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"...I've been able to steer clear of jurisdictional politics -- and I like it that way."

Yes, indeed, that is the best way. Doing otherwise is a good way to jeopardize one's soul.

In my other post on this thread, while having some less than kind things to say about some of the players involved in all of this, I also made the point that every jurisdiction has strong and weak points.

I found it appropriate that this thread was posted today, since for those of us following the New Calendar, the primary commemoration of today is St. Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople. I had read his life earlier in the day, and had had cause to reflect on the curious ways in which the Holy Spirit has cared for his Church, specifically in the way that God specifically has used people on "both sides" of controversies to work his will.

St. Tarasius was made Patriarch of Constantinople during the very hard time surrounding the iconoclastic controversy after Patriarch Paul IV resigned in discouragement. He led a life of asceticism, simplicity, and pastoral zeal, putting to shame other clergy who loved their positions because of the pomp and power that could be afforded them. He worked tirelessly to reconcile the former iconoclasts to the Church, using love and forgiveness.

Simultaneous to this, St. Theodore and the rest of the Studite took a hard-line position on how to reconcile the former (because had they really given up their heresy?) iconoclasts. They actually cut themselves off from communion with St. Tarasius, and were forced into exile.

In the end, St. Tarasius ended up excommunicating the iconoclast Joseph, which paved the way to a reconciliation with the Studites. The end result was a Church which was fully reconciled, *and* which thoroughly had renounced and rid itself of iconoclasm. Try to find any remaining trace of iconoclasm in Orthodoxy today!

My point is that both saints were right. Both were guided by the Holy Spirit. Both played a role in producing the Church we have today: St. Tarasius in his love, forebearance, and desire to reconcile former heretics, *and* St. Theodore and the Studites, in their hard-line zeal to preserve the Holy Orthodox faith regarding icons -- not just in name, but to the very bone.

I'm certainly not claiming that all of our hierarchs and bureaucrats are saints, but I do believe that many of the various "competing visions" of the Church here in America have roles to play in the ongoing development of our Church, and we should resist the urge completely to discount any of them.

I am certainly more comfortable in and with some than in others, but that is a separate issue...

May both the Holy Tarasius and the Holy Theodore pray to God for us.

I think I am one of the few "ethnic" or "cradle" Orthodox who haunt these threads and as you all know, I'm a member of the GOA. Some years back, before and certainly during the "Spyridon War" in the GOA, I was a great partisan of an autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church here in America, not, by the way, of an American Orthodox Church. Then, as now, I had confidence that our hierarchs would be able to manage matters quite well here without the interference of a man in Istanbul who owes his continuing existence at least in part to the Turks and who then and now, I am convinced, has delusions about being the Orthodox Pope.

Since that time, however, and after a number of years both on the parish council and as its president, I have come to the conclusion that an independent American Church, or and autocephalous GOA, is a very bad idea for the foreseeable future. I say this for two reasons.

First, I have watched with great dismay the turmoil within the Latin Church. I confess I cannot say if this is the result of actions in Rome, European paganism infecting the Latin Church in America or something which owes much of its source to a purely American phronema; probably a combination of the three. In any event, it seems to me that the lack of a strong hand on the American Roman hierarchy, and on down the line, has made for some bad times here for that Church. Add to that the spectacle we are all witnessing with ECUSA, some Lutherans, some Presbyterians and most members of the UCC and we are presented with a sobering image of a people whose political/social conditioning has lead them away from anything orthodox in their respective denominations into a sort of self-centered, its all about me and my fulfillment spiritual wasteland.

Second, in our diocese, and I understand in a number of others around the country, English is becoming more and more the language of the Divine Liturgy and the various other devotions we have. At first I was against this, but what I have seen is nothing short of a miracle. In our parish, over the past 7 years or so, we have seen an influx of people interested in Orthodoxy, who stay after the first visit, like nothing I've witnessed in my lifetime. And most of these people, once exposed to Orthodoxy, become catechumens and eventually are baptised or chrismated. They are among the most wonderful, spirit filled Christians I have ever known. Their presence does three things. First, it certainly changes the ethnic mix in a parish. Second, not being ethnically insular, their presence makes the rest of us look more outward to the greater civic community around us and finally, they tend to be, perhaps too much in some cases, very Orthodox in their beliefs and praxis. Now on the other hand, they do have much to learn and the development of an Orthodox phronema is a years long process in most cases, but that's the job of people like me and the priests. What one ends up with, and what we have, is a parish which is beginning to look less Greek and more American everyday. Indeed, our metropolitan once said, just a few years ago, that when he looks at our parish, he sees the face of the Orthodox Church of the future.

So why not autocephally now? Well, I think the Orthodox Churches are just now beginning to become American. If that American face can become wedded to an Orthodox phronema, then, and only then, will the Church here be ready to withstand on its own, untethered to Orthodox Mother Churches, the assaults of a society which has all but destroyed various branches of Protestantism and caused severe disruptions in the Latin Church. Maybe in a couple of generations. Not now, no matter what +Philip, no prize himself in my opinion, might think.