AOCA and OCA

[Greg the byzantine]

ANd I don't really understand why what was allegedly done is considered so morally wrong. Just because it's not popular means we should be suspicious of him? IF this is true as alleged then so be it. that's his right as their bishop. This isn't a pope-like move. It's a bishop-like move. And, it's purely administrative having nothing to do with the faith of the Fathers for good or bad.

Joshua

I know. The Bishop is overseer of the Priests in his diocese. That includes where his future priests are educated. As stated by the Antiochian Archdiocese, their Customs, traditions and Typica are closer to the Greek than they are to the Russian.

I think there's also a need to differentiate between Scandal and Heresy.

 

[Joshua G.]

Greg... God bless you. I think your last point is very apt in general to most all of the threads that come up about controversial episcopal actions and I think your first point clarifies as to why this specific action is neither a heresy nor is it necessary that it be a scandal.

Joshua

 

[Joshua G.]

Protos posted excerpt makes what was a non-issue in the first place even more of a non-issue now.

Also, it should be noted that no students were "pulled" from St Vlad's or Tikon's as was alleged earlier only bolstering the concern Kristos shared earlier.

Is there anyway we can ban "a call to action" movements in TAW? lol

 

[vanshan]

If Met. Philip had made prior threats to pull students from OCA seminaries, if the hierarchs of the OCA failed to silence Stokoe, as alleged, then it certainly would be a scandal.

God knows the truth, not me, but it does seem very strange to pull seminarians from St. Vlads right before the year is about to begin, creating a very difficult situation for them. Certainly those seminarians had received a prior blessing to attend St. Vlads and had been planning their attendence there for months if not years, so an abrubt change right before classes are to begin is suspicious. If this were about liturgics, was it just a sudden epiphany they had never thought of before?

Basil

 

[Joshua G.]

Well, logical or strange or even rude... seems to be something none of us on lay level have to worry about.

 

[vanshan]

I don't know Josh, I'm not one to buy into any conspiracies, giving, like U.S. law, the benfit of innocence until proven guilty, but some allegations call for an appropriate investigation and action if the charges are proven to be true. No? These seminarians are being trained to serve Christ's Church, and should be humbly willing to be obedient to the direction of their hierarchs, but they should also be treated with dignity and justly. These are human lives, not pawns to be used in a skirmish between conflicting personalities.

All I'm saying is that Met. Philip is not above reproach, and if he ever acts in an unbecoming manner whatever normal steps that would be taken with any misbehaving bishop, should apply to him as well. Our hierarchs are human and can and do make errors, some of which may actually reach the level of requiring censure or other actions.

Basil

 

[katherine2001]

From one report, it's not the first time Met. Phillip has done this. Does he have a pope-complex? Lord have mercy.


Unfortunately, he does have a history of it. He pulled all of his students out before when St. Vlad's removed Fr. Joseph Allen from their faculty after +Metropolitan Phillip allowed him to remarry after the death of his wife, which, of course, goes against the canons of the Church (a priest is allowed one marriage). To top it off, the woman Fr. Allen married was a divorcee, and they were members of his parish and he had counseled the couple through their divorce. Priests know going into the priesthood that if their wife dies, they cannot remarry. St. Vladimir's thought that was important enough that they decided not to retain Fr. Allen on their faculty.

+Metropolitan Phillip does have the power to make that decision, but remember that he is also responsible to God for he uses that power. One of the seminarian's wife (in fact, it is Frederica Matthewes-Green's son) is due to give birth any minute. In fact, they are in Baltimore awaiting the birth, and the last thing they need now is to have to move to pack up and move to Boston with a brand new baby.

If +Metropolitan Phillip gets mad at Holy Cross, where is he going to send his seminarians?

 

[Andrew21091]

If +Metropolitan Phillip gets mad at Holy Cross, where is he going to send his seminarians?

Good question. Probably send them overseas to the Middle East to probably Balamand.

 

[E.C.]

If +Metropolitan Phillip gets mad at Holy Cross, where is he going to send his seminarians?

I've heard the Serbs and Carpatho-Rusyns have their own seminaries.

Or if he really wants them to learn the Syro-Byzantine ways of things, why not Damascus?

My half-penny:

In this country of the USA, all citizens are allowed the right to free speech. As a citizen, Mark Stokoe has that right. I'm assuming that Met. PHILIP is also a citizen and therefore has that same right of free speech.

