Archbishop Elpidophoros, Ecumenism, and Orthodox Jurisdictional Unity

Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Greek Archdiocese of America has been, to put it mildly, controversial since his enthronement. Marching with BLM, advocating multiple spoons at communion, seeming to endorse Joe Biden during a prayer at the DNC, and now his speech on The Future of Orthodox-Catholic Relations in the U.S.A. There has been a lot of reaction to the speech. You can read it and/or watch the speech here. The speech has gotten both positive and negative reviews. Some of those defending the speech said that while many barriers to union exist, it is good for us to at least be on a journey together with the Roman Church. Those questioning the speech are often concerned that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is trying to push through a union with Rome that will compromise the Orthodox Faith.

We will leave the discussion on the wisdom of ecumenical dialogue with Rome for another day, as concern over it was not really our first reaction to this speech. Our first reaction was sheer confusion. How can the Greek Archbishop hope to unite with Rome, when we can’t even bring unity between multiple Orthodox jurisdictions in North America? For a century now, we have had multiple Orthodox bishops ruling over the same cities while their parishes pretend, for the most part, as if their fellow Orthodox Christians do not even exist.

Father Josiah Trenham, in an insightful video, had this to stay about our current jurisdictional nightmare:

Father Josiah TremenAs long as we continue to live in these unorthodox jurisdictions, we are trivializing ourselves in the face of the American nation and we are showing that we do not have the love that is sufficient, which is the love of Christ, for each other. We have made no progress towards Church unity. The state of the Churches today, the Orthodox Churches, in relationship to each other in America is far worse than when I converted almost 30 years ago. And it was already going down from the 70’s, which was kind of a peak. I encounter this question of our divisions with our converts constantly. Many converts are simply turned away once they find out that we are content to live apart from each other. That Orthodox believers who hold the same faith don’t actually live together, pastorally speaking, in a common diocese because there are multiple bishops in all of our cities, all of our major cities. This is a humongous false witness .It’s a witness to a faith that is not Orthodox. This is intolerable.

When a priest who has devoted his life to converting Americans to the Orthodox Church describes her situation as “intolerable,” then we all need to pay attention. But it is precisely this “intolerable” situation that no one seems to be addressing. The Greek Archbishop happily spends an hour talking about the need to unite two religious bodies at odds for a millennium over a host of Theological and dogmatic issues. But His Eminence never seems to find the time to discuss uniting disparate jurisdictions who actually all share the same Orthodox Faith. 

Whether ecumenical dialogue with Rome is a good idea, a bad idea, or just an idea, our separation from Rome is not “trivializing ourselves in the face of the American nation.” Dividing Orthodoxy into multiple, competing jurisdictions is. The divisions harm evangelism, retard the development of viable local communities, make Orthodoxy appear “foreign,” keep our Church in America focused on foreign events, tie up financial resources through duplication of efforts, and ironically, harm Roman Catholics. The ongoing collapse of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States has encouraged many traditionalist Catholics to consider converting to Holy Orthodoxy. As soon as they make that interest known, they are frequently challenged by other Catholics with the question, “Which Orthodox Church are you going to join?” Whether we are united in one Faith or not, our differences are turning away hurting, lost people who desperately need the Orthodox Church.

And we apparently are just fine with this situation, even though we shouldn’t be. As Father Josiah made clear, our current situation is unorthodox and it is intolerable. As the Orthodox Faithful, we have to stop accepting an intolerable state of affairs and pretending it is just normal. We all know it isn’t.

American flag burningIn the United States, we are facing daily riots. We are facing church restrictions or closings in many states, even as other states open up fully. The coming election promises to bring more violence and confrontation. Mainstream political operators and commentators are actively talking about potential civil war or an attempted “color revolution” resulting from an indecisive, contested election. Millions are out-of-work, the economy is struggling, and social pathologies from addiction to suicide ideation to child abuse are exploding.

