Addendum to the Position Paper
Dear and Reverend Fathers,
The Lord bless you and your ministries.
I am writing this letter as an addendum to my "Position Paper." I ask you to first read the "Position Paper" to be better able to follow the reasoning expressed in this paper.
In order to understand our mission to witness to the Gospel of Christ as a local Church in North America it is essential for us to understand who and what we are. An open letter of Metropolitan Makarios of Toronto dated 18 December 2001, to Protopresbyter Victor Melehov (attached) gave the best answer to this question. To briefly paraphrase his answer I will say that we are a regional eparchial synod of the Church of Greece established to allow the hierarchs of North America to meet and discuss mutual concerns and projects for the parishes and faithful within the eparchy.
The reader who wishes to be informed should note that at the time, in 2001, we had only recently formed the local eparchial synod of the Holy Orthodox Church in North America and Fr. Victor Melehov interpreted this act to have caused the immediate dissolution of our Holy Synod in Greece. (Metropolitan Makarios' letter is attached.)
Thus, it is clear from what Metropolitan Makarios wrote in his letter and from the history that was described in my "Position Paper," we have as a starting point for understanding who and what we are. Thus
1) HOCNA is not an autocephalous Church.
2) Archbishop Auxentius did not grant us the status of an autonomous synod in North America.
3) According to proper canonical order the Church in North America should function as an Eparchial (daughter) synod in relation to the Church of the True Orthodox Christians in Greece.
Thus, only after understanding what we are and what we are not, and what our proper relationship to the Church in Greece is, can we then grasp the significance of the following resolutions made by our Holy Synod on September 21/ October 4:
2) Motion by Bishop Demetrius:
For reasons of Church unity, the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church in North America also unanimously resolves to lift depositions imposed in 1985 against those bishops currently belonging to the Synod of the late Archbishop Chrysostomos Kioussis, with the aim of achieving full Eucharistic Communion in the future with this Synod, whensoever God wills it. In lifting these depositions, we hereby recognize de facto that the Church of Greece is headed by the Synod of the late Archbishop Chrysostomos Kioussis. The faithful who travel to Greece are free to attend the Churches which belong to this Synod with the full blessing and approval of our Synod of Bishops. 2nd by Metropolitan Ephraim. Motion carries unanimously.3) Motion by Metropolitan Makarios:
that the Holy Synod dissolve the office of locum tenency of the throne of Athens held by Metropolitan Makarios up until now. 2nd by Bishop Demetrius. Motion carries unanimously.
Thus, acting as successors of Archbishop Auxentius, our Holy Synod has recognized that the Holy Synod of Archbishop Kallinikos I of Athens is the Traditionalist Church of Greece.1 In addition, the office of locum tenens of the throne of Archbishop Auxentius of Athens has been dissolved.
By lifting all past depositions, recognizing the Holy Synod of Archbishop Kallinikos as the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians in Greece, and dissolving the office of locum tenens of Metropolitan Makarios we have aided in ending the division that has existed from 1985 until this year. Since we have recognized the Kallinikos Synod as the Church of Greece, our relationship with that local autocephalous Church is all-important.
There are rumors that some desire to rescind these resolutions. My answer to this is to quote the Apostle James, "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1:8) To go back on the resolutions cited above and attempt to restore Metropolitan Makarios to the office of locum tenens would show a reckless vacillation and overturn the canonical order of the Church [since we have recognized Archbishop Kallinikos a second bishop (Metropolitan Makarios) cannot be reinstated as locum tenens and occupy the throne of the Archbishop of Athens.]
In moving forward, the worst thing we could do is to state that we have dissolved our Holy Synod (as successors of Archbishop Auxentius) in order to withdraw from Greece and then declare a dubious canonical independence. According to the words of Metropolitan Makarios, this would be, "…a precarious and dangerous course of action: separation from the Sacred Synod of the True Orthodox Church of Greece." – that is, we would be cutting the last thread of our connection to our canonical foundations and we would be in a state of schism from the Sacred Synod of the Church of Greece.
There will be some that will try and confuse the matter and claim that we were never part of the Holy Synod of Archbishop Kallinikos I of Athens. This is a non sequitur. The senior hierarch of the original synod of Archbishop Auxentius, Metropolitan Athanasios of Larissa, has ended the division that existed from 1985 by joining the Synod of Archbishop Kallinikos in 2008. We now have recognized the Synod of Archbishop Kallinikos as the Church of Greece. Our episcopal ordinations are all from the Church of Greece. We are of the Church of Greece. Our history testifies to the fact that the Church in Greece is our Mother Church.
