OCA scandal

[尼古拉前执事]

+Nikolai's Second Letter

+Nikolai's advice clearly went unheeded as on March 16, at the Administrative Committee meeting in Syosset Metropolitan Herman announced the dismissal of Fr. Kondratick as well as the hiring of Proskauer Rose LLP to investigate OCA finances back to 2001. These decisions prompted a second, scathing letter from the Alaskan Bishop, clearly written only days after Kondratick's dismissal but dated March 21st (in anticipation of +Nikolai's 5th anniversary of his episcopal ordination.) Following a brief introduction, this second letter to the entire Holy Synod (as well as the auxiliary Bishops of the OCA) begins with self-reflection. +Nikolai writes:

"....Today I find our Church under siege. I find us as a Holy Synod to be weak, ineffective and with little credibility among the clergy and virtually not respected by our Primate whom we elected. And it's our own doing. I am also compelled as a member of the Holy Synod to give advice to my brother bishops as they are to me at any time, even a right to do so, therefore, I write this.

I ask you where our credibility with the clergy and faithful is when after having discussed ad nauseam the alleged financial improprieties we still pursue this direction. It was again reiterated in Special Session on March 1, 2006 that these allegations were presented in the (sic) 1999 and dismissed. I personally presented this in 2002 and now in 2005 they are resurrected to new life, rather sure death in every detail. Was it not the decision of the Holy Synod to have the audits completed 2001 to the present and thereafter? And now we read in the papers that the audits will be done from 1990 to present - a quote from the acting Treasurer. These same reports make it look as if our former Chancellor is the culprit. Such a sad state for us! How much time we spent to draw a document that everyone was willing to sign and for what? And didn't we agree to have these audit reports presented at the Spring Session? We agreed after lively debate but with one voice!

And now I received as you did this letter to the Administrative Committee from our Primate dismissing the Chancellor. And to boot, this was done with two attorneys in the committee meeting. Who authorized outside counsel? Was this at the direction of our Church legal counsel? Who is paying for this? Are we so weak that this behavior of a primate who is acting like a ruthless pope has now compromised the audit? Have you seen the report from the computer company that states anyone with access could or could have changed any figures and now what? Was this termination another smoke screen to obscure what the real issue is? I want a copy of those Administrative Committee minutes unaltered and unsealed not like the minutes of the last Special Session that were never approved. And let me say those minutes, too, need to be read to us and approved not sealed away for the Metropolitan's eyes only. I don't like how he sees things!"

+Nikolai Challenges the Metropolitan
and the Statute

The Bishop goes on to criticize the Metropolitan for not residing in his diocese, and launches a personal attack on the credibility of Acting OCA Treasurer Fr. Paul Kucynda. The letter resumes:

"This is not a Primate that can be respected. ... Outside attorneys in an Orthodox Committee meeting, what's he hiding behind? What about the Primate stating that he has five bishops on his side. I am not interested in being one of those five but ask, are you, have you been consulted? What's wrong with the order of the Church that we may disagree and even be confrontational in session but that voice comes as one, not divided? Has he now purposely divided the Holy Synod to make himself look good or worse yet - powerful? I think it makes us all look very bad. We had a discussion right after he was elected about Primatial Prerogative. This is given by the Holy Synod and not something that he can assume or do at will. Article IV, Section 2,l, is not papal authority and neither is this termination of the Protopresbyter pastoral or for the good of the Church at this time. And that same reference upholds the canons.

My Dear (sic) brothers in Christ, I am advocating here in this letter for us to act responsibly in compliance with the oath we all took and to follow the canons. I didn't take an oath to uphold the Statue. They need to be revised and that should be our first priority but not to use what is uncanonical as a smoke screen. And that means all of us and most especially the primate. A violation of that oath is grounds for a church court if we cannot resolve an issue among ourselves. We are using the Statutes, that archaic, outdated and uncanonical document as we please while the true order of the Church is negated for the secular. We cannot serve two masters.

All of the active hierarchs are being copied on this letter as well as His Beatitude and I am not fearful to say anything to anyone in truth. I am also enclosing a letter I wrote to him on March 13, 2006. My dear brothers we must ensure the integrity of the office of the Metropolitan and be willing to die for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Asking your holy prayers during this holy Lenten season,

+Nikolai"

A Second Appeal for 'Silence' From Syosset

Given +Nikolai and +Tikhon's letters to the Holy Synod it is not surprising that both bishops will not allow the Metropolitan's Archpastoral letter for the Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt (April 9th) to be read in their respective dioceses.

