An interesting post on a really boring topic

OK. Let's be honest. In the grand scheme of Orthoblogdom the topic of church administration, (unless we are talking about a scandal) is about as exciting as watching a championship chess match on payperview. And if we are talking about the much discussed Episcopal Assembly and a potential future American Orthodox Church (AOC) we would all much rather expound on why America is not mature and ready for it's own church. And why it's better that we remain under ethnic churches until we get a better grasp of real Orthodoxy and purge all of the Protestant baggage from recent converts. Never mind that as long as we are taking converts that will be a never ending battle (presuming the problem is in fact as bad as some claim). And of course totally ignoring the fact that our current ecclesiological structure here is absolutely non-canonical and that the state of the Orthodox Church in N. America is and will perpetually be one of open scandal until we put an end to the multiplicity of jurisdictions here.

But I digress.

A really important but deathly boring topic relevant to any future AOC is church administration. I am talking about the nuts and bolts of making it work. Yea yea yea, I know. Can't we just get on with a fun debate about how Catholics are really heretics and just how far the Anglicans have fallen? But this is actually an important topic. So bear with me please.

There is a new website (blog?) up called Suggestions For the Episcopal Assembly. (Hat Tip: Byzantine Texas) It's not really clear who is running it other than that it is not an official site. But I like the concept. It is a venue for constructive suggestions on how to get a future AOC up and running. The EA hopes to present some sort of viable plan to sort out our jurisdictional chaos for the consideration of the Great and Holy Synod that has been on the drawing boards for about a century now.

Which brings me to the very first post. And it is an impressive one at that. The author presents a fairly detailed suggestion for how we can carve up the United States (sans Canada) into Eparchs with each one containing multiple dioceses. He suggests that the Eparchs roughly correspond to the ten Administrative Regions used by the Federal Government. You can read the details of his (or her) suggestion here.

Are there some issues? Yes of course. But after reading the suggestion several times, I think the author has actually come up with a plan that could serve as the basis or framework if you will, for organizing the AOC into viable dioceses and lay the groundwork for a national Holy Synod.

Please leave your comments on the original post.