Mysterious OCA Metropolitan Enthroned

[mtcarmel]

The unpredictible vagaries that can accompany surfing the internet somehow brought me to The Cafe where I've read with a mildly distracted interest the various notes of a few astute observers re: Jonah's meanderings through the back alleyways and catacombs which is as we now know the real Orthodox Church. I don't know about anyone else but he sounds like a pretty smart guy, this man with shaky personal credentials & even shakier associations, who in a matter of a few months rises from obscurity as abbot of a mediocre monastery emitting a mild whiff of scandal to become OCA chief bishop in a time of extreme trouble where every candidate's past is being scrutinized as with a fined-toothed comb. Does anyone here know anything about Bp. Job (OCA) who was apparently the odds on favorite of the left-leaning ocanews.org church reformers? Is it true that Job actually set up a surveillance camera or two in the Moscow church/monastery loaned to the OCA by the MP to record OCA priests closing backroom deals with the patrician... umm, scandal-prone Russian trinket peddlers? I've heard rumors but never had the courage to get the real facts. And there has been expressed here some doubt about Jonah because he clearly lacked a Russian ecclesiastical pedigree? Thank you for your stimulating opinions. It’s breath of fresh air after being subjected to the stale hothouse atmosphere of the sex-obsessed Orthodox Forum (Yahoo) crowd. Keep up the good work.

[priestmark]

Don't forget the Order of MANS (Christ the Saviour Brotherhood) connection.

[mtcarmel]

Can you ellucidate on your comment?

you wrote:

Don't forget the Order of MANS (Christ the Saviour Brotherhood) connection.

[Catherine5]

While we await Fr Mark to reply to that tantalizing assertion - in fact there may be deeper roots of met Jonah in the Holy Order than is commonly realized - I wanted to say one or two things catalyzed by the earlier post.

Notice that Met Jonah's sensitivity or tact toward his church's long-time rival Rocor is non-existent from this quotation from his recent [incomprehensible] gesture toward Anglicans:
"I occupy the throne St. Tikhon held as the leader of the Orthodox Church in America." - who does he think he is? What about Rocor?!
Obviously normalizing relations with Rocor-Hilarion is next to the bottom of his political agenda or he wouldn't make such a controversial claim, sure to raise traditionalist eyebrows, at the least, of all are not friendly with the modernist OCA>

Also about that Manton monastery, a young Protestant who joined the OCA recently upon hearing the monastery's Abbot speak at a seminar about a pet topic, told a TOC member that he had attended Metropolitan Jonah's consecration of that monastery's chapel right after Pentecost. The star-struck convert, speaking breathlessly about his new metropolitan, told the source that there are now 20 monks residing there, with 13 on the "waiting list".
Apparently cell capacity has already been reached. More are under construction.
In short, the place is popular with world orthodox types.
Even the St Herman Brotherhood monks nearby on the other side of Redding freely acknowledge that virtually every Orthodox vocation these days heads to Manton, not Platina.
What is accounting for this demographic shift, we are working to learn more.
One thing is certain, however.
The Abbot was previously a priest in the MP, in The Netherlands. He has nothing but the highest praise for the MP.

Were strings pulled by the MP to get him sent to replace the [perhaps not administratively talented previous abbot, Fr Jonah, anyway] Though of course the change was effected when the latter was elected to his current high office.
Will this place be a hang-out, or transit point, for the MP's hidden friends roaming the western U.S. ?
What else is taking place there?

I have more to postulate, but thought I would mention these points to be considering, hope to get feedback!

[Pravoslavnik]

Well, frankly I am astonished to learn that Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) now sits upon "the throne of St. Tikhon."
I knew with certainty that St. Tikhon had issued a ukase blessing the establishment of the ROCOR, but I was not aware that he had ever blessed the establishment of the Metropolia/OCA. Can anyone refer me to a credible history of St. Tikhon's Metropolia/ OCA "throne" in North America? Was this episcopal "throne" perchance a posthumous gift donated to the Metropolia by Josef Djugashvili and St. Tikhon's other murderers in the Kremlin?

[mtcarmel]

I may have found my place for a time in discussion with you all.

Because I'm a simple soul I tend to gravitate to simple things.

