Mysterious OCA Metropolitan Enthroned

[Catherine5]

A little more: I looked at the link, could not STAND to see the picture - looked like the devil might if not hiding his real appearance!
Oh definitely I had heard about the case, as an appalled Orthodox woman mentioned having read the writeup of this blood-curdling story in a West Coast paper, so I found it on the Internet. The article mentioned his 'repentance' at a monastery near Redding, but I understood which one when these OCA releases talked about Met Jonah as abbot of a monastery near Redding! One really must ask: what sort of abbot would admit a horrible offender like that into a monastery of men?! I know Orthodox will say "oh he was showing 'compassion' and 'mercy'". But that doesn't explain much. Only a very weak and malleable [key characteristics of those easily recruited by the strong-armed persuaders working for the RF] man would let somebody like that stay as a monk - for that's what the article said, that he was there as a plain monastic - to pollute his new monastic establishment!
Well who are the other monks there? Why is no information ever given about how many and who resides there? I bet it's just a very few. What sort of authentic monastic would tolerate having a devil in flesh around the place?
Why did the Pt Reyes monastery move at all, and who gave them the land in Manton, a place nobody ever heard of!
What about those missions he was supposed to established? Most observers are in such a state of 'bliss' at Met Jonah's election that nobody bothered to even check them. Now resume inflation happens in the business world and in every field.

[Catherine5]

I looked up about the Manton place, and found that the new Abbot, archimandrite Meletios, originally from the Greek Archdiocese, was [why?!] brought from Holland where he served at the MP church there - hmmmm. His very detailed, lengthy interview appears on none other than pravoslavie.ru, so we can deduce that the new head chosen to replace Archim. Jonah is on the fast track with the MP. Is the MP cultivating this place, perhaps with a long-range objective in mind? What could it be, to have a base for their long-term plants wearing monks cassocks to blend in where they will not be observed? Or, have it as an optional way station for operatives to fade away from view, out in this remote country town?
I looked at the photos and did not even see a very nice monk who formerly was part of the brotherhood there. Did some of the best ones leave, and other mysterious residents have been brought, or WILL be brought there?
The location of Manton is interesting: it forms the right side of a diamond shape with Platina exactly on the left, and Redding on the top with Red Bluff on the bottom point of the diamond.
Might be worth keeping an eye on developments there.
Back to the MP Publishing Dept, nobody but nobody spoke English there even in the 1990s when Russia was the most open to Americans of any time in Soviet history! So what did they need young James for? If he had a high education, perhaps he could have been writing or editing their English language material, like the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. But that latter was not likely to have been a priority for the MP. So, it's my guess that he did no work at ANY of their branches. So why did they sponsor James by giving him the perhaps cover of a respectable-sounding job with them? Sounds like an excuse for him to be over there.

[Pravoslavnik]

It all seems truly MYSTERIOUS to me. Who is Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) and what is the history of his skete in Redding, California (formerly of Point Reyes, California) ?? I believe that I received a copy of a journal that the skete had published several years ago with a reprint of an old prophecy of St. John of Kronstadt. At the time, I mentioned the journal to ROCOR Archbishop Kyril (Dmitrieff) of San Francisco and he, himself, had never heard of them... Does anyone know anything about them? I certainly do not want to slander Metropolitan Jonah, but find it puzzling that a major institution like the OCA would elect someone as their new first hierarch without having more publicly available information about the man and the monastic institution that he has been running. It seems like a carefully orchestrated fait accompli that reminds me of the ROCOR All Diaspora Conference of 2006 that led abruptly to the takeover of the ROCOR by Moscow with almost no information or public discussion by the Orthodox Christian community in America...And, incidentally, who promoted Jonah to the "auxiliary" bishopric of Fort Worth, Texas last summer? And who nominated Jonah as OCA Metropolitan? Any information from our brothers and sisters in Christ?

[Kosmas]

http://directionstoorthodoxy.org/n/amer ... elate.html

Now can anyone show me if this Episcopal is an Orthodox Christian let alone a high ranking bishop. I have learned from multiple sources that Jonah was first baptized as an Episcopal but never learned if he was baptized an Orthodox Christian. Is there any evidence of his baptism into Orthodoxy, even if it be through a very questionable jurisdiction like the OCA?

