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To: Agrarian

"Politics will probably preclude such a sensible solution, however, and we will more likely end up autocephalous or under the EP -- either of which will not be very healthy."

I don't think that a unified Orthodoxy in America under the EP would be such a bad thing, thoughI tend to think right now that the other two suggestions might, I say might, be better. The problem with both Moscow and Athens, however, while not of a spiritual nature, are of a political/ethnic nature. Both Moscow and Athens are very tied to their national governments and the interests of those governments, or put another way, they are by their nature and location very involved with their own "omogenia" or "volk". The EP, on the other hand, really doesn't have that problem and no matter what esle one may say about the Ecumenical Patriarchate, it is devoted to the concept of the "Oekoumene", which roughly translated means Christendom when used by Constantinople.

Autocephally, on the other hand, would be a complete disaster.


15 posted on 11/19/2005 9:38:29 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Christ is Risen, and you, o death, are annihilated!)
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To: Kolokotronis

You, of course, put your finger right on the weak point of leadership under the Churches of Russia or Greece, i.e. the specter of ethnic nationalism.

My fundamental problem with Patriarchates like Constantinople, Jerusalem, or Alexandria being the focus of oversight is that they really don't have the internal buffering influence of a church with lots of parishes, parishioners, monasteries, and clergy in the "old country."

Were the EP to oversee the Church of America, he would essentially become the "Patriarch of America," and I fear that the tail would soon begin to wag the dog, since the purse-strings would be in America, even more than they already are right now for the EP.

It would run the very real danger of becoming a sort of de facto American autocephaly, but with the Americans wielding the prestige of the EP.

I therefore believe that we would actually be better off with autocephaly than with oversight by a Patriarchate like the EP. At least with autocephaly, we'd have the rest of the Orthodox world putting pressure on us as the "upstart Americans," rather than being in the position of having to put pressure on both the EP and America, were we to misbehave (as we most certainly would.)

In any event, no one of import (in fact, no one at all) has called me recently (or ever) to ask what my position is on this matter, so I'm just typing out into the ether, and my opinions are pretty meaningless! :-)


48 posted on 11/19/2005 3:29:04 PM PST by Agrarian
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