Syosset has since posted the text of the Archpastoral Letter on the OCA web site at OCA.org. A day later, on April 6th, a second appeal was posted, this time by Serge Schmemann, chairman of the OCA Department of Communications.

Heir to one of the most famous names in the OCA, Schmemann's posting marks a new level of response by Syosset. It is notable not for what it suggests - Schmemann reiterates the Metropolitan's earlier plea to 'cease and desist' - but that it was posted at all. Until now the OCA website has avoided any reference, let alone reflection, on the crisis, apart from press releases announcing decisions of the Metropolitan. The Primate has clearly called for reinforcements.

• Mark Stokoe
  http://ocanews.org/news/Nikolaisletter4906.html

[Kollyvas]

Not surprising as +Nikolai was +Tikhon's chancellor. Those two always impressed me as being of likemind. Aren't they supposed to be monks? Which brotherhoods do they belong to? Whom do they confess to? And are their actions representative of Orthodox monasticism? Perhaps of the nonexistant theodosian variety. LOL!(Actually, New Skete is a legitimate but thoroughly liberal monastic foundation.) But what is all too telling is after all their smoke is blown away, they are trying to suppress an independent audit and are acting on behalf of someone removed from influence due his role in these clearly theodosian scandals. What are they trying to hide? I'm sure there's PLENTY of evidence up in Alaska about +theodosius' and others indiscretions. (Coughing!) If I were Vladyka Metropolitan, I would have had them both suspended by now with +Tikhon forced into retirement. After all, his only consistent achievement is the rule of a "virtual diocese." LOL!
R
Serge Schmemann's noble call for peace and unity surely has gone unheeded.

[Kollyvas]

http://www.oca.org/News.asp?ID=972&SID=19

Reflections by Mr. Serge Schmemann, Chairman, OCA Communications Office

Article posted: 4/6/2006 8:26 PM
Printer Friendly Format

Though I live in France, I have been following with growing dismay the dispute tearing our Church apart. Like many of you, I have not joined in the debate up until now, but have been praying that our bishops, priests and faithful find a wise and equitable resolution to the serious problems that have been revealed in our Church. I am writing now to appeal to you all, Vladyki, Fathers, brothers and sisters, to pause for a prayerful, Lenten reflection on what is at stake.

There is no question that serious allegations have been made of highly troubling failings in the organization of the Orthodox Church in America. There are members of the Church who believe that it would have been better not to tarnish the image of the OCA by making these problems public; there are others who believe full disclosure is essential if our Church is to be cleansed and set aright. I believe that all those who have spoken on both sides of the debate, on the Web and in private meetings, acted out of honest and profound concern for our Church. But it is imperative now to declare that this stage is finished: The issues have been made public, and our Metropolitan has ordered an investigation. We can question whether it was right to dismiss our Chancellor, we can question whether the process that has begun is necessary, proper or sufficient. But there is nothing more to be gained from arguments and reproaches: for better or for worse, we have embarked on a delicate, critical and perilous journey of self-examination.

At this stage, I earnestly believe that to continue to argue is to place the Church in far greater danger than it is in already. Internally, we risk creating permanent divisions and enmities; externally, we risk more damaging scrutiny and publicity. I know what I’m talking about: I have been a reporter all my life. The only question we must all address now, together, is how we can pull back, how we can restore unity, trust and faith in our dear OCA.

I am writing with three more weeks to go in Great Lent. This is a time of humility, of reflection, of silence. It is a time to set aside passions and bitterness. Think of all that our Orthodox Church has achieved in America. We took the deep faith that our forebears brought from captive and impoverished lands and gave it new life in a great new land, so that we could all “breathe free.” We have parishes in every major city of North America; we have opened seminaries, published books, produced new generations of priests and theologians, assigned chaplains to our soldiers. Our parishes are filled with children and light. We have truly created an Orthodox Church in America. Do we really want to jeopardize all this? Of course we have also stumbled and sinned, and this is the time of year when we confront that. But the confrontation must be a process of renewal and resurrection, not destruction.

