Posted on 11/19/2005 12:37:40 AM PST by Queen Beruthiel
July, 2005 was a turning point for the Orthodox Christian Church in North America. It was the time when two independent self governing Orthodox Christian Church bodies in North America, the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America (OCA) and the Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christain Archdiocese of North America, met with the clergy and lay leaders of the parishes throughout the Americas. In a conciliar manner, hierarchy, clergy and laity reasoned together to make decisions for the good order of their respective bodies, so they could move forward to face the challenges of the 21st century. The OCA meeting took place in Toronto, Canada July 17-22, 2005 and the Antiochian meeting took place in Dearborn, Michigan July 24-31, 2005.
Both groups realize that they are at a crossroads and that bold thinking and actions are needed to meet the needs of the People of God. The theme of the OCA meeting was “Our Church and the Future” and the theme of the Antiochian meeting was “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” (Romans 12:2) These two themes interrelate as Father Thomas Hopko, Dean Emeritus of St. Vladimir’s Theological Seminary, pointed out. We are transformed by trusting in God and through God all things are possible. If we are conformed to the world and seek prosperity, possessions, position, popularity and prestige for the Church we will have no future. All Orthodox jurisdictions must die in Christ so that they can be resurrected in Unity and the Church can witness to Christ and make disciples of the people who live in the Americas. This is the mission of the Church and it can be best accomplished in Unity.
Although both meetings were held separately there were common elements and themes that both assemblies must address in order to move ahead to meet the spiritual needs of the faithful. One priority was Orthodox Christian Unity in North America and another was Evangelization. His Beatitude Herman, Archbishop of New York and Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada, addressed the topic of Unity in an eloquent and direct address to all delegates, observers and visitors in his banquet remarks. Metropolitan Philip, Primate of the Antiochian Archdiocese, devoted his keynote address to the topic of unity. Both leaders see Unity as necessary and part of the good order of the Church in the Americas. OCL will post the text of both speeches on its web site www.ocl.org when they are made available.
The faithful clergy and laity of both assemblies are ready to work together in Unity to do the work of the Church which is to keep the faith as it has been handed to us at this time and place by the apostles and church fathers and to share the faith with all those who seek to become Orthodox Christians. The clergy and laity of both bodies share this commitment to Orthodox administrative Unity. They are willing to give up what needs to be given up to accomplish this task. The delegates to the Antiochian Archdiocese meeting voted a strong resolution directed at SCOBA to move ahead to make Unity a reality. The full text is printed for your consideration.
A highlight of the OCA meeting was the panel discussion on Orthodox Relations which featured a video presentation by His Grace Bishop Basil of Wichita of the Antiochian Archdiocese. He called for the re-establishment of a bilateral commission between the OCA and the Antiochian Archdiocese on topics of mutual concern. He received an extended standing ovation. People applauded this concrete proposal.
Other concrete options that the clergy and laity suggested in informal gatherings related to Unity included:
Asking the two primates Metropolitans Herman and Philip to appoint two bishops from their archdioceses to meet together to discuss how the two archdioceses can work together to address mutual concerns.
Setting up a meeting between Metropolitan Philip and Metropolitan Herman so that they can sit down together and talk directly about their mutual interest in jurisdictional Unity as part of the good order of the church. Father Leonid Kishkovsky stressed the importance of direct contact Metropolitan to Metropolitan in External Affairs and many saw the wisdom of these interactions and wondered why there is such little eye to eye contact between the hierarchies in the Americas. A meeting with Metropolitan Herman and Metropolitan Philip would be a very meaningful concrete first step to jump start the movement toward administrative Unity.
Establishing a new organization of all the canonical heads of jurisdictions to replace SCOBA. Those left out of the SCOBA meetings would be able to participate.
There is a consensus among the faithful People of God in both jurisdictions that the OCA and Antiochians share enough mutual interests that they should move ahead. They cannot wait for all jurisdictions to join together at the same time. Some jurisdictions are not ready. Move ahead with those who are ready and in time the others will follow because they will have no choice. Most of the faithful believe that the OCA must take the leadership role in moving ahead on Unity because they are the local Church in the Americas by the fact of their Autocephaly.
