nikolayalexandroff

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To OCA members especially.
You all remember recent disturbances in OCA. Browsing through American Orthodox sites I found out this article - Same-Sex Marriage and the Revolt Against Metropolitan Jonah. To tell the truth I was shocked after reading it. Please tell me is the information presented in the article credible? I had a bit idealized view on the Orthodoxy in USA so I feel myself uneasy now.
 

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nikolayalexandroff said:
To OCA members especially.
You all remember recent disturbances in OCA. Browsing through American Orthodox sites I found out this article - Same-Sex Marriage and the Revolt Against Metropolitan Jonah. To tell the truth I was shocked after reading it. Please tell me is the information presented in the article credible? I had a bit idealized view on the Orthodoxy in USA so I feel myself uneasy now.

*bemused*

First I've heard of it. I don't see them making much headway though personally. I don't get Stokoe and these lay activists. Their attitude seems contradictory to the beliefs they supposedly hold in belonging to a hierarchal church.

That, and I'm mystified as to how they do all this. I certainly wouldn't have time to lead a Facebook crusade like Inga. It all just makes me roll my eyes.

Sent from my iPod touch using Forum Runner
 
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gzt

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I think it definitely overstates the influence those activists have within the church and on the hierarchy. I would also not trust anything on OCATruth, as they are rumormongers, propagandists, and recent converts to boot. By extension, anything that references OCATruth should be taken with a grain of salt. They have a vested interest in raising a clamor to shock and appall people like you. I cannot adequately convey my disdain for the OCATruth web site on a polite site like this one.
 
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nikolayalexandroff

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I think it definitely overstates the influence those activists have within the church and on the hierarchy. I would also not trust anything on OCATruth, as they are rumormongers, propagandists, and recent converts to boot. By extension, anything that references OCATruth should be taken with a grain of salt. They have a vested interest in raising a clamor to shock and appall people like you. I cannot adequately convey my disdain for the OCATruth web site on a polite site like this one.
Thank you for clarification.
 
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RobNJ

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I think it definitely overstates the influence those activists have within the church and on the hierarchy. I would also not trust anything on OCATruth, as they are rumormongers, propagandists, and recent converts to boot. By extension, anything that references OCATruth should be taken with a grain of salt. They have a vested interest in raising a clamor to shock and appall people like you. I cannot adequately convey my disdain for the OCATruth web site on a polite site like this one.

QFT! :thumbsup:
 
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Damaris

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I think it definitely overstates the influence those activists have within the church and on the hierarchy. I would also not trust anything on OCATruth, as they are rumormongers, propagandists, and recent converts to boot. By extension, anything that references OCATruth should be taken with a grain of salt. They have a vested interest in raising a clamor to shock and appall people like you. I cannot adequately convey my disdain for the OCATruth web site on a polite site like this one.

I'm not a huge fan of OCATruth, but I think you are misrepresenting the article. It was written by Glen (Nicholas) Chancy, who is not involved in OCATruth, and therefore not necessarily a "rumormonger" or "propagandist". Also, AOI and Fr. Johannes Jacobse are both straight up. So, one has to at least consider the possibility that OCATruth's blind squirrel did find a nut.

As for the article itself, Inga Leonova's Facebook group's membership list is public, and I know several of them in real life. They have "a vested interest" in promoting the acceptance of homosexual activity and blessings of same-sex relationships within Orthodox churches, and this is reflected in the content of the group's public discussions.

It's not for nothing that Mark Stokoe has published several "reflections" on the matter of homosexuality recently, all of which promote at least a toleration, if not a blessing, of sexual relationships between members of the same sex within the Orthodox Church.
 
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gzt

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You do have a point, but the essay was originally published there (and on monomakhos, which is much the same bent), which is why it draws my ire. In short, yes, there are voices on the far extremes pushing for, say, gay marriage within the Church, but they are marginal, at best, and drawing long lines of connections all the way to the top and drawing it into a grand conspiracy against Metropolitan Jonah is a bit much. Any name with any sort of connection to the extremes becomes tainted - note the names he drags through the muck without any consideration or reference to what they have actually stated they believe (and many of them have an extensive public record).
 
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nikolayalexandroff

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It's not for nothing that Mark Stokoe has published several "reflections" on the matter of homosexuality recently, all of which promote at least a toleration, if not a blessing, of sexual relationships between members of the same sex within the Orthodox Church.
So do you think that accusations in the article are not wholly groundless?
 
