I have noticed a theme running through the many clergyman and numerous laymen of the World Orthodox jurisdictions that I have come into contact with and spoken to about True Orthodoxy. The attitude is what I call the “wacky bishops” viewpoint. The way it works is that they justify themselves and their own spirituality as being somehow separate from these “wacky bishops” who are engaging in ecumenism and so forth. They see this is as somehow only mildly untoward and at most only the personal sin of the hierarchs who engage in it. They believe that this is just something that you put up with in organized religion and that what really matters is what is going on in their parishes. These priests say things such as, “Well, I am not happy with what our bishops are doing with ecumenism, but what can you do? All I can do is look after my parishioners and say my prayers.” This attitude makes the bishops sound as though they are a million miles away from what actually happens in their parishes. This attitude is based on the mindset that because they themselves have not engaged in such behaviors that they are somehow insulated from their affects.
How sad is it to be embarrassed by your own bishops! What do you tell your people when they come to you and ask about these things? “Oh that’s just those wacky bishops, what are you gonna do with them. Just keep saying your prayers and don’t worry about it.” Then the priest proceeds to celebrate the Divine Liturgy on an Antimension with that wacky bishop’s name on it, and everyone states before God during the service that this wacky bishop “rightly divides the word of truth.” I often wonder to myself, what these wacky bishops would need to do before these people would think that they crossed the line!
Permit me to draw out this situation via absurdity (and forgive this comparison, but I feel it is necessary to illiterate the point). Let’s think about a situation from the “wacky bishop” viewpoint: Suppose someone put a church on the top floor of a house of ill-repute. I dare say that even the most progressive, liberal Protestant would blush at such a setup, but this “wacky bishop” viewpoint would cause the priest to say, “Yes, we know what goes on down stairs, but that’s just that wacky madam that owns the place. She gives us a good deal on the rent, so what are you gonna do. What they do down there doesn’t affect us.” Yet these “wacky bishops” of the World Orthodox are already joining with spiritual harlots in prayer. They give their people holy communion and they pat each other on the back and hobnob with one another calling each other “sister churches” and other such rubbish.
I know that there are many really sincere and good people in the World Orthodox churches, but they need to wake up and realize that their little islands of stability will be invaded one day by these wacky bishops, sooner than they realize. What, if anything, can we do when we come across these people!
