The Triumph of American Orthodoxy

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Fr. Aris P. Metrakos — The Next Triumph of Orthodoxy:

There is an emerging perception among young clergy that if we only did more vespers and parakleses that we would “save the Church.” First, the Church doesn’t need saving, Jesus already did that. Second, anyone who thinks that a plentitude of long services is a panacea need only look at the plight of Orthodoxy in Eastern Europe and the Balkans: by following exclusively this paradigm in parish life, the Church is slowly bleeding to death at the hands of the Evangelicals and secularists.

The Church in America needs priests who are themselves repenting; Priests that know that the sacraments and the services are the beginning and the end of what we do, but that in between that Alpha and Omega, there is a whole lot of visiting, teaching, and developing of programs and strategies aimed at proclaiming the Good News; Priests that remember that Jesus spent more time with harlots and tax-collectors than He did in the Temple.

American Orthodoxy needs mission priests, not married monastics.

For their own part, when it comes to the way priests in America are treated, the laity needs to wake up and smell the incense. During the course of his ministry, every priest will suffer withering attacks from people who “do not like him.” These assaults will take the form of phone calls to hierarchs, anonymous letter-writing campaigns, and petition drives.

We’ve all been guilty of beating down our priest, even when we thought we were being so good. What good is fasting from flesh, asks St. John Chrysostom, when we devour the flesh of our brother?

Later in the article, he asks what Sunday of Orthodoxy Vespers will look like in 2057. God, help us. Sunday of Orthodoxy Vespers only happens the way it does because we are uncanonically operating multiple jurisdictions in the same geographical territories. Hopefully by 2057 that will no longer be an issue.

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One Response to “The Triumph of American Orthodoxy”

1. 

   Tim Says:
   April 10th, 2006 at 10:31 am

   I couldn’t get it to load any text on the print page. Try this link instead: http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles6/MetrakosOrthodoxy.php