www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Met. Jonah at Anglican Church meeting in Bedford, TX

I was at this speech. It was quite an experience. Standing ovations, hard talk, and surprising words on a renewed Anglican-Orthodox dialogue in the US to begin in October at Nashotah House.

ACNA [acnaassembly.org] - The leader of the Orthodox Church in North America has re-kindled the oldest ecumenical relationship in Christian history. Addressing delegates and attendees of the inaugural assembly of the Anglican Church in North America, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, said, “I am seeking an ecumenical restoration by being here today. This is God’s call to us.” This significant gesture represents the possibility of full communion being exchanged between the churches.

Metropolitan Jonah represents the North American branch of the Orthodox Church, a Christian denomination that has a long history of strong relationships with the Anglican Church. “We have to actualize that radical experience of union in Christ with one another,” Jonah said. Speaking for 45 minutes, the Metropolitan addressed the importance of looking past our differences in order to work together for mission. “Our unity transcends our particularity,” he said.

His Beatitude’s message was focused on unity but did not fail to address areas of contrasting beliefs between the two churches. Though united in upholding the authority of the Bible and uniqueness of Jesus Christ, the Orthodox Church and Anglican Church in North America have differing opinions on matters such as the ordination of women and other doctrinal issues. Despite this, the Metropolitan told the audience that “our arms are open wide.”

Following the speech, a representative of an Orthodox seminary, St. Vladimir’s, announced a cooperative effort with Nashotah House, an orthodox Anglican seminary, that would help further these ecumenical relationships and what Jonah described as a “new dialogue between the Orthodox Church in North America and the new Anglican province in North America.

Nonsense. When the Anglican churches began ordaining priestesses they proved that what the Roman Catholic Church declared in 1896 to be absolutely true: the Apostolic Priesthood has ceased to exist in the Anglican Church. The best we can do for the Anglicans is tell them the truth, not keep feeding their fantasies about being a Catholic Body with Priesthood and valid Sacraments. Anglicans come home to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Your eccelesial bodies are no different from the other Protestant ecclesial bodies.

Fr David Straut

Well, H.H. Jonah attended a meeting of the "Anglican Church in North America" (link [en.wikipedia.org]) that is someting different from the Episcopal Church leaded by Mrs Katharine Jefferts Schori. The bodies united in this "Anglican Church in North America" seem not to be in communion with most of the other anglican/episcopal bodies

Anyway, some of the Churches that are part of this "Anglican church in North America", as the Reformed Episcopal Church, have obvious doctrinal points (I'm not speaking about women ordinations) that place them far from Orthodoxy.

I hope that the talks between these Anglicans Churches and Orthodox lead the Anglicans to became Orthodox and not viceversa

Father David:

Father bless!!


I think you're right on target. Anglicans have been trying to get the Apostolic Churches to recognize them as they are since the time of the 39 Articles. And it seems that all someone has to do is speak to them about the hope for unity and they think full communion is just around the corner. Somehow the Protestant idea that everyone can bring his own understanding to the Eucharist and it's all good just cannot be bridged. The idea that there is a definite theology that all members of a community must hold in order to come tot he Eucharist is something so many just don't "get."

In my humble opinion, Protestantism has been trying to be recognized as it is since the time of Luther, but with no more results than we have today. Reformation theology and practice, it seems to me, is akin to having the egg blown out of the shell: there's little left but the exterior; there's so much of what is important missing.

I wonder what the implication for His Beatitude is. Does this place him at odds with other Orthodox? Or is this commentary the Anglican "take" on what he said? Could be spun far afield from his actual comments and overall intention.

In Christ,

BOB

antv:

Christ is in our midst!!

It seems to me that a good long look at the developments in the Episcopal Church in the United States by the people leaving it would have included a good long look at what the Anglican Church thought itself to be in history and where it ought to be for the future. If its original intention was to be a national church in the vein of the Orthodox Churches, it's fallen short. And that might have been a start for discussion for where these people want to be. But if it's just to be where they were a number of years ago, it might be a dead end.

In Christ,

BOB

Dear Father David,

You are utterly correct.

fr. Serge

I happen to agree with both Fathers David and Serge. It also seem the metropolitan is reaching out with his rhetoric to those of his former affiliation. I am all for unity, but let's be honest and stop leading folks down a primrose path.

OrthodoxWiki biography [orthodoxwiki.org]

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

I think the artical may be refering to the "church" described on this site.


http://www.holycatholicanglican.org/

Yes. This Anglican Church in North America is not the Episcopal Church, the body from which these folks have broken in search of orthodoxy. I think it's great H.H. Jonah has responded to their call in this way.

Here [religion.info]is another piece about the ACNA. "15 Dec 2008 The formation of a new Anglican body in the U.S. and Canada is not only the latest stage of the conflict between Anglicans on contested issues of sexuality and orthodoxy, but it also represents an ingathering of various smaller conservative groups that have broken off from the Episcopal Church in recent years."

Here's another piece on their recent gathering [geoconger.wordpress.com]. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a copy of Metropolitan Jonah's presentation, at least not in a way it's available to download on line.


That's a long drive between classes LOL Seriously, I wish them well.

I was baptized and "confirmed" in an Episcopal church back in the '50s, exquisite small wooden Gothic church with "smells and bells" , and owe them much gratitude for my early formation.

