News Release from Lesser Synod
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OCA – News Releases: Statement on Financial Accountability from the Lesser Synod
The Lesser Synod has released a statement regarding the concerns raised in an earlier post. Let us pray that humble and appropriate actions are undertaken by everyone involved so that healing can begin.
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6 Responses to “News Release from Lesser Synod”
Copyright © 2002–2011 Kevin Robert (Basil) Fritts, all rights reserved.
January 31st, 2006 at 1:07 am
Your blog comes back in my search results too often…
I just heard about the OCA’s financial problem and what some people [link removed —B.] have to say about it. I’m not sure what to make of it. Arguments about the calendars were a problem for me when I was first looking into Orthodoxy. I’ve since come to peace with such things, thinking that those in power will have to answer for themselves, and that I should keep to working out my own salvation.
I’d be interested in your thoughts (unless your spiritual father has directed you otherwise) on this whole matter, since your blog is so popular with Google. 🙂
God bless,
Sofiya
February 1st, 2006 at 6:15 pm
Sofiya, my thoughts involve a conversation with my spiritual father that involves a lot of information that is not necessarily public knowledge. Since that conversation, I have not returned to the site you linked. I have done this as a spiritual exercise, because a part of me is desperately curious to know their response to the Synod’s statement.
But I don’t need to know. I need to follow the advice of my spiritual father and leave it alone. In any scandal, you are either part of the problem, part of the solution, or neither. If you’re neither, it’s none of your business, and further discussion is gossip and leads to murmuring and gossip.
In this situation, I am neither part of the original problem nor part of the solution to that original problem. So that issue is none of my business. However, there is a secondary problem that has occurred as more and more people not involved in the original problem have been drawn in to discuss it and murmur against the Church and her pastors. In that secondary problem, I was drawn in, and I hope to repent of my fault by lighting up a more excellent way.
BTW, it’s good to hear my blog is popular with Google. 😀
February 27th, 2006 at 5:29 am
But I don’t need to know.
Agreed. Thank you. =)
February 27th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Ironic that when I went to your homepage that you have a quotation from Archbishop Job front and center when Bishop Tikhon is asking for him to be disciplined for asking questions about the scandal. Is it that you don’t need to know…or that you don’t want to know because it makes you uncomfortable? I don’t understand how impropriety at the highest levels of the OCA is no one’s business. Perhaps you think the laity should just sit and be quiet when inappropriate things happen? Maybe you haven’t been Orthodox long enough to know that we can disagree with our leadership and at times hold them accountable. This is the way of the Orthodox world. Perhaps you are still thinking too much like a Protestant, a common convert problem. Don’t worry, we won’t go start new demoninations because we are disappointed with some in the leadership.
February 28th, 2006 at 7:46 am
Nicholas, that is ironic. I have balanced the quote by his emminence by adding a quote from his grace, Bishop Tikhon, on evolution and Genesis.
Don’t misunderstand: I personally think that transparency is preferable. But I also trust the Synod to figure it out. For my own spiritual health, silence in the face of scandalous and unfounded accusations is the best course (according to my spiritual father). Perhaps yours directs differently.
The example of the Old Calendarist Greeks and the Russian Church in Exile is sufficient to show that schism is not alien to those who claim Orthodoxy. Besides, with so many archdioceses and exarchates in this country competing with the Church for jurisdiction, one need not leave the Orthodox Church by leaving the Church in America.
March 3rd, 2006 at 5:35 pm
[…] The Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in America has issued a statement from its extraordinary session held yesterday. It clarifies and amplifies the earlier statement from the Lesser Synod. On the threshold of the Great Fast, we exhort the faithful to remember the Holy Gospel, to conform to the example of Christ, and to live as Christians in mutual repentance and forgiveness. […]