Some incorrectly attempt to use the precedent of the forty-year duration of Meletian Schism as an excuse not to move forward in our rightful union with the Church of Greece. During the Meletian Schism each party did not recognize the validity of the other party for forty years, and then upon mutual recognition, the schism ended. As of October 2010 our holy Synod has recognized the Holy Synod of Archbishop Kallinikos as the Church of Greece. In other words, the schism has ended and we have recognized the G.O.C. in Greece as our mother Church. To refuse to immediately begin an official dialogue for union is to foment schism from the Church of Greece.
Thus, as Metropolitan Makarios wrote, we cannot choose a "precarious and dangerous course of action: separation [schism] from the Sacred Synod and the True Orthodox Church of Greece" if we desire to remain true to the canonical order of the Church. Moving forward we must consider the words of Saint John Chrysostom who said that, "Even the blood of martyrdom cannot wash away the stain of schism in the Church."
To put it another way, what is HOCNA, without the Church of Greece? According to the claims printed in the "Eparchial Synod" brochure distributed by the Metropolis of Boston, HOCNA is de jure autonomous and "effectively autocephalous." This is a fair assessment if indeed the goal of some is to be a "Sister Church," i.e., enter into a status of equality, to the autocephalous Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians in Greece.
The problem with this is that both autonomy and autocephaly indicate the status of a regional, local Church that has received that status, from an already-existing autocephalous Church that is competent, from the point of view of the Canons, to give that status. Autonomy and or autocephaly must be given by an autocephalous Synod acting as a unified body. The Synod receiving either autonomy or autocephaly
(a) must be canonically and administratively subordinate to, and dependent on, the "bestowing Synod";
(b) must be canonically prepared and competent to receive and then to carry out the duties of a fully autocephalous local Orthodox Church (with minimum numbers of Hierarchs according to the requirements of the Canons);
(c) the entire act of giving, and of receiving, the status or autonomy and/or autocephaly must be capable of being objectively documented as the unified decision of the bestowing Synod, as the Giver; and as the unified decision of the receiving Synod, as the recipient.2
All of this is lacking in the present instance. None of these things have taken place.
Just for the sake of understanding what is involved, let us, for a moment, focus our attention on the condition of the Orthodox Church in North America. Can we honestly say that any "old calendar" jurisdiction is currently ready to assume the vast responsibilities of an autocephalous local Orthodox Church for the geographic region of North America? — Without regard to the other confessing Orthodox jurisdictions in the same region. — Does any one of these jurisdictions have the minimum number of bishops required by canon law to undertake all canonical spiritual court proceedings? Have we all agreed that any single local Church in North American and their Synod are sufficiently steeped in a local tradition that is itself sufficiently deeply-rooted and broadly-based — as, admittedly, the True Churches of Greece or Romania or Bulgaria or Russia, for example, obviously are — to stand the test of time and the particular stresses to which the True Orthodox are subjected from all sides today, not the least from the side of the ecumenists who still claim the name Orthodox?
Presently no forum has emerged for the pursuit of a proper and informed discussion of these and other issues by representatives of all confessing Orthodox Christians in North America competent to undertake such a discussion from the point of view of canon law, theology, and ecclesiology. It appears, in an ill-conceived haste, we have skipped over all the normal initial phases of the important question of the emergence of a canonically-sanctioned, independent, autocephalous local North American Church, and simply jumped to the outcome of that kind of discussion, as if it had already taken place, when in fact, no such preliminary and preparatory work has been done, involving the ranks of the Hierarchs, the clergy, and the lay leadership among all of the right-believing Traditionalist Orthodox Christians in North America.
We have to ask ourselves, would a hasty and premature effort to establish HOCNA as an autocephalous "Sister Church" help or hinder the long term efforts of all to establish the Orthodox Church in North America. (We cannot allow people to play games with words and deny that the status of a "Sister Church" to an autocephalous Church is anything other than a status of autocephaly.) Do we really want to repeat the ill-considered mistakes of the OCA who established an autocephaly that no one in North America, outside of that jurisdiction, recognized?
For myself and for my Suffragan Bishop, I can say that we have no interest whatsoever in membership in an independent Orthodox Church in North America of questionable origin. The ancient Greeks had a saying: All good things are acquired with labor. Not with haste. Not with impetuousness. Not with irresponsible decisions. Autocephaly is not a trivial thing. The Russian Church existed for four hundred years before it gained autocephaly, with so few people and so few years, are we now claiming to be ready for autocephaly?
