www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall When unity is restored....

No I don't mean that they are liberal of course, I am sure that they hold an idea of unity which is different from those groups who call for an American Patriarchate. What these groups forget is that the American Continent is canonical territory of the EP and that Orthodoxy in this continent is multi-ethnical, and that behind the American Patriarchate there must be an intention to homogenize the believers and to eliminate the paticular character of their ritual tradition (slavonic, greek, romanian, etc) or the identity of the country where they come from (even if it is not an Orthodox country).

Unfortunately, Remie, even the statement that America is canonical territory of the EP is debated. Russians maintain they were here first by way of their Alaskan missions in the late 1700s, and that the multi-jurisdictional state of affairs was only a by-product of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Russian dominance in America got sidetracked by a loss of funds from the Motherland. Outright interference in the Church's internal workings by communists, called the "Living Church" I believe, resulted in prolonged court battles over property ownership. Meanwhile, "sister communities" (my term for want of a descriptor) were being increasingly neglected. There was even a hierarchical decision not to continue trying to maintain all national subgroups at one point, which resulted in the current layering.

Now, no overseas leader wants to give up his most lucrative operation if he can avoid it. My guess is that Moscow's granting of autocephaly to what is now the OCA was a political maneuver to move ahead of the EP, but only time and more politics will tell.

It's been an interesting thread and I thought I'd add some more to it.

I supposed by my last post that the theological differences between and among the various Apostolic Churches had somehow been resolved. The practical problem of applying the discipline of the early, undivided Church is now upon us. I proceeded from some considerations of the various Churches whose history and theology I have studied, and that not only from the perspective of my own Latin origin, but also by reading in translation as much as I could the perspectives and vision of each of the Churches not now in communion with my own Church.

I don't believe that the arguments about which Patriarchate should have ultimate jurisdiction over how overlapping bishops and dioceses/eparchies are decided would satisfy anyone. From the Orthodox point of view, there is much discussion whether it should be the Ecumenical Patriarchate or the Moscow Patriarchate. From a historical point of view, this gets to be a bit academic because if it comes down to who was here first, the Latins with Christopher Columbus beat St. Herman and his brothers by about three hundred years. Beyond that, there were Norse people here much earlier than that and at a time when they were probably Latin, too.

But that goes back to our “us vs. them” mentality and I wanted to get somehow beyond that because if we are to be united, though preserving all of the riches that each of brings to the Table, we have to get somehow beyond that. There is not an Eastern Christian that I know who would admit that he is living in the Western Hemisphere within what should be considered the exclusive territory of the Latin Patriarch. Of course, the Russians came here from the East, so they might have an argument that this is somehow farther east and should therefore be considered the territory of the Eastern Church. I think we have truly come to a point in the Western Hemisphere where many of the ancient canonical formulas just don't work well, not because they are deficient, but because they were put together in different times and circumstances where the things they sought to define were more easily delineated. No one even thought there would be this vast area we live in in the Western Hemisphere where we would have so much overlap. Beyond that, there is some overlap in the East as well. There are Oriental Orthodox in Greece and throughout Eastern and Western Europe. There are five different successors to the Patriarchate of Antioch. There are plenty of overlaps that require the utmost sensitivity. So how do we begin?

I believe that the Holy Spirit has lead us to the point where we are now and I also believe that that same Holy Spirit is challenging us to think out of the box and come to a vision and an orthopraxy that we might not be able to see right now. Much like the Liturgy that each of our Churches has been lead to maintain and which the Spirit is guiding us to develop in various ways, the Spirit might really give us a surprise in this area to such an extent that it may take all our breath away and give us His own breath in a new and startling way.

I'm also considering much more than the question of whose territory it is or should be. I proceed from the theory that we are stewards of the riches that we possess in our Churches. And to paraphrase one of our brothers on this forum on another thread, the Judgment is closer now than it was earlier. I don't want to be in the midst of explaining to Jesus Christ why I was a roadblock to His High Priestly Prayer “that all may be one.” I considered so many things—like the question posed here—and I have also spent some time thinking about that Day. Do you remember the sick feeling you got in the pit of your stomach as a child when you were called to account? It's occurred to me that there may be lots of that on that Day and there won't be any antiacids to help clear it up.

So the question is framed this way: how would you go about structuring the united Church, taking into account the fact that we have been divided for so long that we are suspicious of each other. How do we structure the Church so that we have all the Apostolic elements that make her what she is and still not be engulfed in chaos? How do we preserve and unite at the same time?

BOB