www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Metropolitan Jonah tenders resignation

Rod Dreher comments on the "resignation" of Metropolitan Jonah. The photo on the article's website is worth a look:

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/metropolitan-jonah-ousted/

Something for you Orthodox readers on Sunday morning: It has been confirmed that Metropolitan Jonah of the OCA has resigned under pressure from the Holy Synod.

They finally got him. What they don’t understand is that they probably signed the OCA’s death warrant in so doing — not because Jonah was necessarily an exceptional metropolitan (he had his problems as an administrator, and though a very good man, was temperamentally ill-suited for the job), but because the sleazy, corrupt way the Synod has handled this from the beginning shows them to be a pack of ravening wolves.

Now would be a good time to invoke the old saying about how the Church must be a work of God, because there is no way it could have survived for 2,000 years the fools and knaves who run it.

UPDATE: I’m hearing this afternoon that Jonah made his resignation most likely on Friday evening, but that it is unclear whether or not it has been formally accepted. It is possible that the terms of his exit are being negotiated. Stay tuned; this situation is fluid.

UPDATE.2: It’s official, as of tonight. It all came down, just like I told you. Here is his letter:

“To the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America,

“Brothers,

“As per your unanimous request, as conveyed to me by Chancellor Fr. John Jillions, I hereby tender my resignation as Primate of the Orthodox Church in America, and humbly request another Episcopal assignment.

“I had come to the realization long ago that that I have neither the personality nor the temperament for the position of Primate, a position I never sought nor desired.

“It is my hope that due consideration will be made for my financial situation, both in any interim and in consideration for any future position. I am the main financial support for both my parents and my sister, beyond my own needs.

“I will appreciate your consideration in this, and beg forgiveness for however I have offended you, and for whatever difficulties have arisen from my own inadequacies and mistakes in judgment.

“Asking your prayers, I remain faithfully yours,
“Metropolitan Jonah, Archbishop of Washington”

I wish he had gone out like Samson instead of yielding to this pack of wild dogs. But what’s done is done. And what was done is dirty. Filthy.

Dreher would have you believe that the Church more resembles the one portrayed by the likes of Dan Brown rather than what She in fact really is. For all of the 'sturm und drang' coming out by those who passionately adored Metropolitan Jonah be assured that the Church - here the OCA - will endure and the gates of Hell will not knock her down. From a non-OCA Orthodox point of view, many of us held out great hopes for the new Metropolitan in 2009.However, those hopes were quickly dashed when he gave his infamous Sunday of Orthodoxy sermon in Texas after his election in which he attacked the Ecumenical Patriarchate in plain, clearly non-diplomatic words. While he may have inspired many who are cultural conservatives, his stand on abortion and gay marriage was no more, nor no less forceful than that of the Orthodox Church as a whole and of his predecessor in particular - propaganda in the blogosphere notwithstanding.

The moral of the story is that in life, there really are no Hollywood endings. Metropolitan Jonah was elected by acclamation following a wonderful, passionate speech at the last OCA Sobor. In the movies, he would have gone on to great success and happiness or historical importance. (We've seen the story with Kings, Emperors, politicians etc...in the cinema many times....) In real life, such types were usually in over their head and many lost their head as a result. There is nothing new under the sun I am afraid.

Dreher was unhappy as a Catholic and he is unhappy in our Orthodox world as well. Knowing many of the players, I really resent the notion that they were a pack of wild dogs or wolves in sheeps' clothing.

I don't know the whole story and I don't feel the need to know. I pray for stability in the OCA and in all of God's churches and for the spiritual well being and health of the Metropolitan and all of his fellow Bishops there. We have all been through times like these in our own churches - BCC or Orthodox alike - and the last thing that is needed is loud opinions lacking a true foundation.

Lord have mercy.

I told Rod, shortly after his gushy conversion to Orthodoxy article, that at some point the Orthodox Church would break his heart the same way the Catholic Church broke it. He's looking for the perfect Church, and he's never going to find it, because the Church is not an abstraction or ideal, but a messy organic Body comprised of perverse, sinful human beings. Schmemann had it right when he called Orthodoxy "The right Church with the wrong people"--but the same could be said of Catholicism.

Well said. The current rhetoric coming from some commentators is just shameful, IMO.

And, Stuart's last comment is spot on, IMO also.

This won't happen. The Church of Rome sees the Americas as her territory and will never allow an American non-Latin Church to be established. The Pope of Rome will never betray the Latin Bishops of North America who will never want this.