I am saddened that there are some who appear to have chosen to abandon the identity that we all accepted back in the years of disengagement from ROCOR. We cannot suddenly deny the identity that is sharply and clearly proclaimed as the identity of HOCNA by Metropolitan Makarios in his letter to the Presbyter Victor Melehov. We cannot suddenly deny the identity that is proclaimed on the letterheads and in the Directories and in the literature published by HOCNA until now, the identity that I for one intend to maintain, consistently and faithfully, and as God gives me the strength so to do.
To do otherwise is to veer away from and abandon our legitimate canonical identity and assert an entirely different identity, one that is in sharp contradiction to our own historic insistence that we are indeed the North American regional synod that is an integral part of the True Orthodox Church of Greece.
I respectfully disagree with those who decide to embark on an entirely new and different path, radically altering the identity of our local synod. It is my conviction that the resolutions from the October 2010 meeting of our Holy Synod are good and valid only in the context of our continuing to maintain our union with the Church of Greece.
The Holy Synod has recognized that there is but one Holy Synod in Greece and that is the Holy Synod of Archbishop Kalinikos I of Athens. The local eparchial synod of HOCNA is now at a crossroad. Are we going to work to establish the Orthodox Church in North America with a proper relationship with the mother Church in Greece, or are we going to attempt to establish the pretence of an autocephalous Church of less than 4 thousand souls. To those that seek isolation I ask, what has changed from the time of the publication of the "History of the Russian Church in North America 1917–1971" when just such a hasty and rash grab for autocephaly was called "autocephalitis?" Will HOCNA some day be referred to as the "Autocephalous Church of Lilliput?"
I hope and pray that this does not come to pass.
There will be some that for the sake of personal expediency will try to confuse everyone regarding this issue. There will be some that illogically claim that to immediately move beyond our friendly contacts to dialogue at an official level to examine what steps will be required for union would be an act of haste. From what has been said above it is easy to see that this is an inversion of the truth. The only way to continue to maintain our union with the Church in Greece is to begin a sober official dialogue. To refuse to do this is to break from the source and origin of our episcopal ordinations and place us on the path of a hasty canonical illegitimacy. Such a separation would be nothing more than a willful isolation for questionable reasons that do not serve the best interest of the Traditionalist Orthodox Christians in North America.
At this juncture, whosoever chooses not join with the G.O.C. and seeks to form a Church body independent of the Church of Greece will be departing from the original HOCNA and forming a "new HOCNA." If the majority members of our Holy Synod insist on a "precarious and dangerous course of action of separation from the Sacred Synod and the True Orthodox Church of Greece," and not immediately begin an official dialogue for the sake of uniting with the Church of Greece, the October 2010 resolutions will then have granted all of us who will not follow in this radical departure from our original identity a de facto canonical release from our Holy Synod to those who wish not to depart from the original identity of HOCNA.
You are the rational flock of Christ. You are responsible for your decisions. To be a faithful member of the rational flock of Christ requires one to practice obedience to the teachings of the Church with discernment in one's life. Appeals to a self-serving, emotionalist, pseudo-love and a "bond" that overturns the order of the Church should not sway an informed Christian. As Christians we are called upon to serve the God-Man, Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
This is not a personal issue. This is a matter of union with or schism from what has been acknowledged by our Holy Synod as the Genuine Orthodox Church in Greece. I state with conviction that if we are to legitimately follow in the footsteps of the Holy Fathers, the only course of action is to seek an authentic union with the Holy Synod of Archbishop Kallinikos I of Athens.
For the reasons stated above, Bishop Sergios and I submitted a paper of inquiry to Archbishop Kallinikos I asking him what would be required on our part in order for us to accomplish the goal of unifying our diocese with the Church of Greece, in imitation of the dialogue that was carried out some time ago between the Holy Synod of the G.O.C. and the Kyprianites. We wrote in this manner because we could not speak for either the Metropolis of Boston or the Metropolis of Toronto, since they were making allusions to waiting for years before initiating an official dialogue.
May God preserve in us the spirit of unity in our quest to remain faithful to Him and to our own canonical foundations.
In Christ,
+Metropolitan Moses
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1 Canonically, there should be only one local Church and Holy Synod in a given geographic region. We refer to the Church in Greece as "the Traditionalist Church" to set it apart from the ecumenist heretics. The Church in Greece calls itself, "Tης Εκκλησίας των Γνησίων Ορθοδόξων Χριστιανών της Ελλάδος" (The Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians in Greece). The word "Γνησίων" can be translated either "true" or "genuine," thus one sees at one time "The Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians" and at another, "The Church of the True Orthodox Christians."
2 "…Autocephaly was determined either by an ecumenical council (431 Cyprus), imperial decision (10th century Bulgaria) or, in the case of Georgia, by a disposition of the mother-church in the 8th century (Balsamon, PG 137:320A)…" Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, p. 235.