Posted by an Anonymous Antiochian Priest on 5/21/2009, 2:51 pm, in reply to "Time for the LAOS to be heard from in the AOCA"
Board Administrator
The Tear
When I was in seminary, I pointed to the small dangling gem under the
Archpriest’s cross of one of my instructors and asked him, “Why do we
have these?” He smiled wryly and said, “The Cross is Christ’s, the
crown is the bishop’s, but the tear belongs to the priest.”
It is a teardrop. I was too stunned to answer, and so he walked away
in the silence knowing that the message was delivered.
Since that time, I have shed many tears. I have shed them for my
parishioners, for my hierarchs, for my family and even for myself. I
have shed tears of gratitude and tears of shame. I have shed them in
anger and joy. Sometimes I wish I could shed them more often, and
sometimes I wish they would stop.
In America, we clergy shed many tears. We cry in privacy, or perhaps
in confession, because we are told not to cry too loudly. We have
been told that the priesthood is a Cross to be borne with patience and
silence. If you complain and are heard, your bishop will be annoyed
and your parishioners will certainly lose their respect for you.
Even though we live in a land of plenty, and land of freedom, we
priests do not experience these things as others do. First of all, we
are not free. Not as clergy are in other parts of the Church.
In other lands, clergy receive their sustenance from either the state
or the diocese. The bishops take seriously their canonical duties to
care for the well-being of the clergy. In America, the best a priest
can hope for is that his bishop will set forth some kind of
‘compensation guidelines’ and insist that the parish community come up
with the necessary remuneration.
In most cases, this means that a parish council and a priest have to
negotiate. The people then, through their own personal disposition
towards the priest, determine what they think he deserves or needs.
The very people the priest is called to preside over as ‘father’ must
beg as a child.
For countless priests and communities, this arrangement has led to
years of mistrust and cynicism. Laity wonder if the priest is only
serving for profit, while priests wonder if parishioners are only
interested in paying them when the priest is sufficiently compliant
with their demands. The Gospel and brotherly love are often forgotten
as parishioners and priests wrangle over expenses and reimbursements.
Meanwhile, priests have to choose between parish discipline and paying
the bills. After all, how can a priest not worry that excommunicating
a donor who thinks he has ‘purchased’ the Sacraments with his pledge
card will not result in a tit-for-tat withdrawal of support? Rather
than thinking of people’s salvation foremost, priests must balance
between what is right and their own needs. Some priests do that
better than others.
Some priests’ families have fallen victim to this cynical system. The
sons and daughters of clergy sometimes reject the Church because of
how their families were treated by stingy parish councils, or the
outlandish demands made of their fathers. Wives of priests have filed
divorce because they could no longer take the stress piled on high
with poverty.
Some parishes have been allowed to be called ‘priest-eaters,’ where
the priests are routinely driven off by unruly, impious parish
members. All the while, these ‘priest-eaters’ destroy their own
children by living such poor examples of Christianity.
Bishops have allowed this dysfunction to happen. After all, it was
bishops born and raised in the ‘Old Country’ who have allowed this
uncanonical and damaging arrangement to be established, and the newer
‘American’ ones have bought into it as well. One thing can be said
for some of them, and that is they are trying to help the clergy more,
which is why they are loved.
There are probably a variety of reasons why this broken system exists,
but I think a contributing factor is that it is easiest for them.
This way, they don’t have to worry about visiting parishes regularly
or having to build relationships with their ‘spiritual children.’
They can administer from afar, asking for money with letters and
expecting that the priests will collect the taxes and, hopefully, skim
a bit for themselves. This system has reduced priests to Publicans
with liturgical duties.
When it comes to the relationship of the priests to the bishops, the
dysfunction only grows. In most cases, bishops have a distant
relationship with their clergy. In many cases, bishops and clergy
come from different cultures with different education. There is
little in the way of common experience, perhaps only a broken language
and a broken understanding of God is all that bridge the gap between
hierarch and presbytery.