So let us pause. Let the Web sites and exchanges fall silent for a while. If we are approached by reporters, let’s tell them there’s an investigation under way, and we have nothing more to say for now. Let’s resist angry thoughts and recriminations and think instead about how best we can heal ourselves and our Church. Our Metropolitan has taken a resolute and fateful step. Let’s pray for him and for our entire Church, that we may all emerge from this ordeal stronger and purer.

Serge Schmemann
Chair
Office of Communications
Orthodox Church in America

[尼古拉前执事]

4.12.06
Fr. Thomas Hopko's Letter
to the Metropolitan Council
http://ocanews.org/news/Hopkoletter319.html

Decried by Bishop Tikhon as "an unconscionable and mob-inciting RANT" in the days following the dismissal of Fr. Kondratick, OCAnews has obtained a copy of the Fr. Thomas Hopko's March 19th letter

addressed to the Metroplitan and the Metropolitan Council.

In the letter Fr. Hopko, former dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary, outlines some of the challenges currently facing the OCA. Fr. Hopko writes:

Your Beatitude, Reverend Fathers,

Brothers and Sisters,

Glory to Jesus Christ!

I ask Your Beatitude's blessing.

Given the present condition in our Orthodox Church in America, the hour has clearly come for Your Beatitude and the Metropolitan Council to insist upon a carefully organized and in-depth analysis and discussion of what happened to our beloved church that has resulted in:

• the financial scandal we are suffering

• the financial crisis we are now facing

• the divisions in the Holy Synod and the church we

are now witnessing

• the lack of communion and communication we are now enduring

• the anger, frustration, depression and outright cynicism among the clergy and informed lay people

we are now experiencing

• the disagreements that exist among us about the nature of episcopacy, authority and decision-making in the church (including our disagreement about the relationship between bishops, priests and lay people, the function of Orthodoxy in a pluralistic democratic society and the significance for our church of the

1917-1918 All Russian Church Council)

• our church's failure to integrate our archdioceses and dioceses into one cohesive, fully cooperating, ecclesial body

• our church's failure to be a powerful and effective force for the administrative and structural unity of Orthodoxy in North America

• a synod of Bishops that refuses to respond to questions and requests of the faithful, including a formal appeal of 70 highly respected senior priests

• a synod of Bishops that appears to have no need for the counsel of others in the church, including the church's priests, monastics, scholars and thinkers

• the reluctance and often outright refusal of some bishops to speak face to face with their priests and people about church doctrine, liturgical practices and parochial, pastoral and personal problems

• the failure of our bishops to meet together, and the priests to meet with each other, for the purpose of giving an account of their ministry, receiving and answering questions, and fostering unity of teaching and practice

• the impossibility to get a serious discussion on practically any church issue among the church's bishops and priests, and between the clergy and lay people

• the ordination of men to the clergy and the appointment of people to church positions lacking the ability needed to conduct their ministries fruitfully

• the absence of a system of formal performance assessment, continuing education and 'on the job training' of our clergy and church workers

• our church's failure to care for its trouble clergy

and their families

• the virtual reduction of church life among many clergy to liturgical services and ritual practices,

with uncritical imitations of old world practices and subjective alterations of our received rites and texts

• the virtual reduction of supra-parochial church life to liturgical services, ecclesiastical celebrations and social events

• our church's failure to attract American born Orthodox young people to our seminaries and monasteries (for if we did not have the converts, those born abroad, and the clergy children that we do in our seminaries and monasteries, we would have almost no seminarians and monastics at all!)

• the failure of our seminaries and monasteries to interact and cooperate with each other as a matter

of normal policy

• our church's failure to support and foster a vibrant monastic and missionary movement

• the disagreement among us about how our church and its parishes, institutions and faithful members should relate to non-Orthodox people, especially to Oriental Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians of various kinds

• the confusion among us about how we are to deal as a church and as individual believers with contemporary social, political, military, economic, sexual and bioethical issues

• the misrepresentation in and outside the church of its statistical figures (such as that our church has 400,00 members when less than 30,000 identify themselves as members)

• dioceses that have fewer members than their cathedral churches alone had 50 years ago

• the point where a church of 200 people is considered to be large

• the loss of the influence and respect that our church and many of its leaders once hand among Orthodox and non-Orthodox in North American and abroad.

These are just some of the most obvious issues and conditions in our church that require detailed, study, analysis and debate. Why are things the way they now are? Why do our bishops, clergy, and lay people think and act as they do? What has happened? How did it happened? Why has it happened? And what should

we do about it?