The second common element of both meetings is the commitment of both assemblies to Evangelization. For hundreds of years Orthodox Christians couldn’t even talk about their faith for fear of having their tongues cut out or face other reprisals. The Church and its people were in captivity in Moslem or Communist lands. But today in America they are free to speak and write about the ancient apostolic Orthodox Christian faith. In America people are looking for the ancient faith and they are finding and choosing to become Orthodox Christians. They are flocking to both of these bodies through their well developed programs in Evangelization. So much more could be accomplished if they did this work of the Great Commission together! Here is the perfect bilateral program to further develop.
Two other highlights that I observed worth noting are that the Council Study Papers sent to the delegates and observers of the OCA meeting were excellent and applicable to all Orthodox jurisdictions not only the OCA. The lectures and panel discussions and the process involving all the participants to solicit their input on each priority were well organized and involved everyone. All the steps were designed to get input and create the vision for the OCA for the next ten years.
The outstanding Antiochian Camp and Youth and Young Adult Programs were presented by gifted and spirited young people. As faithful stewards we must guide our youth so that they can pass down Orthodoxy to the next generation. As a United Orthodox Christian Church in North America all our youth could have opportunities to participate in the excellent programs. There would be no jurisdictional barriers. The youth are ahead of us and inter-Orthodox programs such as OCMC, IOCC and OCF have broken down jurisdictional barriers. Both conventions were well attended by youth and they participated in all aspects of the meetings.
The holy services of daily Divine Liturgies and Vespers were holy occasions for the participants to reflect upon the work that they were doing each day. The Holy Spirit was truly guiding these two proceedings involving collectively over 3500 Church leaders. The people of God are ready to work toward building a United Orthodox Christian Church in North America. We call on the hierarchy to lead!
*** Observations submitted by George Matsoukas, Executive Director of Orthodox Christian Laity, an independent movement of Church Faithful dedicated to the formation of a United and Self Governed Orthodox Church in North America.
True the liturgy is the primary importance, the situations I was refering to was were there is already a slavonic liturgy and the chuch as a whole, for instance the OCA, is putting preassure to do away with it, or where there is a choice between two parishes and one has for instance the slavonic liturgy and one the english.
I also think that ethnic parishes tend to hold onto that almost as a side effect of the orthodox tendancy to look upon traditions as very important, and I think people take that into their own lives and try to keep their children in the same traditions, and exclude modern ones, I think that helps to resist modern 'culture'.
That's going off in an email today!
Let me guess, the name of your parish is NOT "Saints Constantine and Helen"?
"Seems strange to ignore immigrants. Emmigration from slavic countries isn't exactly slowing."
We wouldn't ignore them, but the way it seems to be working out is that the areas where we have the churches are not where the current wave of immigrants are. Most of the folks who started our churches are now 3rd generation.
In some ways, that speaks to the need to establish missions in the areas where the new immigrants are (so shame on us for not doing so). In another sense, though, our church is also very accessible to those outside the ethnic group which it started in.
In my view, the best of both worlds is to have something of a mix of new immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and folks who are from completely outside the ethnic origins of the church.
"Let me guess, the name of your parish is NOT "Saints Constantine and Helen"?"
You win! But you know, I well remember praying for the "Most Pious and Orthodox King Paul of the Hellenes"! :)
"In my view, the best of both worlds is to have something of a mix of new immigrants, descendants of immigrants, and folks who are from completely outside the ethnic origins of the church."
I think you are absolutely right. Just today several of us were talking about this very thing after liturgy, three of us representatives of the "old families" two recent immigrants from Lebanon and our very own "Hellenized Fillipina", a lovely young woman of 23 who converted last year (not because of marriage either, she came and believed, though we all hope one is in the offing with the son of one of the "old families"!) It makes for a marvelous parish.
By the way, I looked for a book on fasting in the parish book store; no luck.
" I can see that your Saint is so perfectly matched for you."
Yeah, he claimed to be the chief among sinners too! :)
Thanks for looking for the book. That reminds me. Several weeks ago, you had recommended a book to follow up on Mountain of Silence. I was negligent and failed to write the title down. Do you remember it (to save me going through 100's of posts)?