All the while, the bishops hold all the cards. They assume total
control of the priest’s life, from ordination to assignment to
transfer to judgment. When a priest stands accused, it is the bishop
who levels the charges, picks the jury and ratifies the verdict
through imposing the sentence. When the bishop is part of a
functional Synod, this system has a chance to properly work because
there is oversight. Priests need a Synod to appeal to that is not
dominated by one or more of its members, but where all are equal and
impartiality for all Christians is valued.
However, when the Synod is ‘in the pocket’ of one of its members, then
clergy know that they have no recourse. Their lives are ruled over by
the whim of the ‘king.’
Rather than taking the difficult way of standing up for what they
believe is the truth, some clergy find it is easier to suppress their
thoughts and feelings. They bottle things up. Some surrender their
faith and abandon themselves to ‘people pleasing.’ They forget the
hard sayings of the Gospel and the difficulties of living according to
the teachings of the Church, instead doing all that is necessary to
insure survival.
You know these men because they do not need to hide their iniquity,
since they are members of the privileged class. They do not hide in
shame their misdeeds, because they know they are protected, and the
bishops are proud to call them favored sons. The bishop wishes more
of the clergy were like ‘Father So-and-So’ because everyone loves him,
but none so much as the bishop who regularly receives an oral
shoeshine from his self-serving servant.
What we are talking about is sin, the sin of sloth. We have been
lazy, because the priests have borne their suffering with patience and
so there has been little known of what goes on in shadows. Many
people only want to casually come to Liturgy, leave a few dollars in
the plate and go about their business. However, this lack of concern
comes with a price paid by the priest and those parishioners who
realize that a parish requires the people and the clergy to work
together. When this synergy does not exist, the priest suffers most
of all.
The priests weep in silence, trapped between demanding bishops and
demanding people. One demands obedience to every whim, not unlike the
whims of those on the other side of the priest who think they can
threaten the priest’s livelihood if he ‘gets out of line.’ Never mind
the innocent clergy families and parishioners who see the cynicism of
this arrangement and end up rejecting the Church because they have
been falsely taught that this is what a ‘hierarchical church’ looks
like.
If we are worried about ‘Orthodox Unity’ and ‘American Orthodoxy,’ we
could stand to learn a bit more from the Old World. It is time we
start asking the hierarchy to step up and start taking responsibility
for the well-being of the people and the clergy. W-2 forms should not
be issued by parishes indicating that priests are merely ‘employees’
(remember, folks, W-2s are issued by employers). Dioceses need to
collect their own assessments, not the parish priests. When it comes
to pay, the checks should come from the chancery.
In such a system, it would require bishops that are capable of being
accountable to each other (as the canons require) and to the entire
Church. It is time that they get out of their chanceries and bond
with their flock, and that means more than the occasional hierarchical
liturgy accompanying the annual visit. Of course, this would mean
breaking up some of the uber-dioceses that are geographically so big
that it is impossible for one to effectively pastor.
This would take away the suspicion between clergy and laity, since the
monetary issue would be removed from the relationship. When it comes
time to assess and collect, then the chancellor comes to the parish
and works with the community, rather than forcing the spiritual father
of the community into the role of the collector.
Let’s think about this for a moment: how many bishops do we know of
who have been forced to take secular jobs because the church would not
pay to support them? In the case of Bishop Demetri Khoury, he was
jailed for immorality, and yet has never been without substantial
support of the Archdiocese. Meanwhile, during that same time, other
priests have struggled to find work. We have seen priests lose homes,
declare bankruptcy and go without basics.
In light of recent events, I would hope that Metropolitan Philip comes
to understand that the outrage over his and the Holy Synod of
Antioch’s actions stem not from ‘rebelliousness,’ or from a specific
objection to the decision returning the Archdiocese to its former
self, but from years of imperious leadership and spiritual neglect.
