Monday, September 27, 2010

Fr. Ted Bobosh, OCA Is It Any Wonder?


Fr. Ted's commentary on the Episcopal Assembly is complete with rhetoric, misgivings, distortions and a blatant bias. His editorial though it claims to welcome discussion is framed from the onset in such a way, positioning dissenters to his delusional state and false assertions, as morally inferior and intellectually deficient.

The nationalistic bantering of the OCA is reminiscent of adolescents decrying the sage advice of the parents who nurture their every need. While denouncing anything Greek or moderately 'ethnic' they wave their ethnophyletism behind the banner of  'liberty or schism' the ultimate patriotism.

Perhaps he is getting ahead of himself. After all unity of Orthodox jurisdictions in America can't be broached until discrepancies in protocol and ecclesiastical practices are uniform. There is much talk about language and translation, tones and scales, while larger concerns abound. Perhaps such discussions are rightly shelved, until more alarming discrepancies in practice, with their more pressing theological concerns facing our church, are rectified. These were itemized concisely by His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios (GOA) at the Episcopal Assembly.

Additionally Fr. Ted like the OCA hierarchy and clergy at large, forgo any discussion on the provisional status of their autocephaly. Rather then moving to go through the appropriate channels with humility they have emboldened themselves and push to discredit any outcome which doesn't serve their limited understanding and interest. They are seeking with pride, like the deceiver, wishing to establish themselves independent of the Conciliar Church. They have replaced the will of the the Church with their own will.

They have misunderstood the zeal of the convert for wisdom; like youth who envision a world without hunger yet have never grown a single fruit or paid a single debt. Too many if their clerics come from the ranks of converts who failed to pastor in their former sects. They are still infected with an anti-papal sentiment, anti-establishment and in a last ditched attempt to show the Pope and Catholicism, they have a 'religious' conversion outside the Papacy. They now unconsciously refuse foreign patriarchates fighting old battles which do not apply.

Additionally they continue with the phronima of the Great Commission faulting 'the Greeks' for not proselytizing, in the way their limited understanding has distorted the sharing of the Gospel. What they do differently then their heretical counterparts is reject the Greek. They find it offensive and outlandish to their sensibilities to expect clerics to learn the language of the New Testament. Now in a state of being saved, seeking citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven is it really too much to expect they dedicate themselves as part of their ministry to learning the language? God saw fit to bring His son at a time when linguistically the Lord's message could most widely be received, at a time when language had reached its zenith; and we reject it and marginalize it finding it an offense! Even heritics (protestants) reference the Greek!

The notion that the OCA is the indigenous church in North America is ludicrous in fact sadly the only indigenous 'church' (to use the term loosely) is the Church of Mormon.

Given the choice between leaving my Mother Church and following a makeshift assembly of lesser hierarchs I'll have to pass. The Mother Church is the foundation for the faith, the keepers of the faith: time tested, esteemed and established by our Lord. The OCA is but a hiccup in the history of our church and will either come to its senses and get on board with the whole of Orthodoxy or it will fail to even be a footnote 100 years from now. If that offends don't let the door hit you on the way out.

3 comments:

Isa Almisry said...

LOL. You mean as you put out the lights at Chambesy? No more drachmas.

The only makeshift assmebly of bishops is the EA, which should be constituted (as the EA elsewhere) into the Local Holy Synod, in the case of North America, an autocephlaous one.

Discuss the 'provisional status' of their autocephaly? Why would anyone waste time on the delusions of the Phanar, stuck it seems in the 18th century. Met. Zizoulas was just shown, again, at Vienna that the Phanar is not the Orthodox Vatican. It is Constantinople which is out of step with the Conciliar Church, not Washington.

Like a clinging mother, Constantinople stubbornly refuses to acknowledge she is dealing with other adults in the room, complaining about America and Russia the same way Old Rome complained about the upstart on the Bosphoros.

As Father Ted points out, we confess One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church. Not Mother Churches, daughter churches, baby churches.

The OCA has been the indiginous people ever since the first mission and her bishop of America started converting the indiginous peoples over two centuries ago.

Why don't your clerics learn the language of Our Lord:ARAMAIC? The clerics of the OCA don't learn Greek ( though actually, many do) for the same reason that the Spirit didn't speak just Greek at Pentecost.

"The Mother Church is the foundation for the faith." You mean Jerusalem?

Leftmost said...

"The OCA has been the indiginous people ever since the first mission and her bishop of America started converting the indiginous peoples over two centuries ago."

You mean in Alaska? Which wasn't part of the US back then, but part of Russia, so really they were just evangelizing in Russia. Also, the OCA was formed in the 70's. Prior to that there was the AOC which went rogue (no, Going Rogue, is not a good thing).

Isa Almisry said...

"You mean in Alaska? Which wasn't part of the US back then, but part of Russia, so really they were just evangelizing in Russia."

Yes, I am aware of that. So they went, according to the Cession Treaty and the accompanying case law from indigenous subjects of the Czar to native US citizens in possession of the Orhtodox Churches. As the "Orthodox Chiefs of the Tlingit" wrote their President "We know that the Russian Government at the time of the transfer of Alaska to the U.S. did not sell us as slaves to America, but left us some rights and privileges which were later made lawful and firm by the U.S.
Congress." They didn't stop being indigenious, even according what the white men did.

Before the sale of Alaska, however, the ROC ministered in SF and NYC, from coast to coast. The Episcopalians, setting up their diocese in CA, thought first to seek consecration from the Bishop in Sitka, St. Innocent of Alaska. As a result, plans were drawn up to set up bishopricks in SF, New Orleans and NYC in the early 1860's i.e. before the sale of AK.

"Also, the OCA was formed in the 70's"

No, the OCA was formed 1794-1970. It only got autocephaly in 1970 and adopted its Statute.

"(no, Going Rogue, is not a good thing)"

Who went rogue, EP Metrophanes II of Constantinople, or Met. St. Jonah of Moscow?