Things have been quiet around the old place. Not much is happening, but I think this is the calm before the storm. Wednesday night we had a liturgy for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. I like evening liturgies. The sun beginning to set and people singing. It’s nice. I wish more people would come to liturgy during the week, but we had a nice group there. Saturday will see some construction here at the church. We need to remove some short walls around the outside of the church to prevent water from coming in. I don’t understand all that stuff but the people who do say it needs to be done so off we go. Perhaps there should be a class or two in seminary about all this stuff.
I got myself involved in a little online snit. I belong to several yahoo groups about different things. One of them has to do with Eastern Orthodoxy. What I have found is this group seems to be full of people who want to be part of the orthodox church but for some reason have started their own branch. I am amazed at how many bishops there are out there. So I got into it with this guy, who claims to be a bishop. I guess I should not have, but I have been reading about American Orthodoxy and I just cannot understand why we can’t just all become one. I mean in this little town we have three Orthodox Churches. The town can barley support one and we have three, all different jurisdictions. I will never understand.
that’s my rant for the week.
i think the problem is that people feel because their family members paid to build these churches they have sole ownership of these churches. they do not understand that this is the house of God it does not have ownership it is here for people to take care of but not to own.
when people came here from the old country it was a link to their past but like everthing else in this country you have to learn to adapt and become part of the rest of this country.
A church should not be a social club to keep people not of your ethnicity out but a family with God as the father.if the orthodox church is to survive in the world it needs to stop the ethnicity and embrace all people, if they do not then the churches will either not survive or people will just start their own churches.
maybe the catholic churches are wrong to have a pope but the orthodox church is also wrong when all these different factions of the church are more concerned about losing their places as bishop then about spreading the word of God.
Rant away, Father. I stay away from the email lists: t’aint healthy.
You should join us on Second Life 🙂
Anon: you are right, btw. “maybe the catholic churches are wrong to have a pope but the orthodox church is also wrong when all these different factions of the church are more concerned about losing their places as bishop then about spreading the word of God.”
Point of fact, we got room for all the Bishops we have – and then some. And we even have need for their ministry. But Everyone wants to be Bishop of Dallas or Miami, of New York or Washington. No one wants to be Bishop of Albany, NY, Panama City Beach, FL, or Asheville, NC.
The Catholics can send bishops to take care of tiny parishes because they make dioceses the size of two or three counties. We could learn a lesson therefrom.
But we’d all have to learn to share the sandbox.