Posted by Al
on 6/21/2009, 3:40 am, in reply to "Address of Metropolitan Jonah to the SVS Conference Part I"
Message modified by user Al 6/21/2009, 3:41 am
The most significant words in his presentation are:
The Tomos does not allow for the full consequences of autocephaly to be proclaimed, that all other churches on the territory of the OCA are thereby uncanonical. Rather, it allows for the preservation of their ties to their mother churches until such time as all can be brought into a new unity, a single Church for America.
Thus, the OCA’s charter and vocation is for it to disappear: it is kenotic. Either it is to become the basis for the unity of the rest of the Churches in America; or it must enter into a new organization that will be fully autocephalous. We await this day, eagerly, so that the mission of the Orthodox Church and the proclamation of the Gospel are no longer compromised by the scandal of disunity.
I stand before you, gathered here, in great humility, as the ‘least among equals’, the youngest head of the smallest and youngest autocephalous Orthodox Church in the world.
He has thus built a bridge for the future of Orthodox unity in America by clearly relinquishing any OCA claim to being the only way, the only canonical Church on American soil. More than any confrontational "hands off" speech, these words challenge his brother bishops to work seriously towards a solution to the "scandal of disunity".
Al
Paros Island, Greece
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