Abbot Jonah

The Orthodox Vision, Autumn 2004
There is much of interest in the sad scandals plaguing our Church, in the east and in the north. Dire warnings of doom, betrayals, and speculations of perverse motives are all over the Internet and discussed widely. Undoubtedly there was egregious misappropriation of funds. While these issues are serious, and profoundly affect peoples’ lives, they need not color the life of the whole Church. The press delights in dirty little scandals that demoralize the faithful. But the reality is quite different. Certainly there are issues that must addressed by the appropriate authorities;certainly there is a tremendous need for healing and a restoration of confidence.

What the scandals expose is the critical need for accountability and transparency at all levels of the organization of the Church: bishops, priests, institutional staff and people in positions of trust and responsibility. These issues expose a weakness in how the OCA was structured and the crisis is an opportunity to remedy those weaknesses. Rather than cast stones—which usually bounce right back because of our own hypocrisy—we must seize the moment and really look at the vision and mission, the strengths and weaknesses of the Church, and work together make a stronger Church.

What we are really called to is repentance: to return to our first love, to the vision of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom which we celebrate in the Eucharist, and to our mission, the dedication to bring the Gospel to America in all its Orthodox integrity. We become distracted so easily by our passions, our self-righteousness (read: hypocrisy) and the temptations of the world. But Christ calls us to lay these things aside and to take up the cross of being His Body, bearing witness to Him and living our lives according to the tradition He has given us through our fathers and mothers, our forebears in the Faith. If we judge those in positions of authority who have fallen, we only accuse and judge ourselves. It is easier to blame hypocritically than simply to accept the responsibility of cleaning up the mess. We should grieve over our brothers’ sins, not judge them. And in so doing, we come together in compassion. It can strengthen our unity and weld us together in a common task: to take responsibility for the life of our Church.

Authority is responsibility. When authority degenerates into power, egotism, and position, it destroys the image of Christ reflected in those positions of responsibility. “He who would be first among you must be the servant of all.” The chief pastors of the Church are called to be that image of Christ, as are all of the faithful. They fall short; we fall short. But we must constantly return in repentance, encouraging our fathers and brethren in that same repentance and support those who bear the responsibility for our souls. It is indeed a heavy burden. But if we all bear it together in a synergy of love and communion, it becomes the easy yoke and light burden of Christ, in Christ, by Christ. When we try to bear it by ourselves in isolation, we will inevitably fall because it becomes something outside of Christ, and about our own ego.

These points are self-evident to most of us. One of the great strengths of our OCA community is that there are many mature and committed Christians. We are Orthodox by choice, a church of converts. Whether we were born into the Faith, or discovered it later in life on our own, we still have chosen to be Orthodox Christians. We are all “converts,” having committed our lives to Christ and to the Church. If we are constantly in the process of the conversion of our life through repentance, we see and recognize our own sins and thus know that we cannot judge others.

Another strength of our community is the zeal for mission and evangelization, coming from a standppoint of maturity and from an awareness that Christ wants us to sanctify every aspect of our life. It is not about joining the “right” church, the historically correct church, the doctrinally pure church. It’s about a context for our lives which builds and integrates our whole experience. And that context, that life, that Faith, is worthy of self-sacrifice. So we have worked together to establish missions all over the country. We have worked together to make the Orthodox Faith, its services, life and spirituality, accessible to our American people without dilution. We have denied ourselves our own ethnic and personal agendas in order that people from all backgrounds can enter our church, and be on equal footing with us. We have built and supported monasteries, seminaries and charitable institutions to foster the spiritual vision of our church, so that all might benefit.

The greatest strength of the Orthodox Church in America, however, is that we have full responsibility for the life and integrity of our Church, and don’t rely on anyone anywhere else. We preserve brotherly relations with the other Orthodox Churches. but we elect our own bishops, oversee our own finances and support our own ministries. None of the other Orthodox communities in America can say that. Thus we are responsible for our own mistakes, as well as our own victories. And when we have an issue that presents itself, we are responsible, as a single Body in Christ, to deal with it in the spirit of Christ. Yes, we sin; but the sins of one are, ultimately, the burden of all. And the healing and reconciliation of those who have been hurt by sin is the responsibility of us all.

Christ is calling us to take responsibility for the Church that is ours by virtue of our baptism and chrismation. It’s not about how “they” deal with it. It’s about us. It’s our life, our union in Christ with one another. When one is grieving, all grieve. When one rejoices, all rejoice. This is the basic principle of our communion in Christ. The bishops have a particular kind of responsibility, but they are not the Church by themselves; nor are the rest of the laity. How do we support our bishops, so they can bear their portion of responsibility for the life of the whole Body?

If there is a lack of accountability and transparency on the part of the hierarchy, is it not our responsibility to correct it? How could it have arisen had we not abrogated our responsibility to demand integrity from the very leaders we put into office?

It is time to stop indulging our thoughts of laying blame and finger pointing and get to the work of healing and reconciliation. How can we work together to build a stronger, more vibrant Church that will bear witness to Christ, be transparent to Christ and manifest Christ’s love and integrity? Our great strength is that we share the responsibility and have the ability to do this. We call our bishops and church administrators to accountability and we bear the burden of supporting them as they shoulder the yoke of that responsibility. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. No outsider will come to “rescue” us, or impose one more set of foreign ecclesiastical bureaucrats answerable only to a distant despot somewhere in the Old World. This is the beauty and the responsibility of our autocephaly. It is our great strength. We simply need to put aside the distractions of our passions and accept this responsibility which is given by God: to be the Orthodox Church in this country. This is ultimately what is right with the OCA.