Posted by by Metropolitan Jonah on 5/7/2009, 6:46 pm
Message modified by board administrator 5/7/2009, 6:47 pm
Met. Jonah to Old World bishops: Hands Off the American Church!
In a stinging rebuke to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America issued a call for a unified American Church and rejected any path to unity that would mean “we surrender the freedom we have embraced as American Orthodox Christians to a patriarchate still under Islamic domination.” The video here records his sermon on April 5 at Pan-Orthodox vespers at St. Seraphim Cathedral in Dallas.
Although he did not mention him by name, the Metropolitan was responding to a speech given March 16 at Holy Cross School of Theology by the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr. Elpidophoros Lambriniadis, chief secretary of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In the speech, Fr. Lambriniadis was critical of calls for unity by both the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese and OCA and asserted that “submission to the First Throne of the Church, that is, to the Ecumenical Patriarchate” is the proper mode of unity for American Orthodox Christians.
To such a suggestion, Metropolitan Jonah said: “I would submit that, if we wanted a pope, we would be under the real one.”
Watch Metropolitan Jonah's Pan Orthodox sermon by clicking on this link:
http://video.yahoo.com/watch/4812572/12841013