An in-depth study and debate on such questions as these will hardly be pleasant or easy. But it must be done. And it must be long, serious, free, candid, patient and charitable. The life of our church, and indeed, our eternal lives with God, depend on it.

Your Beatitude and respected members of the Metropolitan Council: Please do whatever it takes to see that such a study and debate take place. Do it for the clergy and lay people who elected you. Do it for our whole church, especially our children and grand- children. Do it for the people desiring to join the Orthodox Church. And do it for all Orthodox Christians and, indeed, for all Christians and all people who are suffering in their own ways as we are now suffering in our dear Orthodox Church in America.

I ask for your forgiveness and prayers.

May the Lord's Will be done.

Yours in Our Saviour,

Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko

cc: Holy Synod of Bishops

[Kollyvas]

I find it ironic I'm on the side of Fr. Thomas Hopko, +Archbishop Job & Serge Schmemann, but the other choices are:

a). +tikhon's, et al's cronyist BUNT to restore +theodosius' Indians.

b). Intentional blindness in the face of terminal corruption which will kill the Russian American mission undertaken by the OCA.

c). pokrov et al doing another hatchet job with biased and sensationalized propaganda they try to pass off as reporting...whose goal is scandal for pokrov's sake, no matter who or what innocents get hurt: odious & detestible. (Rumor has it that ms mapes of memo-gate fame has joined the staff of pokrov after a wink and a nod from certain high ranking "Orthodox progressives." pokrov's new motto now becomes, "Even though there is little or no evidence, it should be true or we'll describe for you how it could be true!" LOL! /satire/)

It's good +tikhon will be retiring this upcoming May: he can devote more time to what he does so well--quoting this or that "witty" secular divine or defending the secular humanist politics of the American left in his encyclicals on his virtual diocese, the Indiana List. (His monastic typikon must be quite liberal indeed!) I hate to say it, but:

VLADYKO! Khvatit uzhe!

Rostislav

Adding to Fr. Hopko's analysis, we have to be brave enough to change course and admit certain aspects of the past were STUPIDLY WRONG...holding people responsible to account.

[尼古拉前执事]

• The Lesser Synod will meet on Bright Thursday, April 27th in Syosset. The Lesser Synod is composed of Metropolitan Herman, Bishop Seraphim of Ottawa (Secretary of the Synod), Archbishop Kyrill of Pittsburgh, Archbishop Job of Chicago & Bishop Tikhon of Philadelphia.

• The OCA has announced to its employees that it will fail to meet its payroll this week. Employees at Syosset were given a note on Wednesday, April 12, explaining that paychecks would be late.

• Fr. Thomas Soroka has announced the closing of the OCA-Clergy list, a private forum composed mainly of OCA priests, as of Thursday, April 13th. Soroka noted that when the list was started on June 6, 1998, the “... OCA-Clergy forum was the first of its kind, using technology to bring clergy from the entire OCA together in a unique electronic forum and format....“

• At the conclusion of a recent letter to his Diocese, dated April 2nd, and posted on the internet by the Bishop on Saturday, April 15th, Bishop Tikhon of the West mentioned his retirement, again, this time specifying a date. The Bishop wrote: “I now intend, God willing, to retire soon after November, 2007, when I reach age 75. Right now some re-evaluations and reorganizings in my life must take place.”

[Kollyvas]

(Overdue...--R)

April 2, 2006
4th Sunday in the Great 40-dayer (Tessaracost) Venerable John, author
of "The Ladder of Virtues"

His Grace, Right Reverend Benjamin, Bishop of Berkeley, Chancellor Very
Reverend Protopriest Ian MacKinnon, Vice-Chancellor All the Very Reverend
Cathedral and District Deans The Very Reverend and Reverend Parish and
Monastery Clergy The Humble Monastic Men and Women of our Monasteries All
the Very Most Charitable Faithful of the Diocese of the West:

Rejoice in the Lord, all ye righteous: praise befits the just!