The future will not be the present. The dominance of Roman Catholicism in North America is over. This is mission territory.

It is indeed mission territory. The next century will see many changes. I guess that can always be said, but that the West has become a mission field is becoming more and more obvious.

All fine, but it has generally been perceived that when people with a western cultural background are converted it should be to the Latin rite. Don't know that I understand why it should be to the Eastern rites, whose Patriarchs and Bishops, with the possible exception of the Patriarch of Constantinople who has jurisdiction over the "barbarian lands" have always understood their role as pastoral care of a particular flock, not missionary activity outside the boundaries of their jurisdiction.

Are you in effect saying that the Eastern churches do not share in the universality, the catholicity, of the Church? Only the Latin rite is universal? I would say it is merely an accident of history and geography that the Latin rite is where it finds itself today.

I would say that when the Latin rite imposes these claims on people and lands in the so-called Western cultural sphere, that it is simply being hegemonic.

It's not an accident of history when the latin rite appears worldwide because it has chosen to proselytise in foreign lands, and it speaks volumes that, by and large, the eastern churches have chosen not to. In my mind, if you look at the canons regarding the role of bishops from the Ecumenical councils, it is clear that with only one exceptions, eastern bishop's obligations are to their own sees. It is not being hegemonic to say that aside from the lands that are currently culturally Orthodox, we live in a western cultural milieu, and that the Latin rite is the rite of westerners. It is simply fact - the governance, arts, music, languages, etc. of the Americas and many lands are western, and owe their existence and the forms of life enjoyed therein to Latin thought.

I see incongruity in this area. On the one hand, we have somewhat insular Eastern Churches (be they Orthodox or Catholic) taking the position that they are the legitimate and authentic expression of Christianity in the individual cultures that formed them and that they formed. Thus, Latinisation is an obvious problem, and it seems at least disturbing when, for instance, a Russian monk converts to Roman Catholicism. All seem to agree that a particular Eastern Church has the unique answers to the unique questions of her particular flock.

For this reason, when populations move around, it seems correct that their Church should go with them, and so we have Ukrainians across the prairies and Ruthenians across the rust belt. It seems so that these modern North Americans may share yet a great many cultural assumptions with the people of their fatherlands.

I have no trouble with any of this, but if it is so, should not also a modern American protestant find his most natural home in the legitimate Particular Church which most formed his culture? And yet it is treated as offensive the assumption that American converts should be RC by default.

I propose these as questions, not answers. This too is what excites me about the OCA, which at least on paper, proposes an authentic Christian expression for the people here, and now, in the culture at hand.

In fairness, this would seem more to do with the imperial aspirations and success of the Romans, the English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, and later the Americans.




Quite so.

As an afterthought, on the question of universality and catholicity, saying that canonical boundaries exist around a particular church does not detract from its membership in a universal, catholic church. The fact that there are limits to the jurisdiction of a given bishop, be they the eparch, metropolitan or patriarch of a byzantine rite local church (Constantinople, Moscow, Kiev, Parma, etc) , or the bishop of a local church that follows the latin rite (New York, Sydney, or dare I say - Rome), does not detract from the membership of these churches in a universal church, but rather reflects the unity in diversity that is characteristic of catholicity.

That quote is priceless. Fr. Schmemann had a lot to say, and managed to rankle a lot of his contemporaries. In many ways, that quote can be comfortably applied to our jurisdiction.

Dn RJB

The problem stems with the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches treading upon each other's territories. Greeks, Russians, Ukrainians, Serbians etc. etc.

Each ethnic conclave brings it's own version of Orthodoxy into another's already established territory.

The Russian Orthodox Church was here first - the Bolshevik Revolution caused severe problems in the USA that persist today.

There is a great film (russian) about The Orthodox Church in Russia " Pop" - basically when the Germans conquered the Soviet Union - they gave the Orthodox Heirarchy power again - freedom from persecution - a shrewd move - but all the Priests and Bishops knew they were pawns in the War and that the Communists would come back and kill them - and they did - and destroyed many churches , documents, books, everything.

Make no mistake about it - the division in Orthodoxy is in large part a result of this era.

There really should be an American Orthodox Church - I don't think Americans will subject themselves to ethnic churches readily. There are some who claim this was accomplished only to be nullified by the Ethnic churches.

It would be nice if all the Churches were in Union with each other - and the more we talk about it - the more outrageous it all seems.