Many regards,
Kosma

[Catherine5]

I thought Kosmas made an excellent point about the absence of any baptism into Orthodoxy, anywhere.
So I investigated to try to learn if that had ever occurred, even at the local San Diego MP den of spies which the future Metropolitan Jonah attended for an entire year, I found out from his own speech while still a hieromonk about his path to and in Orthodoxy.
NOWHERE in this detailed, folksy fireside chat did he once mention any allusion to being baptized. Certainly that major landmark on his route to becoming an Orthodox monastic would have been highlighted, with the date given and the name of the priest. [I think he said it was a Hispanic priest, but that was the only mention]
I betcha there was NO baptism ever into Orthodoxy. There's no need to dispute whether his baptism was valid or not - because it never happened!

Further, the future OCA Metropolitan confided to his audience that though there existed a St John of Kronstadt Church too in San Diego, he considered it far too "Right-Wing", and hence apparently he distanced himself from the reactionary- in classic leftist terminology - ROCOR!

What does the current Metropolitan of the OCA's pejorative putdown of ROCOR as "Right-Wing" tell us? This was an ideologically lefty kid who chose the MP not by accident, but on purpose, as it fit with his-- perhaps-- socialist bent of mind.
These may well have been absorbed or augmented at his college of choice, UC Santa Cruz. But let's look at the type of person who attended UCSC.
[I was a New England student, but say I had considered California universities, no one could have paid me billions of dollars to go to that place. It would have been my last choice in the country with its freeliving hippies, risque people and lifestyles - including notorious homosexual permissiveness....Nor was it anything remotely challenging academically, to put it politely, but merely a laidback party school and surfer haven at the very best!]

To sum up, we don't have a very bright person under consideration here, let alone one who was baptised at all into Orthodoxy. And one definitely tainted by too close association with some improper parties

[Kosmas]

Thank you so much Catherine.

"There's no need to dispute whether his baptism was valid or not - because it never happened!"-C5

Then it is no accident that the OCA enthroned such a person. Just by enthroning an unbaptized, the OCA declares to all the heterodox that they too can enjoy union and even attain the episcopacy without the saving grace of Holy Baptism.

It took some time but after reading about its schismatic origin and KGB influence, I know that the Orthodox Church of America (OCA) is False-Orthodoxy incarnate!

Much thanks

[Catherine5]

Glad that you were able to benefit by that info. I'll be having more, too, but do not wish to write much until I have checked out rumors, if possible.

Meanwhile, let's take a look at ROCOR-H's new Bishop Jerome of Manhattan for some similar questions regarding partly-concealed sympathies for the Soviet system embedded deep down in a pro-Muscovite "Church" naivete.

This interview appeared awhile back. This excerpt of the interview with NewBishop Jerome has worried me ever since. It stood out from the rest of the text with a figurative Red Post-It arrow pointing to it:

---"Vladyka [Jerome], have you had occasion to visit Russia?

– Yes. The first time was in 1967, as a student of Pittsburgh University, where I was studying Russian. Two years later, during the Brezhnev era, I again visited the Soviet Union. The third time was for the celebrations on the reunification of the two branches of our Church. And soon I will be going there for the Council of Bishops and Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church.

–-- Did you know His Holiness Patriarch Alexy?

– I had three conversations with him: the first time in 1967 in Tallinn, and twice more in 2007. There is even a documentary which includes an incidental conversation I had with Patriarch Alexy in the altar. "

Maybe this is not the right thread to look into this eyebrow-raising revelation about a MP-ROCOR hierarch. But, isn't that STRANGE -- how would a young AMERICAN man be even PERMITTED to have a conversation with then-Metropolitan [or Abp?] Alexey [Ridiger] immediately upon his FIRST VISIT TO SOVIET RUSSIA to that then-captive Baltic nation?
One would think that at the height of the Cold War, an American would not be permitted ready access to a KGB-trusted Moscow patriarchate figure?
NewBishop Jerome seems to have always cherished the memory of meeting this powerful satrap of a province of the State-run "church".

But maybe his background needs a little looking into. It's possible he was on some sort of exchange program. I myself was invited to be my high school's representative for the People-to-People program one summer for an intensive trip through Russia. But I didn't go, though I would have been curious to travel behind the Iron Curtain. But seeing the system there as the enemy, not a fascinating place as NewBishop Jerome seems to have.

No doubt the next question in the interview about his attitude toward the union of Rocor and MP follows quite directly: that his openness to Soviet anything was forged somehow alongside his interest in Orthodoxy; thus many years later this clergyman became a loud propagandist on behalf of the MP to assuage all Rocor fears about uniting with that perceived Enemy.