The Courage to Have a Face
If anyone shows contempt of the prescriptions regarding the above matters and presumes to bother either the ears of the emperor or the courts of the secular authorities, or to dishonour all the diocesan bishops and trouble an ecumenical synod, there is to be no question whatever of allowing such a person to bring accusations forward, because he has made a mockery of the canons and violated the good order of the church.
Keep in mind that those wronged here were the bishops on the Holy Synod accused of wrongdoing along with several priests and leading laity. The OCA Truth crew has attempted to lead without having a face, and, at this point, we see why that’s a very, very bad idea. We are baptized by name. We partake of the Holy Eucharist by name. We receive Holy Absolution by Name. We are married or tonsured by name. We are buried by name. Why, then, wouldn’t we resolve our Christian differences by name? What holy purpose is served by hiding our identities when we express thoughts and opinions we feel need to be heard?
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Pauli:
May 5th, 2011 at 1:13 pm
it is hard to overstate the role that anonymity played in the damage inflicted by OCATruth.com.
I’ll say. It kind of creates a “false courage”.
Note that Muzhik has stopped posting there. I have all his posts saved on my hard drive. I advise you to do the same, Father. Just use the “save page as” selection in your browser. You have to go through every page to do this which is tedious, but it’s worth it just in case the entire site is rolled up and trashed.
I posted my take on all this today on my blog.
Karen:
May 10th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Thank you for your work, Father. What you say here is so true:
“In short, OCATruth.com was a nest of snipers drawing out their prey with a steady stream of half-truths, innuendo, unsupported accusations, taunts (“C’mon Fr. Bieberdorff [sic]“), and invective.”
Case in point in the first sentence of this post of an OCATruth supporter:
http://www.monomakhos.com/2011/05/damage-control-at-team-stokoe/
This m.o. is deplorable, and not less so when someone is willing to put their name behind their writing.