spirit manifest when they met in Jerusalem and declared, “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” We ask Your Eminence to join us in this spirit of conciliarity and to work together in a manner that transcends the narrow interests of our separate jurisdictions.

With love and great esteem in Christ our Lord, we remain,

Your brothers and concelebrants,


Metropolitan Joseph, Vice Chairman

Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America


Bishop Longin

Serbian Orthodox Church in North, Central and South America


Metropolitan Nicolae

Romanian Orthodox Metropolia of the Americas


Metropolitan Joseph

Bulgarian Eastern Orthodox Diocese of the USA, Canada, and Australia


Metropolitan Tikhon

Orthodox Church in America


CC: His All-Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

Members of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the USA

9 comments:

  1. Drawing the line in the sand with Belya is admirable on one level, given that the current course has to be arrested somewhere, sometime, and in some way. It's also arbitrary because whey here/now?

    Its arbitrariness lies in the central problem is that the signatories of this letter have no more idea, let alone a practical plan, on how to *be* something other than the very confederation that they admit they are.

    They keep using the word "canonical" as if the exiting canons contain within them the ontology of Unam Sanctam of Orthodoxy for the Church post_Roman Empire, but they don't - how could they as they reflect the Church in the Empire?

    They speak of "the spirit of conciliatory" as if they have any clue as to what that actually looks like in the de facto confederation, federation, and jurisdictional ecclesial reality, and they themselves each are as much a part of that reality and it's life of ever-more-fragmentation.

    It would one thing if GOA/Elpidophoros were a "bad apple" among otherwise sound fruit, but their all just as broken and guilty - they are all, almost equally, as much a part of the problem as any *real* solution.

    Before you can pick up Humpty and put him back together, you have to remember what he looks like, and none of these guys any more than Elpidophoros has a clue, and even if they did they don't have it them - they don't have the human qualities (the leadership) nor the *charisma*

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  2. "Your Eminence would not appreciate one of our jurisdictions creating a Greek or Cypriot vicariate in order to take advantage of discord among members of your own community."

    You mean like the Russian Orthodox diocese in Africa?

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    1. And that Exarchate is a train wreck

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    2. The point is well-taken regarding schism by way of taking disaffected people. It's not an exactly comparable situation, though. The EP's establishment of a new Ukrainian Church by fiat and with the involvement of deposed clergymen was schismatic. Because the canonical principles taint not only those who concelebrate with schismatics but those who concelebrate with those who concelebrate with schismatics, it's perhaps understandable that many clergy in the Alexandrian Patriarchate (which supported the EP in this matter) would not want to have their ministry tarnished by that. It's all complicated, of course, but the MP's puzzling behavior since the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict began.

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    3. Here's a thought, don't interfere in the affairs of an autocephalous church by recognizing and serving with schismatics.

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  3. This is the same bishop who believes EPB is first without* equal. Greek supremacy is nonnegotiable, you dont get to question the pope of the East. I fully expect this appeal to reason will be arrogantly ignored if not mocked. Between the Ukrainian schism, the promotion of homosexual parenting, and this, at least its increasingly clear for all to see the true colors of our progressive bishops.

    Elder Ephraim said that the bishops who survive world war three will finally get their act together and resolve these issues. Its the only reason his monasteries haven't left the GOA for a jurisdiction that isn't so wayward. I would rather avoid living to see world war three, but since we're clearly headed for it, at least there might be something good that comes out of it.

    As usual I am grateful that as Orthodox Christians we dont have to concern ourselves with the foolishness of bishops in order to work out our salvation.

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  5. As a Greek Orthodox Christian, I would like to chime in this discussion to advocate for both sides of this debate. Firstly, with respect to the decision to accept the suspended clergyman and then to arbitrarily promote him to the episcopal dignity makes very little if any sense at all from the perspective of canon law. Even if I advocated for the sake of bishop elect, Fr. Alexander's innocence, I would have to admit that he made three tragic mistakes which automatically disqualifies him for the priestly order. These are as follows:

    1) He ignored the call to appear before the ecclesiastical court of the Holy Synod of ROCOR, which is an act of sedition against and a disregard of ecclesiastical canon law. For even if the court was prejudiced towards him, it does give him the right to ignore the ancient customs of the Church, not to appear and confess and state the truth. If one is wrongfully condemned, there is ecclesiastical recourse. The tribunal, in turn, could only summon him three times. If he does not appear, to carry judgement for sedition against his Church. He cannot be tried for the original allegations since he did not show up to defend himself. If the Holy Synod of ROCOR condemned for anything else but sedition because he has not stood to be judged. Besides, sedition is a far more serious ecclesiastical crime, and his suspension was fully warranted.

    2) Instead of maintaining to an ecclesiastical defense, he resorted to fight his wrongful conviction in secular courts, just as the letter above mentioned. This is contrary to the ecclesiastical ethos and Holy Canon Law and is also punishable with suspension.

    3) His appeal to the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, His Eminence Elpidoforos, should have been automatically rejected because of reasons 1 and 2. Had he not committed these two preceding errors, he would have been in full right to appeal directly to the Ecumenical Patriarch to review and adjudicate his defense and convene the Patriarchal Council to either exonerate or reject it.

    Now, there are those who believe that the right of appeal is limited to the Synod which condemned the suspended clergyman, but this is simply not true. Consequently, they are led to the same incorrect conclusions about what has occurred in Ukraine.

    It is a very sad statement that the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America has failed to translate very important historical and canonical documents which defend the decision of their very own Ecumenical Patriarch and has such a poor job of communicating the historical facts and reasons behind why the Ecumenical Patriarchate had full justification and the imperative to intervene to lift the extreme and unjust measure of excommunication against millions of Ukrainian Orthodox clergy and laity.
    The schisms in the Ukraine are a highly complicated matter which involves at least 5 centuries of political and canonical history and canonical precedent, that confounds even the experts. The Ecumenical Patriarch did not encroach in any other canonical jurisdiction than its own. Why this is so exceeds the purpose of this comment, but it is very so.

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  6. Very good Νικολαος, your knowledge of the canons, as they are actually written and applied for the last 1300 years (since the fall of the Roman Empire in which and for which they were actually written), is better than 99% of the average online Orthodox commentator.

    I would note however that formality, procedural uniformity, and laws (i.e. the Holy Canons) are rest on a common *spirit* - a fundamental spiritual *unity*. When the underlying spirit of a cult-ure, in this case the Orthodox Church, becomes fractured as we have around ethno-national spirit and interests, then the canonical formality loses it's *charisma* and unifying potential.

    The EP did translate and comment on some of the relevant documents and normative (at least for the last 1300 years) reasoning/interpretation, but that effort was significantly drowned out by the MP's superior messaging machine. In addition, given the deep deep ingrained affinity for individualism, "democracy", and fear of centralization & hierarchy in the west equally among Christian's and non-Christians, the MP's "federation" ecclesiology makes much more intuitive sense. Thus for the average western Orthdox Christian, it appeals to what they (mostly unconsciously) believe about Unam Sanctam, church history, and "popeism".

    They are wrong of course, but you will never convince them of it - their inner John Locke is clinged to with all the strength and bitterness of a man who has fallen overboard in the middle of the ocean. The MP sort of stumbled into this historical accident but they certainly know how to leverage it.

    Honestly, I can't think of a way through this, either for the greeks/EP or anyone else.

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