R, my memory isn't much better than yours, I'm sure. It may have been "The Spiritual Meadow" by John Moschos or "Orthodox Spirituality by a Monk of the Eastern Church". The former is available on Amazon, the latter, a real classic, is out of print but I found it in the bookstore of a GOA parish in California. Here's a link:
"http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/books.htm"
Good field Koloko, but you knew what I meant, I'm sure.
You are, as I have said in the past dear lady, too kind!
But Church Slavonic is an engineered language specifically tailored to the Divine Liturgy, and in complete harmony with the muscial aspect of it, like an opera. Other languages had to adopt the phonics to the existing languages; Church Slavonic was composed with the melody in a seamless unit.
It is, of course, close to Serbian, Bulgarian and Russian, of which Russian is the closest to it in words and Serbian in grammar. Bulgarians claim they understand it the best. But no one ever spoke Church Slavonic; it was never a vernacular, although all Orthodox Slavic people have many, many Church Slavonic words in their vernaculars.
Thomas Merton, a renown Catholic Trappist Monk and a deeply spiritual individual, speaks of the need to deny oneself, as is the custom of monastic life. The difference between our and monastic lives is the degree and not the kind of denial.
Self-denial is important because, unless we completely empty ourselves of our human, carnal needs and desires, of all pride, and passion, God's light cannot to shine through us. Fasting is part of what we Orthodox call "theosis." It is a process by which we learn to deny ourselves many things we like and would like, but realize that we really don't need them or that giving them up is not such a big deal. Hope is that, through such a process, we will slowly grow to be emptier, less filled with pride and passion, and that we may reach some likeness of Christ before our journey on this planet ends.
Roman Catholics gave up fasting because, in the mindset of that Church, everything seems to be a fine. I don't disagree that we owe everything and all to the Trinune God, but where is love? Unless you can find love in everything you do in the Church and for the Church, it is not true faith. If love drives you, then conditions will not be a factor. If we love God, we will wish to deny our human nature ever more and let God in.
Self-denial is essential in theosis, and fasting is an essential part of that life style. American Catholics were given dispensation, on their bishops' request, so that they can eat hot dogs on baseball games on Fridays! The "trade off" was that they do some charitable work in place of fasting. Somehow that part got lost in translation, so to say.
I spoke with a fairly young Catholic not so long ago about meatless Friday rule which is still in effect in the RCC, and he told me flat out that it was not true because he went to a Catholic high school and college! I would imagine that he is probably representative of many if not most of American Catholics in their "understanding" of how this works. But no matter how you turn it around, the Catholic fast was simply a rule, and never dear to the heart. In Orthodoxy, it is obviously very, very different. dp obviously understand that fast is not simply a rule, but a self-imposed discipline that comes from the heart.
Just attend any Orthodox church and listen to squeeling babies and watch unruly children dominate the Divine Liturgy, and watch grandparents and parents ineffectually trying to quell the noise or catch them all over the church in the middle of the consecration of the Precious Gifts!
Of course the children are not at fault, but do their parents and grandparents care about the others in church, or do they just delight at being in the spotlight and the main showpiece during the Divine Liturgy? Do they care about their neighboors or do they expect for everyone to enjoy high pitched shrieks in suround-style of their little ones as music to their ears?
When I get upset, I still love those who disturb but I don't love what they are doing any more than Jesus surely loved the moneychangers -- but that didn't stop Him from overturning their tables.
There is a great deal of dichotomy between what is taught and what is practiced. That holds true for the laity as well as clergy and Churhc politics.
What preceeded the "dp" was "Those Catholics who fast for the same reason as the Orthodox obviously understand..."
It's late and I need to go to bed. Sorry for the error.
My personal survey has been 99% understand at least 50% of church slavonic. And I've been quite a few places in Russia.
Sleep well. Don't forget your prayers.
Have you been to Rostov Na Danoo? :-)
I haven't actually.
I wanted to but my then-fiance-now-wife thought Karlovy Vary would be more interesting which led us to end up going to Prague with a side trip to Karlovy Vary. We still hope to get there though.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.