Now, all across the internet we occasionally find the loony people who are extremely anti-Orthodox. The sorts that say things like a bishop's liturgical staff (the one with the snakes) are some sort of demonic witchcrafty thing when in reality there is greater biblical basis for said staff than not. There are also those who all across the entire world of blogs, forums and other virtual soapboxes condemn and belittle entire jurisdictions and the bishops of said jurisdictions.
Then there are those who look into things, find something interesting and make some sort of 'call to action' type of dictate. In the early 20th century we called them "muckrakers". Sometimes they are correct, sometimes they are not. Most of the time they make us think.

The way I see it is this: This entire thing is little more than jurisdictionalism and avoidance of accountability. There have been calls within the Antiochian Archdiocese for a financial audit and from what I gather there is a feeling of dissent towards various bishops for who knows what reasons exactly. Given the avoidance of an audit and the squashing of anti-PHILIP opinion at the Antiochian Convention, then there must be something to hide. If there was nothing to hide, than there would be an independant audit within the Antiochian Archidiocese as we speak (or type). After all, why avoid looking at the books if the books are clean?

Now what does this have to do with OCANews, Stokoe and the seminarians? Stokoe must think of himself as a muckraker. Afterall, with OCANews he kept Orthodox Christians informed of the OCA Scandal of the past year. Things were exposed, accusations made and in the end a metropolitan retired, a new one elected and the air has been made clean and clear within the OCA.
With that in mind, Met. PHILIP seems to be trying to flex what little muscle he can to silence Stokoe by pulling two seminarians out of the two OCA seminaries Why? Seminary's cost money to go to and without enough 'fresh blood' than the school closes and I would bet that if Stokoe were within GOARCH, than Met. PHILIP would pull seminarians out of Holy Cross and send them to St. Vlad's or St. Tikhon's instead. Unfortunately, Stokoe has the right to free speech and is the webmaster of OCANews and therefore can really publish whatever he wishes. If that website scares Met. PHILIP enough to want the cord pulled, than there must be something to hide. Or at least something to be looked into.

I just hope I am wrong. Orthodoxy in North America has seen enough scandal and controversy in the past two decades and we don't need another one.

 

[Joshua G.]

I guess all I am saying is that I highly doubt any of our souls will nourished by "uncovering" (or rather speculating) about the deeper truth behind this move (if there is any). However, our souls can be benefited by learning humility through this and learning to assume the best in a situation that we can't (nor should we) control anyway.

Joshua

Unsubscribing: not mad, just nothing useful can come out of this thread and I am afraid I will get unjustly angry if I don't.

 

[Damaris]

do you guys have any actual first hand knowledge about what +Philip did? Or are you just going by ocanews? I wouldn't trust ocanews. I know for a fact that he has posted incorrect and inflammatory reports in the past. The name is ironic - Orthodox Christians for Accountability - but for some reason Mark Stokoe doesn't think he is accountable for publishing lies. Apparently it only applies to other people...

I have personal knowledge both of Stokoe's exaggerations and inflammatory reporting, as well as +Philip's treachery and abuse of power.

Make of that what you will, but sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut. Mark Stokoe does sometimes embellish matters and engage in dangerous speculation, but he did help good information spread where it needed to go during the OCA's crisis, and he is very much on the right track on the AOCANA scandal. I truly wish he would stop his occasional forays into the fantastic and nonsensical and stick to the facts, but one can't have everything in life.

I know. The Bishop is overseer of the Priests in his diocese. That includes where his future priests are educated. As stated by the Antiochian Archdiocese, their Customs, traditions and Typica are closer to the Greek than they are to the Russian.

I think there's also a need to differentiate between Scandal and Heresy.

In that case, it should be the diocesan bishops determining where their seminarians are educated, not the metropolitan. Based on your own statement, Met Philip is overstepping his bounds.

Even if he were not overstepping his bounds, however, it seems awfully strange that Met Philip would have this sudden realization that SVS and STS are Slavic-practice, and Holy Cross Byzantine-practice, three weeks before the semester is to begin. Even more suspicious is the fact that he suddenly thinks this is so important that he demands that a seminarian, who has already settled in at St Vlad's, immediately transfer to Holy Cross! If it were such a serious issue for Metropolitan Philip, one would hope it would have occurred to him to take action much sooner. The only reason this has directly affected so few people so far is because Met. Philip put a strict limitation this year on the people who could be admitted to seminary as archdiocesan seminarians to begin with. The fact that he has disrupted these few adds insult to injury.

