Rumor: Former Met Jonah released to ROCOR

No sources are cited but Joseph over at Byzantine Texas is well connected and doesn't have a track record of posting inaccurate reports. Assuming this is true, I can't say I am surprised.

Bishop Matthias Explains The Reasons For Met. Jonah's Resignation

Home for lunch and found an email from a blog reader with the tip. Read the Archpastoral Letter here. It is extremely sad, but more or less comports with what I had been hearing for sometime. Please exercise restraint and charity in any comments. This is not an "I told you so" moment.

Fr. Oliver Herbal On Met. Jonah's Resignation

I think this is an excellent post on the matter.

OCA: Holy Synod appoints Archbishop Nathaniel Locum Tenens

The latest from the Holy Synod. It goes without saying that the usual suspects are throwing tantrums on the internet and elsewhere. One internet personality in particular, who has not been in the Church for a very long time but seems to be attracted to church politics like a moth to a candle, has directed some truly shocking invective at the Holy Synod. I could get into a protracted discussion of the matter... or I could keep it simple and cut right to what needs to be said. The gentlemen in question really just needs to shut up.

That was much easier and it felt better.

Prayers for the Holy Synod and all concerned.

A Friendly Response To Metropolitan Jonah

A friendly response to Metropolitain Jonah who apparently suggested to the ACNA Provincial Assembly today that we “fix” the western Creed by removing the filioque clause:

Your Beatitude, we’ll reconsider the filioque clause when the Orthodox Church in America affirms the doctrines of original guilt, sola fide, sola scriptura, and “fixes” its calendar.

-Matt Kennedy from here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

Well, I agree with him about the calendar... ;-)

Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!
To the Very Reverend and Reverend Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful of the Orthodox Church in America:
Christ is risen!
As we celebrate the Feast of Feasts, the Mystery of Pascha, the Resurrection of Our Lord, I greet you, my brothers and sisters, and join you in hymns of praise to Him who has overcome the devil and loosed the bonds of death, to Him, our crucified and risen Savior, who has opened for us the gates of paradise and the promise of eternal life in Him.
The time of preparation for the heavenly Pascha has provided us the opportunity to concentrate on the status and reality of our lives. The examples of the Publican and the Pharisee, Zacchaeus, St John Climacus, Mary of Egypt, and St Gregory Palamas are all given to us by the Church to show us the path towards a life in Christ. The reading of the Passion Gospels, the veneration of our entombed Lord, and the proclamation of that empty tomb are not merely commemorations or remembrances. Rather, they are revelations of true life, which is life in Christ. Our path through Great Lent to our Lord’s tomb, and the proclamation of his glorious resurrection constitute an authentic reality, which is life-giving, which connects us with the eternal reality of the Kingdom of God.
In his epistle to the Romans, the holy Apostle Paul states:

“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His Death? We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4)

Through Holy Baptism and the mystery of our liturgical worship we behold the Holy Passion and Resurrection of Christ and witness to them. By them our spiritual eyes are enlightened, and we enter into these Mysteries as our own spiritual experience, our deepest experience of reality. And as Orthodox Christians we give thanks for the precious gift of God’s love. We rejoice in the truth that all creation is renewed and we sing with the angels in heaven: “Shine, shine, O New Jerusalem; The glory of the Lord has shone on you!” It is for us to take up this glory, this radiance and apply it, truly discovering for ourselves the true reality and meaning of Pascha.
The world presents to us an idea of “reality”. But this so-called “reality” is not the reality that we may experience as Orthodox Christians. Our “Real World” is Life in Christ, as St Gregory the Theologian writes:

Yesterday I was crucified with Christ; today I will be glorified with him.
Yesterday I died with Christ; today I will return to life with Him.
Yesterday I was buried with Christ; today I will rise with Him from the tomb.