Metropolitan Philip has battered his priests with the fear of him, and
chosen to do nothing to cure his parishes of the abuse they have
poured out on many clergy and their families.
The people are rising up because they are hungry not for bigger
budgets, but for genuine spiritual care. They are clamoring for
something more than fundraising banquets and generous donations, which
disappear down rabbit holes while many within our own community suffer
want. What people want is good order and decency. The clergy want a
sense of equal justice for all of the brethren, rather than only the
select few.
Clergy are growing tired of being stuck between a rock and a hard
spot, and many laity are coming to realize that their spiritual
fathers are treated worse than slaves. Where can an Antiochian priest
go for justice when Metropolitan Philip is allowed to run amok over
his flock, fellow bishops and the Traditions of the Church?
Metropolitan Philip is guilty of being a narcissist, but he has been a
narcissist as part of a Holy Synod that allowed him to be one. They
are all guilty because none of them care about the people. This is
the injustice of it all.
Now we cry because there is no one who loves us enough even to stop
the internet violence and the wars of words. There is no one stepping
up to take responsibility. Instead, we see the Metropolitan and the
Holy Synod allowing the wounds to worsen for fear that they might lose
something in the political brinksmanship going on between them.
We weep because we are not loved as ‘lost sheep’ or fellow Christians
in desperate need of guidance, but that we have been reduced down to
pawns in a terrible game of chess. When I think of the descendents of
the Apostles behaving this way, I can hardly hold in my pain. How
humiliating! How tragic!
Perhaps now, the faithful laity whom we serve will come to understand
the suffering of their priests in not only the Antiochian Archdiocese,
but all clergy in North America. We can share not only the Holy
Spirit, but holy tears as we weep together for our sins and the sins
of our bishops against us.
Perhaps now, you laypersons reading this, will understand how
important it is for you to stand up for us. We, the clergy, have no
protection. The canons and the good order of the Church have been
abandoned.
The canons called not for an unmarried episcopate, but a monastic one.
Why? Because, after the Iconoclastic persecution, monastics were seen
as being more able to stand up for what was right. However, our
bishops now are hardly monks, as we can see them all equally cowering
from the controversies that surround us. They are more like
politicians than brave prophets.
They cower in fear and refuse to lead, yet none of them has ever gone
hungry. How many bishops have been forced by circumstances to take a
secular job to make ends meet? No, they always seem to be taken care
of. However, clergy are routinely left to their own devices. We take
note of this. If I die tomorrow, I know that it will be my blood
relatives that will care for my family, not the hierarchy of the
Church. If I don’t pay my own life insurance policy, my family would
have nothing but debt after my passing.
While the bishops talk a good game about how they do not answer to
anyone else, I will tell you that they, like the priests that rule
over them, are terrified of the people. They are afraid, like we
clergy are, that the donations and tithes they live off of will dry
up. Some bishops have chosen to sacrifice the well-being of priests
to satisfy donors.
Now our bishops have acted with true cowardice, maintaining their
aloof silence while they watch Orthodox Christian turn upon Orthodox
Christian. I weep for them because I have realized that the powerful
symbol of the monastic veil worn by our bishops, representing their
apartness from the world, is an empty gesture. They have all failed,
whether they “signed the statement” or not. They failed because they
have chosen the comfort of survival over the needs of the people.
A few good men have stood up. Frs. Michael Keiser and Michael Molloy
have shown courage, as have our Chancellors, Messrs. Charles Ajalat
and Robert Koory. Will more of us join them?
You may wonder why I have not signed my name. The reason is I
struggle to trust that the people, all of you, will not simply stand
by if I am punished by the hierarchy for speaking the truth. I want
my children to love the Church, not to hate it for being only big
enough for the will of one man.
If the people stand up and demand justice, you will call the bluff of
the hierarchs and even return a few of them to the right way. You
have more power than you realize. You may even give a few of us to
shed tears of joy by bringing God’s mercy to we who are least of all.
Responses:
