A few weeks back the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch spoke at Holy Cross in Brookline, Massachusetts. In his speech he suggested that the American Church needs to submit itself to Istanbul as the head of the Orthodox Church.
Well over the weekend, Metr. Jonah of the OCA spoke out. Read, and listen to his homily here is it a bombshell.
YES, YES, YES! BRAVO!
Somebody posted the gist of his comments to one of my lists, and it *is* a bombshell. I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this, since I’m in the GOA, but it’s about time *somebody* said something to Patriarch Bartholomew. See, this is why Orthodox clerics shouldn’t be educated by Jesuits (as I’m told Bartholomew was)…
In order to be strong we must be one.United we stand divided we fall.We are not second class to the orthodox world, we are not mutts.Linda
Metropolitan Jonah is correct in calling for the several American Orthodox jurisdictions to unite to form one united American Orthodox Church. Orthodox Americans need to let go of their ethnocentrism and ancestral language, and be able to attend any Orthodox Church in America with services in English. Moreover, the American Orthodox Metropolitans need to be in control of their own districts, without being subservient to the motherland Patriarchs or to the Patriarch of Constantinople. Christ never wanted His Church to be divided into numerous national subdivisions — and neither should Orthodox Americans!
While I agree with George’s comment, I also have to note that in my neck of the woods — New England — there is great resistance in the Greek community to using English. Some, it’s true, do welcome it, but the majority in my own parish and in other parishes hold out strongly for “only Greek,” as one lady put it. And I suspect the same is true in other parishes with a large ethnic population — I know, for instance, that it’s true of the Serbs.