www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News ROCOR says no to Chambesy process

"Also, I believe St. John Chrysostom once pointed out that it is far more likely that a healthy person hanging around a sick person which catch the sick person's illness, than that the sick person will catch the well person's health."

Classic Fr. John.

"I like the problems we have better than the problems I see in some of the other jurisdictions right now..."

Again classic Fr. John

Fr. John's comments are very similar to those that Bishop Bernod Fellay and or his priests in the "Roman Catholic" SSPX tend to say about the average RC diocese in the USA.

They are valid concerns, being a minority preserving mostly orthodox teachings and not being seen as a threat to the majority is challenging.

Many people would prefer that the positive traits of these minorities gradually spread to become traits more frequently encountered in the majorities. I think that in both Catholic and Orthodox Church that is occurring slowly, with of course some resistance also.

If I can say this without offending anyone.
ON some level I am not bothered if groups like the ROCOR or SSPX remain outsiders to certain degrees. I can not fully make sense of these things, but it is surely not "entirely bad" that they remain "out of the loop", even if it is "generally bad". I find these matters confusing.

I suppose I am thinking of the way Ralph Nader or Ron Paul have had some positive effects on popular politics in the United States. Both of them being originally "thirty party" leaders who initially attracted idealistic professors/conspiracy theorists and radicals but had too the ideas that were also popular with the average people. Perhaps they sometimes brought a balance into the groupthink of the two main parties that has been helpful to them forcing them to accept ideas that they would have otherwise ignored.

There is a major difference though, because unlike the SSPX, ROCOR is in communion with the other jurisdictions in America, and unlike the members of the SSPX, Fr. John's criticisms of less fortunate jurisdictions (like my very own GOA) have not caused him to cut off his communion with them. In fact, Fr. John not only accepts laymen from other jurisdictions as communicants at his parish without issue (so long as they have confessed recently), but he also participates in services held by other jurisdictions, like when he served as a priest in the vespers service of the Annunciation (along with maybe 16 or 17 other clergy in the Houston area) at a local Greek Orthodox parish, when His Eminence Isaiah (from the GOA) was in town.

I personally know Fr. John, and I do not really appreciate the conparison very much, since he is a good shepherd of his flock and not at all an isolationist with schismatic tendencies as your comparison to the SSPX might imply.

Outsiders? ROCOR? Explain yourself. They are a canonical Orthodox Church celebrating the fullness of the Orthodox faith in all its splendor.


Generally bad?!? ROCOR? Please explain.

It's just "NO" to Least Common Denominator Orthodoxy.
ROCOR's position is basically this:
“Sure, we like meeting with the other bishops. If you want to hammer out some common rules regarding the release and reception of clergy, inter-Orthodox marriages, etc. then, if we can come to agreement on this or that item, that is a good subject for our meetings and dialogue. However, since the admitted goal of this organization is to bring about administrative unity under the omophor of Constantinople, there is no way under God's blue sky that this will ever happen, and if indeed this is the case, we cannot, in good faith, continue this discussion.”

And David, you wrote "I do not wish to list all of my bases for my opinion about their leadership and some of their communion, but I will say that historically the manner in which many of their clergy treated other Orthodox clergy during their years of non-canonical status was more often than not disrespectful to say the least."
When exactly was ROCOR non-canonical? Who exactly declared them non-canonical? Can you provide me with dates? When Archbishop Iakovos presided at the funeral of Metropolitan Anastassy, did he bury an uncanonical bishop?

For 13 years on an off while stationed in Germany I went to ROCOR churches, was married in them (and divorced in them once), my son baptized in them. But in Germany ROCOR was just the Orthodox church down the street so to say, its priests were largely not well educated and the parishioners were mostly emigres or refugees who mostly still lived in camps, worked menial jobs, had no cars or anything much. The priest I knew best relied on American alchohol and cigarettes I supplied him while he worked as a laborer in a ciity slaughterhouse. There was also no "holier than thou" attitude as I encountered in the few ROCOR churches I went to in the States. Seems that ROCOR became an exclusive club here in the US maybe not in Germany where it evolved as the only "russian" church recognized by the Third Reich. However in the later 1970's it started to attract younger native Germans some of who probably became priests later on.

.

Metropolitan Anastassy reposed in 1965. Later that year, ROCOR took under its care Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Brookline, MA) after the latter had broken communion from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. I believe that event precipitated the decades long break with the Church of Constantiople. (Later, of course, that group and ROCOR came to a bitter divide.)

Bishop, later Metropolitan Laurus (Skurla) was consecrated a bishop by the ROCOR in 1967. In February of 1972 his first cousin died. The cousin and his large family were and are members of my ACROD parish. Since 1939 that parish had, and has, antimensia of a canonical Orthodox Bishop under the omophorion of the Patriarch of Constantinople. My father was a Orthodox priest, ordained by his Orthodox bishop (himself consecrated at the Phanar by Bishops of the EP' s Synod) and was pastor of the church were the funeral occurred. The Bishop politely declined my father's invitation to preside at the funeral or even offer a prayer at the end, explaining tearfully that his Metropolitan expressly forbade him to on account of issues with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This caused something of a "mini scandal" in our parish at the time. I was there and witnessed this.

From the early seventies until 2009 no ROCOR priest participated in our Sunday of Orthodoxy or any service in my church, or any other local OCA, ACROD or GOARCH church. (The UOC were "out of the loop" as well during much of that period.)

The Iveron Icon was brought to St. Michael's with a contingent of clergy from the ROCOR cathedral in Mayfield, PA and St. Tikhon's OC Monastery that year where all the local Orthodox clergy and parishes were represented, including by that time the local UOCUSA ( excepting for the GOC priest who broke off from ROCOR at the time of the reunion to found a schismatic parish in Owego,NY).

I have previously related the visible joy in the faces of the celebrants and attendees at that Akathist.

For after all, the Psalmist reminds us that it is good for brothers to dwell in unity. (Even when there are little family spats.)

I hope that addressed your question. I realize that my recitation does not line up with that of ROCOR during those difficult years, but it does (anecdotally at least) reflect the common view of the non ROCOR churches which more or less remained in communion with each other during those trying years.

I would hate to see a return to the past. If ROCOR' s stand is intended to protest potential Hellenization of non Hellenes in such a united American church, it would likely be well received by many of us. But...if it is intended to convey a desire that ROCOR' s unique and venerable practices should be the norm, it will be rejected.

It's leaders need to convey the former and express the position that the strongest unified Orthodox Church in the Americas would be one firmly united in doctrine and equally firmly committed to respect for the cultural diversity which often obscures our religious unity.