Why are the True Orthodox so divided? No Polemics Please

[jgress]

This is my wife's and my own main concern when looking at the True Orthodox Churches. We see divisions and sometime the mentaility of "i dont like you, im joining/making my own church". My wife says, to her, it seems like Orthodox protestantism. This is a very hard aspect for us to accept. Any advice ir suggestions. Any help would be appriciated

Well, that's not the only attitude present. There have been sincere and successful movements to unify the jurisdictions. For example, earlier this year, my jurisdiction, the GOC under Archbishop Kallinikos, formally united with three other jurisdictions: the Synod in Resistance under Metropolitan Cyprian of Fili, the GOC of Romania, and the remnant of ROCOR under Metropolitan Agafangel of Odessa. The American part of the GOC itself united with most of HOCNA over the previous years. The entire GOC itself is the product of the union of various factions in the mid-1980s, and recently we also reunited with some bishops that had refrained from joining that union, as well as some that created a new faction in the 1990s. It is a staple of World Orthodox propaganda that the True Orthodox are only ever splitting, never uniting, but this is simply false.

So mainly I think your problem is an incorrect understanding of GOC history that is too focused on the negative and probably too influenced by New Calendarist polemics about the True Orthodox. For a more positive understanding, I recommend this excerpt from a forthcoming book by the owner of E Cafe, Anastasios Hudson. There and elsewhere on his site he lays to rest many common concerns about our church.

[Isaakos]

Read chapter 30 of St Basil the Great's treatise on the Holy Spirit. The Orthodox have always dealt with divisions during periods of intense heresy, and in our confusion we form cliques and anathematize good people sometimes. But the point is that it is the same problem the Orthodox have always faced.

http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/basilxxx.aspx

"
But what storm at sea was ever so fierce and wild as this tempest of the Churches? In it every landmark of the Fathers has been moved; every foundation. every bulwark of opinion has been shaken: everything buoyed up on the unsound is dashed about and shaken down. We attack one another. We are overthrown by one another. If our enemy is not the first to strike us, we are wounded by the comrade at our side. If a foeman is stricken and falls, his fellow soldier tramples him down. There is at least this bond of union between us that we hate our common foes, but no sooner have the enemy gone by than we find enemies in one another. And who could make a complete list of all the wrecks? Some have gone to the bottom on the attack of the enemy, some through the unsuspected treachery, of their allies, some from the blundering of their own officers. We see, as it were, whole churches, crews and all, dashed and shattered upon the sunken reefs of disingenuous heresy, while others of the enemies of the Spirit of Salvation have seized the helm and made shipwreck of the faith. "

[Barbara]

^ A very insightful masterpiece, as usual from St Basil the Great ! Thank you for posting that, Philaret-the-Zealot. Or
Philaret The-Zealot, rather.

[Isaakos]

Let me please share another gem from Archbishop Averky. There are a few people who think that in everything we do we are called to take the "middle path," in ecclesiology, in our relation to Schismatics and heretics etc.

Let us be clear, when the fathers speak of a middle path or a "Royal Way" they are speaking of moderation in ascetic practice, NOT moderation in faith or truth! Archbishop Averky is clear about this:

"in relation to the faith the middle course has no value. For we may hope that he who is cold, and has no hot water, will one day receive it. But he who burned in spirit through Holy Baptism, but then grew cold, removes from himself the hope of salvation." (St. John of Kronstadt). For "the cold man, who has not known faith, can more easily believe and become a fervent believer than a cooled-off Christian who has become indifferent to the Faith. Even an open sinner is better than a lukewarm Pharisee who is satisfied with his moral condition. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ reproached the Pharisees, preferring to them the repentant publican and harlots. Open and evident sinners can more easily come to an awareness of their own sinfulness and to true repentance than people with a lukewarm conscience who do not acknowledge their moral infirmities." (Archbishop Averky)

So truth and exactness in faith has no business being a "Middle path." We need to apply the middle way of moderation to our dealings with others and tolerance of one another's shortcomings.

So to say "the New Calendarists are graceless schismatics whose mysteries are dead and unable to give life." This has no bearing on the "Royal way" of the fathers, because in matters of faith, there is no choice between truth and falsehood, there is either truth, or falsehood, the end.