Another Jurisdiction Poll

[Justin Kissel]

Stephen,

Greetings, and welcome to the forum!

For some of us, the struggle is in finding the Church, and in finding a place within the Church that we can live out life in Christ with a clear conscience and focused heart. I believe that some Saints could identify with this, having gone through a couple false religions themselves before (and sometimes after!) their conversion to Orthodoxy. I'm sorry that we have to speak of different "jurisdictions" at all. It'd be nice if the only differences we discussed were in customs or tendencies between Orthodox Local Churches.

From the perspective of the great majority of the Orthodox today, it is probably hard to understand why all the fuss. Why not just say we're Orthodox? Why not just say "I'm in Christ's jurisdiction"? Well that's a wonderful response, the the keystone of Orthodox ecclesiology and life is Jesus Christ and the Trinity! Yet, we must all be under specific bishops and priests. Some of these are good, some are bad: holy tradition teaches us to be on our guard. "But there is one thing you must beware of, I assure you. Bad bishops. Don't be overawed by the dignity of the throne. All have the dignity, yes; but not all have the grace." (Gregory the Theologian)

If we were to read an account of the early groups claiming to follow Jesus Christ, though we dressed it up using modern labels, I'm sure that most people would consider it sectarian. Even some of the language in the Scripture could seem sectarian. There's been divisions (including geographical and ethnic, theological, and other) in the Church from the beginning, that's just the way it is. One reason that Orthodoxy has always seemed to mirror the early Church to me is that it didn't try to force a false unity/togetherness onto everyone. We have Paul and John attacking people by name in their letters in the New Testament, and we have Orthodox hierarchs doing the same today. Now, if I followed Paul and John, and avoided those who were their enemies, why would I not follow Paul and John's rightful successors, and avoid those who were the modern day enemies of God's shepherds?

[Mor Ephrem]

Dear Nektarios,

I highly doubt that H.E. Metropolitan Philip is going to write you a letter contradicting H.B. the Greek Patriarch of Antioch regarding the Oriental Orthodox. Maybe about autonomy, but not about us.

[Anastasios]

Andreas belonging to the GOA currently and thinking about joining would be a complete step down. In my opinion. The anglicans of Orthodoxy is what I call them.

In Christ
Nektarios

Ha the GOA has a much more Orthodox mindset than your convert-controlled Protestant-looking Antiochian Church! The GOA has 20 monasteries. How many do you guys have? The GOA has bishops that look like Orthodox bishops. Do all of your bishops? I am not saying the GOA is perfect but the Episcopalians of Orthodoxy would definitely by the Antiochians!

anastasios

[Etienne]

Justin,

Thank you for your warm words of welcome. Yes, I agree that finding and clinging to the Ship of Faith appears even more difficult in this age. What concerns and depresses me is - forgive me - the tone of some of the contributions. In my many travels through Greece I found many struggling to follow a Christian life of struggle. Regardless of which 'box' they originated in. At times I also witnessed things that were out of place, again regardless of the 'jurisdiction' on the door plate.

Here a thought comes to mind. A priest found some Old Calendarists, who were in communion with his 'jurisdiction'. They had access only very infrequently to a priest. He offered to come to them on a more frequent basis. No, they did want his Christian offer. The kind priest was left with a strong feeling that this situation - a righteous seperation - might have more to do with wanting to legitimise their absence from Divine Services.

A life of Christian struggle appears so hard, and it is tempting to grasp any excuse to avoid it. For me these sometimes - forgive me - 'yah, boo' style debates or seemingly legalistic point scoring provide little but disincentive. When reading the Fathers approach to those in danger of error I appear to see a different and very considered approach.

A united witness to a largely uncaring world bound up with shallow concepts such as the 'pursuit of happiness' would be difficult enough in these times. Endless squabbles over which 'jurisdiction' we might be in next week seem distracting and off putting.

One further point. Mention is sometimes made of 'cradle' versus 'convert' in these forums. A Serbian priest once made the point to me that each man and woman makes a choice at some point, regardless of how and when they came to Orthodoxy, about whether we will engage in the Christian life. In his words, when making that choice we all become converts.

Respectfully,

[Andreas]

I meant for language reasons. Don't think I feel the GOA are heretics or something.

[Justin Kissel]

I wanted to bring this thread back up to the top, because I am again hearing talk which I think is unfair criticism of this forum. The talk, this time, is the idea that the majority of people on this forum think that almost everyone outside their own synod is graceless. First of all, that is not true of most people on this forum who are in the more traditionalist groups (GOC, TOC, ROAC, etc.) Most members of most of these groups recognize that there is indeed grace in groups outside their own. In fact, I'm not sure that there is even one member on this forum who think that only their group has grace (though there may be one or two I'm not aware of). Therefore, this type of language mentioned above is nothing more than a misleading caricature.

Secondly, as the poll on this thread shows, most people on this forum are not even in the more traditionalist groups. The breakdown might be made as follows:

Less Traditional Groups (GOC, EP, MP, Serbia, Antioch, etc.): 8-9
Traditional Groups (Serbians, ROCOR, JP, TOC, etc.): 17-18
More Traditional Groups (ROAC, GOC, ROCiE, HOCNA, etc.): 12-13

I do not make these divisions, of course, in order to say that one group is better or more Orthodox than the other. I'm merely pointing out that there is far more diversity on this forum than it is often given credit for. I'm not saying we're a melting pot, exactly! but it must be admitted that numerous subjects (e.g., grace, the MP, ecumenism, etc.) are debated vigorously on this forum, from all sorts of perspectives. And like I said above, even the more traditionalist here are more moderate than they are often given credit for (though I believe it is partly our fault that we are misunderstood, since we spend a large part of the time speaking in a way and about things that makes us come off as unloving and sectarian, and makes us appear to be more worried about strictly following the canons than about our brother's souls).

[Nektarios14]

Less Traditional Groups (GOC, EP, MP, Serbia, Antioch, etc.): 8-9
Traditional Groups (Serbians, ROCOR, JP, TOC, etc.): 17-18

So what is the difference between Serbia and the Serbians?