Mark Templet wrote:Wow this topic is all over the place. But at least some have cautioned restraint in jumping to conclusions. I can confirm that there was absolutely no work done in Georgia between ROAC and HOCNA for the expressed purpose of unification. Quite the opposite, it was an opportunity for those few bishops involved to get to know one another personally. Metroplitan Gregory was extremely gracious and kind and showed our ROAC heirarchs around his native land. People asked basic questions and listened to each other's answers about who everyone is. That's it. It was only the start of even coming close to thinking about dealing with all this. And yet their are already rumors on this very site about bishops "falling." This should be shameful. I suppose the only way some see dealing with controversial issues is through harshness rather than people getting to know each other and gradually clarifying and resolving heretical things to the truth. ROAC is not about to immediately join with HOCNA, these things move at the speed of bishops, which is usually quite slow. In all my time in ROAC I have never seen our synod make rash decisions or join with people for convenience or worldly advancement. If we wanted that they would have surrendered to the MP a long time ago rather than suffering for Traditional Orthodoxy.
Thank you, Father Mark for clarifying this matter.
Yes, rumors have been spreading all over the place, and Met. Gregory's letter only added fuel to the fire. The Metropolitan should have been more discrete in wording his letter, especially using the phrases and clauses that I have bolded below.
Met. Gregory of HOCNA wrote:Astonishingly, this latest wave of persecution seems to have been triggered, at least in part, by Metropolitan Theodore’s friendship with our Synod. I personally know Metropolitan Theodore. In fact, this past July, I had the honor of hosting him in Georgia, along with two other bishops of his Synod, in order to become better acquainted with each other and slowly to advance the friendship between our Churches.
I wanted to get to the bottom of these rumors that I have been hearing and squash them, because I have great respect toward the ROAC, and would like them to remain firm in the faith.
When any one bishop shows charity towards those in opposing synods, then others immediately think of the unity talks in which the Kallinikos Synod has engaged almost all those in True Orthodoxy.
My own Archbishop Stephanos has also been falsely accused of engaging in unity talks with the Kallinikos Synod simply because he also shows great charity as the defrocked Monk Kallinikos was previously with us. So when Archbishop Stephanos shows kindness and mercy as a loving father should toward his erring children, vicious rumors have been spread against him by the Matthewites under Monk Kyrikos who was deposed in 2005 for schism and heresy.