Byzantine TX: I'd like to hear more about your experience at this gathering.

They are not the ACNA which Byzantine TX is talking about here.
They're not connected to "Canterbury" (their language), nor in communion with Rome.

I doubt that these traditional Anglicans would be interested in Byzantine liturgical practice, perhaps the OCA and Metropolitan Jonah are interested in a Western Rite Orthodox contingent? If not, his Beatitude should send these Anglicans over to the ROCOR.

ACNA'09: Metropolitan Jonah calls for Full Communion With New Anglican Province - VirtueOnline.org

June 24, 2009

By Michael Heidt
Special to Virtueonline

Speaking on Wednesday morning to the ACNA Assembly, His Beatitude, Jonah, Metropolitan of All America and Canada and leader of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), called for a "full... intercommunion" with the Anglican Church in North America. "What will it take," he asked, "for a true ecumenical reconciliation? That is what I am seeking by being with you today."

This marks the potential resumption of an Orthodox/Anglican dialogue that began a hundred years ago between two missionary bishops, St. Tikhon of Moscow and Bishop Grafton of Fond du Lac, only to be broken off in the 1970s with the ordination of women. Metropolitan Jonah spoke as the successor of Tikhon, "I come to you as the successor of Tikhon... with the same openness, the same invitation, the same love and desire to unify Anglicanism and Orthodoxy."

What would it take for this reconciliation to occur? The Metropolitan was explicit:.

Full affirmation of the orthodox Faith of the Apostles and Church Fathers, the seven Ecumenical Councils, the Nicene Creed in its original form (without the filioque clause inserted at the Council of Toledo, 589 A.D.), all seven Sacraments and a rejection of 'the heresies of the Reformation."

His Beatitude listed these in a series of 'isms'; Calvinism, anti-sacramentalism, iconoclasm and Gnosticism. The ordination of women to the Presbyterate and their consecration as Bishops has to end if intercommunion is to occur.

These are controversial words, especially given the make up of the Assembly, which is admittedly divided on key issues such as the ordination of women, the nature and number of the Sacraments and perhaps the essential character of the Church itself. Still, the delegates welcomed his candor with applause, perhaps because His Beatitude was self-evidently "speaking the truth with love." Less controversially, he called for a true renunciation of sin and immorality, "We must eliminate any shred of immorality in our lives," not least because sin "kills and maims the soul," likewise immorality, which destroys the soul and "demoralizes our culture." Coming from a faith tradition fully alive to the aggressive threat of militant Islam, the Metropolitan issued the following warning:; a culture demoralized by immorality "cannot stand up to the strict asceticism of Islam."

He then spoke to the current blurring of gender identity. Homosexualism not only "destroys authentic masculinity, it destroys authentic womanhood." Again, "gay ideology is neither from nurture or nature... we cannot accept their lifestyle or validate their unions." These are not something healthy, but "something to be healed". His Beatitude was equally emphatic on abortion, "Abortion not only rips out the soul of the fetus from the body of a woman, it rips out her own soul also... We must stand together in an absolute condemnation of abortion." The Assembly rose in thunderous acclamation. There should be no doubt whatsoever that ACNA stands for the life of the unborn child.

The Metropolitan's words on the unity of the Church were equally well received. We must find, "unity of vision, unity of life, unity of being in Jesus Christ" in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is to be found in true orthodoxy, which means, for Jonah at least, not simply "right opinion", but also "right glory", which is discovered in the worship of God. This gives the faithful entry into the liturgy of the Angels and Saints as revealed to Moses, Ezekiel and St. John, being a true participation on earth in the worship of heaven. The same meeting of heaven and earth is to be found in the Church; this "is not simply human, it is divine," and to be believed in as we believe in Jesus Himself - not merely as a man made institution, who may or may not "like the same prayer Book", but as the organic union of Christians with Our Savior in the Body of Christ. Again, this met with spontaneous applause.

The same approval was given to his Beatitude's description of faith and the necessity of surrendering to Christ.

"Faith... is the knowledge of the heart (that) I have died and my life is hidden in the heart of God... it is only Jesus that matters."

This means a total self-oblation:

"We have to surrender to God in the depths of our being," and this "is that spiritual quest... to be transformed by the Spirit." The corollary of this is radical forgiveness and a giving up of all resentments against those "who have offended... abused... (and) slandered you... When you forgive like that, you liken yourself to Jesus Christ."

This, in the end, was at the heart of Metropolitan's message. He called on ACNA to embrace Christ in His totality - in His Church and Sacraments, in the Faith and Morals handed down by Jesus Himself to the faithful throughout the ages, and in that true repentance which is nothing other than complete surrender of self to the mind and Person of Our Lord. With such a spirit in place, his vision of unity between loyal Anglicans and Orthodoxy may be realized. There can be no question that the invitation is on the table, and the prize is big, nothing less than the recognized integration of the Anglican Church in North America with historic Catholicism. Will ACNA rise to the challenge?

www.orthodoxnews.com [orthodoxnews.com]

So, we can have intercommunion between the Greek Catholics and the OCA starting tomorrow, right?

Been happening in isolated parishes for 30 years...

"Been happening in isolated parishes for 30 years..."

More widely than that, and for quite a bit longer. But don't tell anyone. It's a secret.