Having just been fortified with the Medicine of Immortality, as the Fathers
characterized the Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of our Lord, God,
and Saviour, Jesus Christ, I've been, as it were, practically driven, as an
ox or a cow is driven by a prod, to return to the Rector's residence of the
Holy Virgin Mary, Rescue of the Perishing, Cathedral and activate the
keyboard of that great missionary tool, the computer/word processor, in
order to convey to all of you that I am filled to overflowing with
gratitude to our Lord, and not solely for the heavenly and earthly
Communion, but also for your prayers, whose power I felt this morning more
than ever before in my life. As we often pray with the Psalmist, I
thought: "What shall I render unto the Lord for all that He hath rendered
unto me?"
I feel that, responding from love and not any obligation of transparency or
accountability (what an idea!), I should speak freely of myself in response
to your Faith, Hope, and Love, since by them you have given me a renewed
Hope. I informed the Diocesan Assembly a couple years ago that I had felt a
marked decline in my standard of performance as Your Bishop and that I felt
that I would need a Vicar in order to continue. You responded with total
trust and, as the other Dioceses that together with ours constitute The
Orthodox Church in America, as well as the Central Administration of The
Orthodox Church in America, that is, the Holy Synod, well know, made it
feasible that the Holy Synod could provide me with the blessing to have
that Vicar who in his turn has been a great blessing to all of us and who
can only increase in the Grace which God grants him through your prayers
and those of all the Faithful that will benefit from his service in the
future. However, in informing the Assembly, and through them you all, I
neglected to be entirely forthcoming about the occasion of that "marked
decline." It was the dread Clinical Depression, possibly exacerbated or,
rather, aggravated by the disappearance of youth. At the time of that
Assembly, I was already undergoing one of several succeeding courses of
treatment by my family doctor and a clinical psychologist recommended by
him at that time. I must say that, just as massage may make a sufferer from
cancer feel some relief from tension, etc., the courses of treatment, by
and large, had no measurable effect on the pathology of clinical depression
itself. Finally, not very long ago, my family doctor, having reached the
limits of the boundaries of what is appropriate, pharmacologically
speaking, practicable resources for an M.D. in general practice,
recommended me to a very fine man, a neuro-psychiatrist of great
intelligence, kindness and good humor who was able to prescribe for me
rather quickly, the right combination of medications. I feel that by your
prayers and these new medicines produced by the brains and spirit of
humankind for the benefit of humankind and enabled (whether man can see it
or not) by the true Physician, a cloud of depression soon faded away, never
to return, apparently, with the same force and effectiveness it once had.
The only outward, that is, physical-material evidence that this change had
taken place, was a return to a weight more consonant with my former
somewhat slender physiognomy, and the acquisition of a new red Honda
Element!
I want to make it clear, however, that my main motivation in writing now is
not so much informing you about myself as it is to act consistently with my
writing the letter I sent out at the time Bishop Benjamin was arrested for
driving after or during a drinking bout.
That is, I want to make it plain that there is no shame in publicizing
among the members of Christ's Church one's illnesses, diseases, sins, or
other failings; in fact, it is expected. "Confess your faults, one to
another," says the Apostle James. We are each others' keepers, physicians,
and, above all, co-sufferers and intercessors with Christ. How foolish it
is when we hide our failings or diseases, etc! Far from showing weakness or
vulnerability to anything evil, such confidence, hope, and, above all,
trust in God are essential paving stones on the Way, that is, the Holy
Tradition of the Church. Confess, ask for help. Hear and give help.
Without a ladder made of obedience, one may not be able to respond to
Christ's command to climb.
We must be watchful, alert, and trust God, that is, stay on the Way, keep
climbing the Ladder. When we are tested, tried, tempted by the likes of
Judas, the first bureaucrat to call the Lord to account and question his
disposition of offerings given in love , we must look to Christ, we must
look to our Holy Tradition, even to Church history, if Patristic theology
is "over our heads." It is hard to even imagine (unless one is able, a la
Mel Gibson, to imagine what was left out of the Gospel) a time or place in
the history of the Church where the faithful were discussing
accounting, "transparency", "accountability". In the heyday of
Constantinople, one heard that the natures of Christ were being discussed
at the barber. Is America, then, to be the great "dumbing-down" grounds of
the Church? There was and is only one Transparency that should concern any
Christian: making Jesus Christ visible to others. There is only one
Accountability that should concern any Christian, answering the questions
who and where our brother is.
I now intend, God willing, to retire soon after November, 2007, when I
reach age 75. Right now some re-evaluations and reorganizings in my life
must take place. I am trusting in God and hoping in you all that your love
and prayers will continue to be the source of great blessings for all in
the Diocese of the West and upon earth.
As an intercessor who needs much improvement, I remain, commending you all
to Christ's limitless love,
+TIKHON
Bishop of San Francisco and the West