Posted by Al
on 6/7/2009, 4:28 am, in reply to "Re: Pre-Conciliar Consultation "
Father & Dean
I have prayed for and worked hard toward the goal of an American Church. But, if you are going to speak of "reality" then there are some very sad facts that need to be faced.
1. Dean's fanatsy about +Jonah sending a "strong message" just doesn't hunt. As leader of less than 30% of the Orthodox in North America, where is his clout? As leader of a jurisdiction where there is one ethnic diocese seriously discussing leaving the OCA to be under the protection of a foreign patriarch, where is his uniting strength?
2. The vast majority of Orthodox Christians in North America voluntarily belong to parishes under the protection of a foreign Patriarch.
3. In the nearly four decades since autocephaly, the OCA has not only declined in numerical membership, it has declined in the percentage of the Orthodox population of North America that considers it their home jurisdiction.
4. While some patriarchiates do recognize the OCA's autocephaly, none of those patriarchiates respects that autocephaly enough to refrain from planting new parish in the US, and that includes Moscow.
5. The OCA's claim to "territorial primacy" based upon the old Russian Missionary Diocese is tenuous at best. The historical record supports no real effort to unite the Orthodox on the continent, nor to evangelize the Lower 48. If one looks at what really went on, it was simply ministering to immigrant Orthodox Christians. Attempts to open the doors of the Church to people of other than traditional Orthodox ethnicities just weren't seriously welcomed or initiated.
Unfortunately, I could continue this litany for pages.
If the "foreign" Patriarchs were to agree to establish ONE autonomous and correctly structured Church on North American soil, it would have a far better chance of going somewhere productive than speeches by the Primate of the third largest, and continuously shrinking jurisdiction in the US, as it would then require all but one of them to take their nose out of North American affairs.
No one weeps more than I about the struggles and failures of the OCA. As did many in 1970, I hoped for, worked for and expected great things, yet virtually none of that materialized.
Ill will toward foreign patriarchs will not create a healthy and vibrant American Church. Ill will creates nothing of Christian merit.
Al
Paros Island, Greece
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