The Resurrection of Our Lord is given to us as the precious Feast of Feasts. Indeed, it is a time to manifest the light of the Resurrection from within our communities.  It is also a time to keep the holiness of the Feast that the glory of the Lord may remain precious to us and we remain rooted in that ultimate connection with the eternal reality, the new life shining from the empty tomb.
Let us put to good use the illumination given to us by the Risen Lord, that we may identify our gifts, our talents, our treasures, that we may offer them back to Him who has ascended the Cross for our salvation, to Him in whom we find the only genuine reality, and to Him, who, through the Cross, offers to us the promise of salvation and eternal life in His Kingdom.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ! May you always abide in true reality – the light of Christ, His peace, love and joy.
Christ is risen! Indeed, He is risen!
With love in our Risen Lord,


+JONAH
Archbishop of Washington
Metropolitan of All America and Canada

OCA: Met. Jonah vs The Metropolitan Council and the Synod

I haven't posted on this subject because I try to avoid church politics, and that is pretty much what this is.  There are no real allegations that I am aware of that rise to the level of scandal.  That said there has been a nasty round of backbiting and intrigue in the higher levels of the OCA.  Of course when has there not been in the 2000 year history of the Church?  The Fathers repeatedly warn and complain about bad bishops.  Sigh. 

Anyway for those not familiar with the saga my suggestion is just skip this post and move on.  There is nothing edifying here.  However for those who have been following things and or those who can't avert their eyes from the proverbial car wreck, you may click here to read the AAC report from the Diocese of the West.  The salient parts run from pages 3 to 4.  There have been a lot of efforts on the part of some to make this out to be Jonah fighting for the soul of the OCA against creeping quasi-Episcopalian liberalism.  Rubbish.  The problem is (mainly) that His Beatitude does not play and get along well with others.  He needs to learn to do so, or his tenure as our primate is going to be one very long headache.

HT: Bill (aka The Godfather)

Asceticism and the Consumer Society: An Interview with Metropolitan Jonah

The Orthodox Church is mostly known in the United States for its rich liturgical life, its adherence to ancient calendars for major Christian feast-days and, perhaps most of all, the many food and ethnic festivals offered by its multiethnic parishes. Social activism and moral witness in the public square, not so much. That has begun to change with the rise of Metropolitan Jonah, the primate of the Orthodox Church in America. This youthful bishop, born James Paffhausen in Chicago and raised in Southern California before entering monastic life in Russia, was elected to lead the OCA in November 2008. Since then, he has perhaps been the most widely quoted and covered Orthodox bishop in the United States, speaking out on social issues and traveling widely to speak to ecumenical gatherings. He delivered one of the keynote addresses at Acton University in June 2011. Religion & Liberty Executive Editor John Couretas spoke with Metropolitan Jonah about his talk.

R&L: In your Acton University address, "Asceticism and the Consumer Society," you explained how the consumerist impulse was really an addictive impulse, something that compels us fill a void where God should be. And we so frequently attempt to fill that empty spot with the wrong things.

Metropolitan Jonah: I think the void occurs because we're basically distracted from God, and we don't let God fill that void. We don't have that focus and that perpetual intuitive awareness of God for which we were created, and so we let other things get in the way. And for many people, it's pain and disappointment, discouragement, anger, bitterness, all of the passions. For others, it could be the pain that follows from having been abused in some way. And so this becomes a kind of a preoccupation and we look for things to mute that pain, to distract us from it. We look for a salve.

Read the rest here.

Washington Post: Metropolitan Jonah goes to Washington (long story)

A reasonably well written and balanced article on the recent issues within the OCA and the leadership of Metropolitan Jonah...

They appeared at the edge of the crowd on the Mall, a group of men seemingly out of a distant century. Their heads were crowned with klobuks, the distinctive headgear of Orthodox clergy. Sporting black cassocks and untrimmed gray beards, with golden icons dangling from their necks on long chains, these visitors stood out among the crowd clad in jeans and winter coats. The man in their center carried a bejeweled walking stick.

Metropolitan Jonah, 51, leads the Orthodox Church in America, the second-largest Eastern Orthodox body in the United States. He was there to rally the huddled masses waiting in the freezing air to begin the March for Life, the annual demonstration protesting the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion nationwide. His aim was to boost Orthodox participation in political issues. But his efforts to change the OCA would spark a ferocious reaction from his own bishops one month later. At issue is the very nature of Orthodoxy in the New World.

The tensions began with Jonah’s surprise election as head (or “metropolitan”) of the OCA in late 2008. The new leader, who is the first native-born convert to head the church, wasted little time instituting change. He put word out to his bishops and seminarians that their presence was expected at the March for Life, held every January. It was time, he would later tell a reporter, for the Orthodox “to step out in the public square” on a number of social concerns, including abortion. To encourage such stepping out, Jonah also decided to move the offices of the OCA from its isolated Syosset, N.Y., chancery to St. Nicholas Cathedral in Northwest Washington.

On the morning of the march, Jonah preached an uncompromising Gospel at the cathedral. “We need to see and call things what they are and not in some disguised politically correct language,” he said, dressed in resplendent gold brocade vestments, his salt-and-pepper beard making him appear like an Old Testament prophet. “Abortion is the taking of human life.”

Jonah continued: “So often, people think that if we name sin for what it is, that we’re judging people. No, we’re just pointing out reality. It is not a matter of judgment to say abortion is a sin. It is not a matter of judgment to say that homosexual activity is a sin. It is a matter of simply stating the truth of the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.”

A few hours later at the march — while 80 Orthodox seminarians from New York and Pennsylvania stood, shivering, underneath a large “Orthodox Christians for Life” sign — Jonah told his listeners to stand firm against “the plague of abortion.” He received a rousing ovation. As he swept away down the steps, various clergy kissed his hand, and Washington’s Cardinal Donald Wuerl came up to greet him.

Read the rest here.

OCA: Metropolitan Jonah is placed on leave by the Holy Synod

According to a report from Geneva on the Greek website Romofea.org late last evening, citing “exclusive information” from unamed sources, Metropolitan Jonah has been removed as the Primate, and Archbishop Nathaniel has been named Temporary Administrator by the OCA Synod of Bishops. Earlier in the day the retired Bishop of Los Angeles, Tikhon posted a short note on the web saying “Metropolitan Jonah.... has been given the “Bishop Nikolai’ treatment------mandatory leave of absence. Archbishop Nathaniel Popp has been named to temporarily fill the spot of First Hierarch.Bishop Melchizedek has been named as Chancellor, replacing the Archpriest, Alexander Garklavs.” Neither story has been confirmed or denied by OCA.org.

OCANews.org has, however, confirmed with mulitple sources that Metropolitan Jonah has indeed been placed on a leave of absence, and that indeed +Nathaniel has been named as a temporary replacement. However, the fate of Fr. Garklavs is as yet unclear. According to sources close to Syosset, Bishop Michael (Dahulich) was to travel to Syosset this morning to discuss the Synod’s decisions with Fr. Garklavs. (Fr. Garklavs returned from Santa Fe yesterday before the Synodal retreat was concluded.) Bishop Melchizedek, named by +Tikhon as Garklav’s replacement, was unavailable for comment as he is currently on a train travelling back to Pittsburgh from Santa Fe.

Read the rest here.

Update: Via Byzantine Texas the Holy Synod has issued a statement which can be read here.

Patriarch Kyril blessing Holy Water in Christ the Savior Cathedral with Met. Jonah on Epiphany

Some posts of interest

I draw the reader's attention to several posts over at Byzantine Texas which are well worth a glance. Starting with a couple on Met. Jonah's "unofficial" trip to Moscow. As noted there, Orthodox primates don't just go sightseeing in another church's canonical jurisdiction. I am more than a little curious as to what this is all about. I have some suspicions but am content to wait and see. Then there is a video of Met. Jonah's recent talk to a Lutheran congregation on Orthodox spirituality.

Rumors: +Jonah and the Western Rite

I am hearing things. Is anyone else?

Metropolitan Jonah Demonstrates True Ecumenism

Metropolitan Jonah's Speech to the inaugural convention of the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA)

Hat tip to Dr. Tighe

This is what true ecumenism looks like. That said, I harbor no illusions about the likelihood of the ACNA coming to Orthodoxy as a corporate body. There are too many low church Evangelical types for whom accepting Orthodoxy would mean renouncing most of their Protestant theological heritage. But I do have some hopes that we might welcome some of the Anglo-Catholics into the Church.

A couple of quick notes...

First tomorrow morning at 1130 Eastern (0830 Pacific) Metropolitan +Jonah will address the inaugural convention of the Anglican Church in North America. The address can be watched here.

Secondly, as many of you already know (and if you didn't, consider yourself fortunate) there has been something of tempest brewing in the Antiochian Archdiocese. The issue being a canonically dicey decree from their Holy Synod over in Damascus that purported to reduce the N. American Antiochian bishops to the status of auxiliary bishops in service to Metropolitan +Philip. After quite a blow up over the whole thing their Holy Synod reconsidered the issue last week and appeared to have substantially "clarified" their earlier decree in a manner effectvely nullifying it. (Roman Catholics aren't the only ones who know how to fix a mistake without admitting to having made one.)

This should have been the end of the matter, right?

Unfortunately what was essentially a heated debate over church canons and ecclesiology may be in the process of becoming a full blown scandal. Owen the Ochlophobist (a critic of the earlier decree) has written about the new and potentially much more serious issues here. Please leave any comments on the matter at his blog.

Having spent the last couple of years living through a scandal that at times seemed on the verge of tearing the OCA apart, I have great sympathy for our brothers and sisters in the Antiochian Archdiocese. I ask for everyone's prayers that this is resolved as quickly as possible, comencerate with truth and justice.

Some thoughts on Metropolitan Jonah's speech

Having listened to the speech and read it through a couple of times now I am beginning to form a few very preliminary impressions. First this guy is NOT Herman or Theodosius. And secondly while the OCA talked the talk in the past it's new leader seems to be taking the concept of a unified local American Orthodox Church far more seriously than any of his predecessors or for that matter any of the other senior hierarchs in other jurisdictions. Whether this is a good thing is something that I think will be much debated in the coming days.

I know of more than a few Orthodox (mostly cradle/ethnics but also some converts) who think America is not ready for its own local church and needs the firm guiding hand of the mother church(es). In fairness there are some weaknesses here in America. But I see that in all of the churches in the old country too. For good or ill though +Jonah clearly believes it is time to get serious about Orthodox unity, and his speech suggests that he means business.

Three dramatic points stood out in my reading of the address. First is that he made the OCA a negotiable entity. He made it clear that it is no longer about the OCA and he is not going to press the debateable claim that the OCA is the only canonical Orthodox jurisdiction in North America (a proposition he repeated at least once himself in a presentation some years ago). Now the OCA's very existence is open for discussion as long as whatever replaces it is a local North American Orthodox Church.

Secondly he pondered aloud the possibility of opening up the Holy Synod of the OCA to all the bishops of the canonical Orthodox jurisdictions in North America. Such a move would effectively undercut the newly proposed episcopal conferences that are supposed to be set up for the diaspora (a term I intensely dislike as it ignores non-ethnics and by implication downplays the obligation of evangelism). This would be a very interesting development. How would the other jurisdictions and their bishops respond?

And finally he as much as issued an invitation to the Antiochian Archdiocese to merge with the OCA (not "join") and form a new American Orthodox jurisdiction. Again how would this play out? It would create a jurisdiction that in size would rival the Greek Archdiocese which has been cool to downright hostile to the idea of Orthodox unity under anyone other than the Ecumenical Patriarch. How would the smaller jurisdictions respond? We can be fairly sure that ROCOR would remain unaffected in its ties to the Russian Church. But there are a myriad of smaller jurisdictions whose raison d' etat has been fading as each new generation becomes more American and the connections to the ethnic homeland of their ancestors weaken.

Of course these are just words so far. But they are words coming from someone who seems quite serious about his mission. That mission being Orthodox unity in North America.

Thoughts?

