www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Antiochian Bishops Reduced to Auxiliary Status

This is so depressing on several levels. Apparently the bishops felt they didn't have to answer to the Metropolitan. The Synod snap the Bishops in line, but demote them in the process. Some clergy apparently back the Metropolitan and others back the Bishops. How long until there is a split in the Antiochian Archdiocese?

Ego and more ego with a smattering of pride.

During this season, the great deceiver has won another round.

Why?

Thank you.

May God bless you, Bob, for saying that.

-- John

However, on second thought, esp in light of the letter from Detroit, I'm not sure what started all this. It's always possible that the Metropolitan or the local Priests instigated this chain of events. Either way, it's still Byzantine intrigue and i worry about the damage to the Church and the possibility of a split in the Antiochian Church.

Can anyone tell us who's ego / pride started all this?

I think his name was Adam.

Peace and God bless!

I thought baptism cleansed one of that? Are you saying that the hierarchs have not been baptized?

Baptism doesn't prevent the world from being Fallen, and it doesn't prevent us from inheriting the problems of pride from our Fallen parents. We're still working back towards Paradise, not living in the midst of it.

Everyone, even the Baptized, can see that the Fall is still working it's way through human nature, unless you don't believe you're going to die.

Peace and God bless!

This is an eye opening article:

http://www.ocanews.org/news/TroubleinAntioch3.9.09.html

This part specifically caught my eye:

This is very depressing.

I don't know if anyone else has brought this up. Does anyone know if "auxiliary bishop" has the same definition in the EO as in the CC? The distinguishing thing about an auxiliary bishop (as distinct from the ordinary or a co-adjutor bishop)in the CC is that they do not have the power of succession. Is this the same in the EO?

I also have another comment: I feel this is a mixed blessing. Certainly, the diminution of ordinary, episcopal authority is staggeringly shocking and depressing. However, I think its great that this particular EO Church is reclaiming the patristic prerogatives of the office of Metropolitan. Prior to this, only the title remained, but the office lost (unless there are other EOC's who have renewed the office).

Blessings

Marduk,

This goes well beyond the patristic perogatives. There is nothing good about this.

Joe

ByzantineTX,
Thanks for that link. Very interesting article and does shed more light on some of the rumors that have been going around. I'm not sure who's ego went ballistic first, but this now appears to be totally about ego.

Big "win" for the great deceiver at the start of lent. yuk.

I think Apostolic Canon 34 (sometimes known as Canon 35) is relevant here:
Notice the very fine balance between the bishops and the first among them (i.e. pope, patriarch, primate, catholicos, archbishop, metropolitan...). On the one hand the bishops must recognize the first among them as their head and do nothing "important without his consent"; on the other hand the first among the bishops can do nothing without "the consent of all." Notice also that the canon accurately predicts what will happen if this delicate balance is upset: concord will be destroyed and God's work will not be done.



Source:
Apostolic Canon 34, quoted in the Ravenna Document, n. 24. [vatican.va]

Retired Bishop Tikhon of the Orthodox Church in America, noted recently relative to the recent innovations in ecclesiology "concocted and promulgated" in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and the East, that the words of Eastern Orthodox St. Justin (Popovich), the modern Serbian Teacher, are more than apropos:

"...the Orthodox Church, in its nature and its dogmatically unchanging constitution is episcopal and centered in the bishops. For the bishop and the faithful gathered around him are the expression and manifestation of the Church as the Body of Christ, especially in the Holy Liturgy; the Church is Apostolic and Catholic only by virtue of its bishops, insofar as they are the heads of true ecclesiastical units, the dioceses.

"At the same time, the other, historically later and variable forms of church organization of the Orthodox Church: the metropolias, archdioceses, patriarchates, pentarchies, autocephalies, autonomies, etc., however many there may be or shall be, cannot have and do not have a determining and decisive significance in the conciliar system of the Orthodox Church. Furthermore, they may constitute an obstacle in the correct functioning of the conciliary principle if they obstruct and reject the episcopal character and structure of the Church and of the Churches.

"Here, undoubtedly, is to be found the primary difference between Orthodox and Papal ecclesiology."

***Archimandrite Justin was born in Vranje, South Serbia, on the Feast of Annunciation, March 25, 1894 (April 7 by the New Calendar). He fell asleep in the Lord on March 25, 1979, on his birthday, the Feast of the Annunciation (April 7 by the New Calendar).

With my emphases and comments.



Sancte Iustine (Popović), ora pro nobis!