Orthodox Reflections

Originally this was the publication of an open letter written by Archpriest Andrew Moore and printed here by his permission. We have withdrawn the letter per his request. We highly recommend his article on Orthodox bloggers found here. Prior to unpublishing, the letter was already directly read by 36,000 people, is already archived, and probably has been cross-posted elsewhere. The Internet is the closest thing this world offers to permanent. If you are ever tempted to publish something on a site with good traffic, please be sure you are ready for what comes next.

Thanks be to God, it appears that for the principles involved in the dispute referenced in the letter, reconciliation is possible. We ask that this be respected. Let’s forget about the personal aspects of this situation and let those involved work it out. In that spirit, we have also unpublished all the comments associated with this letter.

We do have some things, however, that we would like to ponder about this situation and its meaning for Orthodoxy in the US.

As writers who care about Orthodox missions, we have to consider the very troubling situation of St. Moses the Black in Helena. This mission was allowed to struggle for decades. How is it possible that it went over 20 years without a full-time priest? Even more incredible, how did it manage to survive that long? There must have been a truly dedicated core group, but then it seems that they chose to go elsewhere. What really happened? An investigation into that would be a very worthwhile endeavor. Orthodoxy in the United States struggles with missions. Understanding how such a situation could persist for so long would be worth the time and effort to uncover.

While personal aspects of this drama may have overshadowed this fact, it bears emphasis. It appears that the last straw for this mission was Archbishop Benjamin’s extreme lockdown behavior. Many Orthodox Bishops went full-blown Covidian by embracing changes to the practice of the Faith (no kissing icons, multiple spoons, limiting attendance, masks, etc.), closing parishes, forbidding clergy to visit the sick and dying, and pushing mRNA jabs. This blog got its start opposing those things. As a result of this deep betrayal, many Orthodox Christians left their jurisdictions to join parishes which remained open and active. Those parishes have also seen growth from inquirers seeking the True Faith. Too many damaged souls have sadly left the Faith altogether.

Now among COVID-obsessed hierarchs, Archbishop Benjamin truly stood out. We received more complaints about him in our in-box and comment sections than any other hierarch in the US, save for Archbishop Elpidophoros. We covered some of his COVID actions in this post. COVID exposed a general disconnect and lack of trust between the Orthodox episcopacy in North America and their parishes. None of this has been adequately addressed or healed. Orthodox Bishops need to have an “after action” report on the pandemic. The responses of the various Orthodox jurisdictions need to be deeply analyzed. Apologies need to be issued where needed. Policies need to be drafted so we know how the bishops plan to deal with future government-decreed “crises”. Absent this kind of leadership, the controversies of the past three years will simply continue.

In fact, they will get worse. The Twitter files taught the average person that the public was being manipulated and lied to by a public-private partnership of frightening power. Ongoing research has indicated just how poorly performing and dangerous the mRNA jabs really are. Estimates of the “vaccine” injured run into the millions. Our civil liberties have been curtailed in ways most of us could never have imagined possible in the US. Not only were most of the bishops unable to properly discern any of these dangers in advance, they are still yet to acknowledge their very plain existence. The fallout from this is not going away any time soon.

Further, as someone with a background in the OCA, this kind of “scandal” is all too typical. A situation involving charges and counter charges by clergy should have been quietly investigated and resolved. That it could be allowed to explode into this kind of public spectacle should be both an embarrassment and a wake-up call to the OCA. Some level of disorganization is inherent in the nature of the Orthodox Church. A favorite priest of mine used to say, “The Catholic Church is an organization that provides sacraments. The Orthodox Church is a sacrament that provides some measure of organization.” Even so, an Orthodox jurisdiction should have its act together enough to handle a routine mud-slinging match between clergy. if Archbishop Benjamin were unable, or unwilling, to investigate a situation within his diocese, then the Synod and the Metropolitan should have taken action. Everyone was notified. This conflict should never have been allowed to fester to this point.

As we have noted before, Orthodox hierarchs (overall) in the US are not good at communication, transparency, and public repentance. The Orthodox Faithful expect and deserve better than what they are currently getting.

We must also consider Archbishop Benjamin’s fitness for his job. The office of bishop is essential to the Orthodox Faith. Anyone wishing to abolish the office of bishop, or change its essential character, has departed from Orthodoxy and should be corrected. However, bishops are human, and thus are not infallible. Far from it. Bishops can and will make mistakes in the execution of their office. Some, sadly, will even make errors in their teaching of the faith. Pointing out those mistakes is not indicative of a “Protestant mindset”. Obedience to the dictates of bishops that abuse their office is not a tenet of the Orthodox Faith. We covered that here. Archbishop Benjamin has a reputation for exercising his office in a way that could be described as “tyrannical”. This is not indicative of mental fitness for the office of bishop. Further, even staunch defenders of Archbishop Benjamin say that is health is such that he is unable to walk due to Parkinson’s disease.

Archbishop Benjamin is advanced in age, infirm, and has a demonstrated track record of poor decision making. That raises the important question – why is he still in office? If he is unwilling to retire, why has the OCA Synod not intervened to encourage him? At his age, in his condition, why subject him to the rigors of continuing in a job he clearly can’t do? Perhaps it should be a written policy that Orthodox bishops should retire when they are no longer able to effectively lead their flocks?

The final thing to consider is the rift in Orthodoxy around the blogging world. The online Orthodox world seems to be splitting into various allied camps. This is a shame. As a general rule, the only individuals that we call out are associated with clearly unorthodox sites such as Public Orthodoxy, The Wheel, or Orthodoxy in Dialogue. Many of the spats between online Orthodox “personalities” appear, to us, as much ado about very little. Some of the conflict breaks down to differences over style. This content creator is “too edgy”, whereas this other one is “too soft”. Other conflict results from differences on how much emphasis to place on different topics (“too much Apocalypse”, “rebaptism at conversion”, “too much culture war”, “not enough culture war”). Even though frequently, objectively speaking, all the content on both sides of such blogging disputes is within the realm of acceptable Orthodox opinion.

So in the interest of furthering our journey through Great Lent, maybe Orthodox content creators (including those who post comments or participate in a forum like Reddit) could be more tolerant and charitable to one another.

Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America