On Dialogue with Anglicans

A large part of the OCA’s flock and the majority of the episcopate came to Orthodoxy from other denominations or from atheism. You yourself were born into an Episcopal (Anglican) family. Do heterodox roots help or hinder in dialog with representatives of other faiths? What is the OCA’s general attitude towards ecumenism?

Because America is a very pluralistic country, we have to have contacts with representatives of other faiths. The OCA takes part in the National Council of Churches of the USA and the World Council of Churches. We participate in discussions conducted within the framework of the ecumenical organizations, although we rarely approve of what they do. But they do many good things; especially, in providing an opportunity for the Orthodox to meet with one another.

Now about the theological dialog with the heterodox. If the matter concerns the Episcopal Church/USA, then this dialog has stopped. But we engage in dialog with Episcopalian traditionalists many of whom embrace the Orthodox faith. And I personally, and our entire Synod gives great attention to bringing these people into the fold of the Orthodox Church in America.

You are not afraid of accusations of proselytizing?

This is not proselytizing - it “aggressive proclamation” of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are all called to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Orthodoxy - is preaching of Christ in all its fullness.

-Metropolitan +Jonah (OCA) in a recent wide ranging interview. I strongly encourage reading it all.

Source.

Met. Jonah to Constantinople: Back Off

In what was certainly a response to the incendiary (and IMO insulting) comments by Archimandrite Dr. Elpidophoros Lambriniadis who recently opined that the time has come for all Orthodox Americans to "submit" to the authority of the "First Throne," Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America addressed the issue of Orthodox unity. In his sermon at a Pan-Orthodox service in Dallas he picked up the glove thrown down by the Ecumenical Patriarch's representative and delivered a frank reply that is likely going to provoke much discussion and debate.

"To the bishops of the old world, there is an American Orthodox Church. Leave it alone."

For what it's worth, I wholeheartedly concur. I think its time to say some things which have been needing to be said for a while. There are several primary reasons behind the scandalously uncanonical jurisdictionalism here in North America. And none of them are good.

1. Money: North America is a cash cow for financially strapped churches in the old country.

2. Phyletism and extreme ethnocentrism: We can have Orthodox unity without sacrificing legitimate pride in our respective ethnic backgrounds, which will undoubtedly be reflected at the parish level. But we can’t have unity when ethnicity precedes, or is confused with, Orthodoxy. And there is still way too much of that out there.

3. Church politics: I for one am tired of seeing North American Orthodox Christians used like pieces on a chess board by the various old world churches, most of which are either joined at the hip with a national government or under the thumb of a hostile one. And the politics are not confined to the old world either. One need only look at some of the problems in recent years which have plagued all three of the major Orthodox jurisdictions in America (the Greek Archdiocese, the OCA and most recently the Antiochians) to see this. It’s time for a few bishops to get over themselves, and get on with the business of Christ’s Church in America.

Given the history of Orthodoxy in North America (which precedes the establishment of the Greek Archdiocese by roughly 130 years) the claims of the Ecumenical Patriarchate are risible. I am not naïve enough to expect that all of the bishops in the sister churches here in North America are just going to run off and join the OCA. Whatever form the American Orthodox Church eventually takes it will undoubtedly be a bit different than the OCA. But it is time, indeed well past time, to get this ball rolling.

And with due respect to His All Holiness; it is also time to stop trying to play Pope. As His Beatitude noted, if we wanted a Pope we would be under the real one. And the way Bart has been cozying up to the Vatican of late, if we do wind up under the EP that may just be a short prelude to winding up under the real Pope anyways.

Hat Tip: Father David

Metropolitan Jonah's Speech

If you have not heard the remarks of Met. Jonah following his enthronement then run (don't walk) over to Fr. Joseph's Orthodixie and listen to his speech (about 14 mins). I agree with Fr. Joseph that this should be required viewing for all Orthodox Americans.

Please leave any comments on Fr. Joseph's website.

Many Years (x2)

A belated many years to His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah on the occasion of his enthronement in Washington DC as the new Primate of the Orthodox Church in America.

AXIOS AXIOS AXIOS!!!

And many years to my Godson Basil on his name day and the first anniversary of his baptism into the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church.