A simple saying just visited me:

Ignorance is bliss.

You (all) dont seem to know (or you may have forgotten) the basic history of the one you claim to have given you the ukase to become ROCOR. Before the Revolution North America was a metropolitanate administered from (Holy) Russia and St. Tikhon was the patriarch who administered it, both from Russia and for a time during his sojourn in America as bishop. In fact, early on the Metropolia and ROCOR together met collectively to discuss the canonization of St. Herman of Alaska even after the revolution. One of the participants was Leonty (Turkevich) who later came Metropolitan of North America.

So I ask that you enlighten my simplicity and explain if possible how Jonah's claim -- to now occupy the same ecclesial throne as did St. Tikhon (and a number of others) -- is absurd one?

If you are going to claim St. Tikhon as your spiritual progenitor at least attempt to claim all of him and not simply those few clandestine and convenient parts by which he so graciously allowed your ROCOR to live on in the decadent West and not to die in the nobility of holy martydom for Mother Russia.

mt carmel

Our father among the saints Tikhon of Moscow (Russian: Святитель Тихон, Патриарх Московский и всея Руси) (1865–1925), Enlightener of North America, was Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia (1917–1925).

While in America, he established his cathedral in New York City, and presided over a vast archdiocese, encouraging and authorizing many publications in the English language. Among these, he encouraged the translation of the Eastern liturgy into English by Isabel Florence Hapgood, and he wrote an extensive catechism based on the Nicene Creed and the Our Father. His feast day is celebrated on April 7 by New Calendar churches, on March 25 by Old Calendar churches; his glorification is celebrated on September 26, and he is also commemorated on the feast of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, celebrated on the Sunday nearest to January 25, which was the date of the martyrdom of Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, the first Bishop of the new martyrs.

http://orthodoxwiki.org/Tikhon_of_Moscow

The stavropighial St. Tikhon's Orthodox Monastery was founded in 1905 by Archimandrite Arseny (Chagovtsev, later Archbishop), [b]with the blessing of then Bishop of North America, later Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia, Confessor of Orthodoxy, St. Tikhon (Belavin), and was dedicated to the saintly patronage of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, the heavenly patron of Bishop Tikhon.[/b] From the very beginning, the Monastery drew Orthodox pilgrims from all corners of North America, and played a key role in Orthodox mission on our continent.

Prior to the founding of the Seminary, St. Tikhon's Monastery had played an essential role in Orthodox theological education in North America by providing preparatory coursework to those individuals who would later apply for formal seminary training at St. Platon's Seminary in Tenafly, New Jersey. During those early years, financial assistance to the North American Mission of the Russian Orthodox Church and to Orthodox theological education had been rendered by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities in Imperial Russia.

With the onset of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, however, the young mission Church in America entered into a long period of administrative and financial difficulties. Because funding from the Mother Church in Russia was terminated, St. Platon's Seminary in New Jersey was finally forced to close in 1923, and St. Tikhon's Monastery once again became the only place in America where one could receive an Orthodox theological education until the opening, in 1938, of St. Tikhon's Pastoral School in South Canaan together with its sister school, St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York.

http://www.stots.edu/history1.html

[Pravoslavnik]

Mt. Carmel,

Code: Select all

    Interesting.  I always thought that the Metropolia/OCA was originally formed by a group of rebellious American hierarchs who departed uncanonically from communion with the Synod of the exiled Provisional Authority of the Russian Orthodox Church (i.e., ROCOR) [i]after[/i] the martyrdom of St. Tikhon.  Is this not what St. John, himself, has written?   I have read the monograph of St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco on this subject, but certainly do not want to misquote St. John.  Heaven forbid!  Also, did not St. Philaret (Vosnesensky) condemn the Metropolia/OCA for seeking autocephaly from the false Sergianist hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate in 1970?  Like so many questions in modern Orthodox Church ecclesiology, the correct answer about St. Tikhon's "throne" depends upon the legitimacy of the Sergianist "Church" hierarchy established by the anti-Christian Bolshevik state.   Does the Sergianist Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) of the OCA now sit upon the true "throne" of St. Tikhon in North America?   If so, it would certainly not be the first time in history that men have acquired a "throne" by murdering the man sitting upon it.