But did you know that none of what is happening in America is addressed on the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops Website?

assembly orthodox bishops

If you look at the Assembly website (pictured above), you will see that the Successors to the Apostles don’t have much to say about what is happening in America. Police Officers are being shot while cities burn, but no one in a Mitre seems willing to comment. But fortunately, the bishops did take notice of an explosion in Beirut and the conversion into a mosque in Istanbul of a former church building that was lost in 1453 A.D.

The need for reunion with Rome is not nearly as serious a problem as the fact that our bishops appear to have no connection to each other or to the nation in which they find themselves serving the Risen Christ. “Out-of-touch” does not begin to describe this situation. We, the Faithful, just shrug our shoulders and carry on.  We even make excuses for the situation, so desperate are we to just live the Faith in our parishes.

Rainbow MassMaybe Archbishop Elpidophoros doesn’t understand this, but we don’t live in a remote, mountain village somewhere in an Orthodox country. In the United States and Canada, becoming Catholic is 100 times easier than becoming Orthodox. We all drive past local Catholic parishes on our often torturous commutes to find canonical Orthodox ones. Many of us either were Roman Catholic, or at least considered converting to Roman Catholicism before choosing the much, much harder route of joining the Orthodox Church. We aren’t ignorant of the Roman Catholic Church. We know it, and we have consciously chosen to not be a part of it. We don’t want to attend Roman Catholic liturgies with folk music. We don’t want to partake in Roman Catholic sacraments. We don’t want to expose our children to modern religious “art.” The Orthodox Church is not the same as the Roman Catholic Church, and we know that firsthand.

We have chosen to be Orthodox Christians, and we want our bishops to focus on building our Church in this nation, our homeland, for the Glory of Christ’s Kingdom. We are here. What happens here matters to us, and to our children, whom we are sincerely trying to rear as believing, practicing Orthodox Christians.

Archbishop Elpidophoros called out the issue of mixed-marriages in his speech:

Finally, allow me to speak of a more difficult and painful situation in the life of many of our faithful: the question of mixed or inter-Christian marriages. Allow me to clarify my views on this question, as I remember that my statement back in February of this year at the Leadership 100 Conference generated much controversy. Today, the 63% of marriages that take place in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese are marriages between an Orthodox and a non-Orthodox Christian. These numbers may even be higher because our data does not take into account Greek Orthodox Christians who marry outside of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.

Multiple contributors to this blog had spouses convert to Orthodoxy prior to marriage. One of us has a son whose fiancée is a catechumen. She will enter the Church prior to the wedding. We always thought this was how it should be. The Orthodox Church is the foundation of Western Civilization. It is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. That is how we presented the Faith to our future spouses. Why would you not want to be a member of the one, true Church founded by Jesus Christ?

But Archbishop Elpidophoros just assumes that Orthodoxy is something you are born with like your hair and skin color. Instead of worrying about how to handle mixed marriages pastorally, why are we not concerning ourselves with how to evangelize non-Orthodox spouses so as to convert them? Sure, in the “old country” converting to Orthodoxy could carry heavy consequences. But we aren’t in the old country, are we? While you may not be able to convert to being “Greek,” you can certainly convert to Orthodoxy. The emphasis should be on how to grow the Church, not on how to solve “mixed marriages” that ideally should not even exist.

Our current jurisdictional horror show is not solely the fault of the immigrant communities. It is not solely the fault of the bishops, many of them foreign-born. It is not solely the fault of the ethnic cradle Orthodox who still think of their parishes as cultural centers, rather than as living Christian communities. It is not solely the fault of rich donors or politicians. Nor is it solely the fault of foreign hierarchs who use their American communities too often as piggybanks and, in some cases, as means to gain influence with powerful political and business interests.

No, there is plenty of blame to go around. Those who collaborated on this article are adult converts to the Faith who are raising, or have raised, cradle Orthodox children. We have contributed to this problem as much as anyone else. Every single one of us is guilty before God. We have all failed Him.

Each and every single one of us. It is time we stopped. If we can’t have enough love in Christ to unite with our own Orthodox Brethren, then talking to anyone else is simply a waste of time that leads to even more bitter divisions. It is time that the Orthodox in this country put our own house in order.

Orthodox Reflections Contributors from Greek Archdiocese of America, Orthodox Church in America, and Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America

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