The first point, and I said this in my sermon yesterday, the American Orthodox Church is on the cusp of greatness. I think we are standing in the door way of a new something (I can’t seem to find the right word) generation maybe, era perhaps, explosion… Not really sure. I say this because we have some great young leaders emerging in the church. People like Metropolitan Jonah, Fr. Justin Matthew’s of FOCUS North America and others are injecting new excitement and energy into the American Church. We are at the threshold of becoming a truly American Church and not just a small immigrant community. I am reminded of the history of the Roman Catholic Church in Boston. The signs used to read “Irish Need Not Apply” Then the church came into her own. The Roman Church under the leadership of visionaries like Richard Cushing of Boston. Cardinal Cushing had a vision for the American Church and built many of the School and Hospitals that the Church in Boston still uses to this day. Cushing was 44 years old when created bishop and was 49 when he became the 3rd Archbishop of Boston. He served the church in that roll for 26 years until his death in 1970. He had a vision to move the church for it’s immigrant roots to a major religious force in America.

I believe that Metr Jonah of the OCA is our Cardinal Richard Cushing. He has the vision to move this church from it’s Greek, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, insert ethnicity here, local church to a power house for good in America. A house divided cannot stand scripture tells us. Our church is of one true faith but we are fractured. Imagine the good we could do if we had one department of evangelism and mission rather than 12! The Orthodox Christian Mission Center began as a department of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. Now part of the entire church of America we have missionaries serving around the world and more in training. We can do amazing things together. IOCC, OCF, etc all done together!

So where do we go from here? We need patience and we need to be willing to sacrifice and let go of some things that maybe we hold dear. We cannot be afraid of moving in together so to speak and we need to make sure all of our bishops stay at the table and make this work. We need to avoid schism at all costs. As Metr Jonah said communion with the entire Orthodox Church is the most important thing. Nothing is more important that that!

More thoughts in another post.

I can say this as well. We have some great people in the Orthodox world that care about their church and this is encouraging for me. I think we tend to look at things from our own church perspective and we get lost in the small picture. The next few years are going to require us to have big picture about Orthodoxy in America. Change is coming and in the words of several of the speakers here today we cannot and should not fight it. We need to fully participate in the process.

We talked in the first session about Orthodox and American Culture. I think one of the fears of people as we move closer to unification is that their local customs will change. This is not the case as far as I can tell from our discussions. Letter in the day Metropolitan Jonah said that we need to honor and respect the past. Last night he said we must not forget the histories of our parishes and our diocese but we have to keep moving forward! I cannot agree enough.

Just a few thoughts on Metropolitan Jonah. I will be bold to say this guy gets it! He gets American Orthodoxy. He spoke about our need to Baptize America! I have never heard a bishop speak this way and it is refreshing. I am a big fan of his! Several of his talk are available online and I will try and find some and link to them.

We next talk about youth and the youth experience in a church. Without a doubt the youth want a unified church. This came through strong from the your representative on the panel. OCF functions in a pan orthodox mode and so the youth are used to working that way. Out of the mouths of babes as they say. We need to listen to our youth more was the signal of the day. They do not want us to change the church only unite it, if that makes any sense.

Communication was next and I was part of that panel. We spoke about using the media to further the message of the Gospel. We talked about Ancient Faith Radio, the American Orthodox Institute blog and others as vehicles to educate the people. We need to evangelize the internet. Paul used his letters to reach people we need to use the internet. There are approximately 1.2 million Orthodox in the US. There are 2.5 million Facebook users and the number grows everyday. Use it do not be afraid of it.

The last panel was on the coming Great and Holy Council that will ultimate decide the “American Question” I need to write and article on Orthodox Eclesiology but that will be for another day. We have much work to do but as Metr Jonah put it “Our goal is a unified, indigenous, autocephalous Orthodox Church in America. How we get there is the big question.

My head is full of information and just spinning from all of this. I feel cautiously optimistic that the plan is going to work. We need to pray and pray everyday for our bishops and the others who will be making the decisions.

As I have mentioned before, this is going to be a long hard process and one of give and take. We need to patient with the process and commit it to prayer.

As of 2000, about 1.2 million Orthodox Christian adherents total in the US
About 2,200 – 2,300 local parishes
Largest and fastest growth in the Southern US
The average GOA parish has 1140 parishioners
The average OCA parish has 180 parishioners
60% of those surveyed say you can still be Orthodox and not attend Church on Sunday

The next panel discussion was on three different ministries within the Orthodox Church. In the Orthodox world we call these Pan Orthodox, they cross several different jurisdictions.

FOCUS North America
Martha and Mary House
St. Peter’s Classical School

Unity at many levels was the topic of the next panel. This panel dealt with the history thus far of the Unity discussion. Starting with Legonier 1994 and talking about the questions what would need to be answered and looking at a blue print for the future. It was a difficult discussion and at times it was a little heated. One person asked when the resolution was coming to make English only in the Liturgy! Well not going to happen. The quickest way to cause a revolution would be to pass that resolution. Currently we have 12 different jurisdictions with 12 different sets of rules. This is going to take time. We need to be patient. The bottom line is not much will change at the local level most of the changes will take place with Bishops.

The last panel of the day focused on the legal aspects of where we need to go. The role of the laity in the discussion and future of the church. Transparency will be crucial if this is going to work. People need to know what is going on.

In the evening session Metropolitan Jonah spoke very eloquently about the future. The main point was that we need to maintain Communion with the Orthodox Church Schism is not an option. We cannot just decide tomorrow that we are going to form our own church. We have too much of that already. There is room for everyone and every one’s history needs to be maintained. He spoke of the work we need to accomplish on a spiritual level not on a material level. He talked about building great temples whilst the poor and hungry suffer. He said the greatest sin of Orthodoxy in America is that we have only taken care of our own! This needs to change. He spoke of his recent journey to the Republic of Georgia. The Georgian Church is just now emerging from the catacombs. In once diocese there were only 2 churches 10 years ago. and there were 80,000 Muslims. Today the bishop has built 120 churches and has baptized 80% of the diocese. And they did it by caring for everyone. Hospitals, school, food pantries, clinics, housing, etc. This is what church is!

Today we have the next session on Youth, Communication, and the Great and Holy Council. That will be for tomorrow.

Orthodox Christians in U.S. face obstacles before unifying

Tonight at dinner Metropolitan Jonah of the OCA spoke about unity from a bishops perspective. One thing he said that just glared out at me was the following statement. “Nothing is more important the remaining in communion with the entire Orthodox Church.” For me that says it all. If we cannot have communion it is game over.

That’s all for tonight I will try again in the morning but I am fried.