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katherine2001

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You do have a point, but the essay was originally published there (and on monomakhos, which is much the same bent), which is why it draws my ire. In short, yes, there are voices on the far extremes pushing for, say, gay marriage within the Church, but they are marginal, at best, and drawing long lines of connections all the way to the top and drawing it into a grand conspiracy against Metropolitan Jonah is a bit much. Any name with any sort of connection to the extremes becomes tainted - note the names he drags through the muck without any consideration or reference to what they have actually stated they believe (and many of them have an extensive public record).

Are they really marginal? OCA News has a large following, and Mark Stokoe is not telling the truth about himself, nor is he telling both sides, is he? Personally, I'd believe OCA Truth over OCA News.
 
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gzt

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Fair enough, but I didn't say anything at all about OCANews. Stokoe certainly has an agenda, and his site may very well, too, but # of readers doesn't translate to following and, really, the Church isn't in danger of going back on the statements it published in 1992...
 
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Knee V

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I think it definitely overstates the influence those activists have within the church and on the hierarchy. I would also not trust anything on OCATruth, as they are rumormongers, propagandists, and recent converts to boot. By extension, anything that references OCATruth should be taken with a grain of salt. They have a vested interest in raising a clamor to shock and appall people like you. I cannot adequately convey my disdain for the OCATruth web site on a polite site like this one.

Word!



I'm not a huge fan of OCATruth, but I think you are misrepresenting the article. It was written by Glen (Nicholas) Chancy, who is not involved in OCATruth, and therefore not necessarily a "rumormonger" or "propagandist".

True, he's not part of that. But it seems clear, at least to me, that he's fallen victim to their rumor-mongering and has taken their bait hook, line, and sinker.



It's not always the largest groups that are the loudest; it's the loudest groups that are the loudest.

Oh, and this?
Given our Church’s biblical, patristic, liturgical and canonical sources one eventually detects that there is no universally consistent and accepted teaching on marriage as to its origin, purpose and goal. Is it prelapsarian or postlapsarian? Is it eternal or temporal? Is it dissoluble or indissoluble? Is it a legal contract between free persons? Is it an accommodation to human passion – a form of legalized fornication – and therefore subordinate to monastic puritanism or is it a sacrament of the Kingdom which leads to the salvation of spouses? Each question has been answered in two ways, yes and no.

Seriously? Has this priest never read St Gregory the Theologian or St John Chrysostom? I'm stunned that, if this is indeed a quote by this priest and not made up by someone, he would say something like that. I would say that there is universally consistent and accepted teaching on marriage as to its origin, purpose and goal, and it is prelapsarian, with God knowing that sin was just around the corner.
 
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nikolayalexandroff

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I am not interested in collecting rumors but in Russia for some people Stokoe looks like a brave warrior against the despotism of bishops and defender of the independence of the OCA from the crafty designs of MP. That is why I'd like to know more about this matter.
 
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Knee V

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I am not interested in collecting rumors but in Russia for some people Stokoe looks like a brave warrior against the despotism of bishops and defender of the independence of the OCA from the crafty designs of MP. That is why I'd like to know more about this matter.

I've never heard that before.
 
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gzt

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Seriously? Has this priest never read St Gregory the Theologian or St John Chrysostom? I'm stunned that, if this is indeed a quote by this priest and not made up by someone, he would say something like that. I would say that there is universally consistent and accepted teaching on marriage as to its origin, purpose and goal, and it is prelapsarian, with God knowing that sin was just around the corner.

You would be correct if St Gregory and St John Chrysostom were the only two theologians. There were several influential postlapsarians. Saints Ambrose, Augustine for a time (though he later had trouble with the idea and went back to prelapsarian views), and Jerome, for instance, and before you dismiss them as Western, their postlapsarian views were learned from the East...
 
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Mary of Bethany

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I am not interested in collecting rumors but in Russia for some people Stokoe looks like a brave warrior against the despotism of bishops and defender of the independence of the OCA from the crafty designs of MP. That is why I'd like to know more about this matter.

That's not how he's seen around these parts.

Mary
 
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Damaris

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People's opinions about him changed this year after OCATruth published some drek about him, as he seemed to be one of the "conspirators" against Metropolitan Jonah.

People's opinions of Stokoe didn't change because of OCATruth. They changed because Stokoe posted some drek about Metropolitan Jonah, or rather, a series of unsubstantiated attacks on Metropolitan Jonah's character and leadership.

OCATruth did identify a plausible motive for those attacks, but from what I understand, Stokoe's living situation was not exactly a secret before. Is bringing that up any dirtier than bringing up any other personal stake or motive that Stokoe might have had?

Also, if this movement to revise the teaching on homosexuality is so small and lacking influence, it is vastly overrepresented in what Stokoe publishes as articles and reflections on OCANews.
 
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