As a side note, I would like to add that SVS has bent over backwards accomodating students from outside the OCA. Antiochian students regularly participate in services conducted according to Antiochian practice, in addition to having parish assignments at Antiochian churches during their whole course of seminary study. Even SVS's non-Orthodox students have their own (non-Chalcedonian) chapel on the SVS campus where they can conduct services according to their own religion. To claim that Antiochian students can't be properly formed there is an insult to the SVS faculty who have worked very hard producing fine seminarians for the Antiochian Archdiocese. Moreover, it calls into question Met Philip's own judgment when it comes to clergy candidates, seeing as many Antiochian seminarians at SVS get ordained before they even graduate.

Protos posted excerpt makes what was a non-issue in the first place even more of a non-issue now.

Also, it should be noted that no students were "pulled" from St Vlad's or Tikon's as was alleged earlier only bolstering the concern Kristos shared earlier.

Is there anyway we can ban "a call to action" movements in TAW? lol

As a matter of fact there was a student pulled from St Vlad's. Stokoe posted authentic information on that. I don't know why you don't think that's true, but it is true.

Well, logical or strange or even rude... seems to be something none of us on lay level have to worry about.

I'm glad you can sleep at night. For myself, I think it would burden my conscience not to speak up, and I would thank you for not interfering in what I believe is God's work.

 

[Kristos]

I have personal knowledge both of Stokoe's exaggerations and inflammatory reporting, as well as +Philip's treachery and abuse of power.

Make of that what you will, but sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut. Mark Stokoe does sometimes embellish matters and engage in dangerous speculation, but he did help good information spread where it needed to go during the OCA's crisis, and he is very much on the right track on the AOCANA scandal. I truly wish he would stop his occasional forays into the fantastic and nonsensical and stick to the facts, but one can't have everything in life.

A blind squirrel with a chainsaw. Never mind the collateral damage, I'm gonna me that nut!

It's the difference between true journalism and tabloid rumor mongering.

 

[vanshan]

We certainly shouldn't sit back and let corruption fester--that's not humility, that dumb. At the same time, we should lay aside judgement and wait for the facts to be illumined. It's okay to call for an investigation of allegations of wrong-doing. Rooting out corruption is very Orthodox....it's how we've uprooted and protected the Church from heterodoxy and corruption for centuries. It must not be done with a spirit of vindictiveness or other sinful motivations, but it can be done in a spirit of love and a desire to protect Christ's flock.

Basil

 

[jckstraw72]

I completely agree with you Vanshan

 

[88Devin07]

*Praying that jurisdictional unity happens at least in the next 10 years... (though not what I will, but what God wills)

 

[JasonV]

If +Metropolitan Phillip gets mad at Holy Cross, where is he going to send his seminarians?

Convert St. Stephen's into a full fledged seminary?

 

[ArmyMatt]

it seems awfully strange that Met Philip would have this sudden realization that SVS and STS are Slavic-practice, and Holy Cross Byzantine-practice, three weeks before the semester is to begin.

especially since His Eminence went to St Vlad's.

 

[MariaRegina]

especially since His Eminence went to St Vlad's.

About seven years ago, His Eminence sent a directive to all church choirs that they are not to use OCA music, but instead use Byzantine music.

Of course, some OCA music is still used like the prayer of St. Simeon "Let thy servant depart in peace" which is used at churchings.

"The Angel Cried" is another popular one that is still sung. The faithful love that one.

 

[howdydave]

Lord have mercy!

I hope things work out.
I was in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod college system in the early 70's when a power struggle split the church and 1/3 of the students and faculty in the seminary walked out (forming a seminary in exile "Seminex") in support of those who were being manipulated.

sigh... I thought I had seen the last of that sort of thing.

 

[88Devin07]

Amid Plea for Audit, Accusations of Financial Misconduct Hit Archdiocesan Cathedral in Troy

It was the kind of email no Bishop or parishioner wants to get: a parish treasurer breaking his silence amid allegations of checks cashed in the name of dead parishioners, details of forced resignations from the parish board of those who dared to ask questions, death threats, and ultimately, of excommunication of the whistle blower by a parish priest. In a midnight email on August 20th, sent to over a hundred Archdiocesan leaders as well as local parishioners, Mr. George Samra, treasurer of St. George’s Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Troy MI, tells an incredible story about one of the largest parishes in the Archdiocese. He writes:
SamraLetterTroyMI8.21.09

Lord Have Mercy!

Hopefully this will be sorted out quickly in the AOCA...