I am familiar with one priest whose parish leadership has repeatedly refused to pay for him to attend diocesan assemblies and pastoral gatherings. The same parish has previously objected to paying housing costs for the priest who is otherwise meagerly compensated.

I am familiar with a second priest in another jurisdiction and diocese whose leadership has done likewise. This parish has also been resistant to structuring parish finances to allow for a gradual shift to full compensation for this priest. (The more I think about this one, I’ve heard this from numerous brother priests.)

Other priests have taken on bullies in their parishes, only to receive disciplinary letters for telling the bullies to apologize.

Another brother was routinely berated and slandered by his own dean, shattering every attempt to build up a new parish as rumors took hold, such that he finally departed the diocese.

Yet another brother was the victim of an ugly alliance between a controlling layman and the rector of the parish, resulting in the priest’s “termination” (!) without any compensation or any means to provide for his family. He, too, left his diocese.

I know of three priests, all acquaintances, who were removed from their parishes by their bishops for the sole reason that they were not of a particular ethnic heritage. The parishes were healthy and growing at the time of their removal. Instead, the priests had to relocate (at considerable cost), to say nothing of coping with the upheaval of family life.

There is a common thread in all of these. Each of these brother priests found himself in his situation because of his ecclesiastical superiors, the deans and bishops who are supposed to be looking after them. Some of them refused to act, choosing to aid and abet the violence by leaving priests to be slandered by their jealous brethren or manipulated by their parish councils. Others priests were left in the position of advocating for their own well-being. (Diocesan assemblies and pastoral conferences are frequently the only time clergy have the opportunity to gather at the same time to share, develop friendships, and bear each others’ burdens.) Some of the deans and bishops themselves became aggressors, becoming wolves masquerading as shepherds, damaging priests’ standing in their parishes, or demolishing their livelihoods and compelling a relocation for entire families with but a letter.

The Church is not to be a congregational body, and our priests should not be forced into an “every man for himself” way of thinking. Yet, somehow, here in North America, there is a significant fraction of priests who find themselves in just that position. They dare not seek a dean’s or bishop’s counsel, because they might receive a cudgel instead of guidance or a listening ear. Some of these deans and bishops are quite visible through their writings or in the popular perception of their “gentle care.”

It is not confined to my own jurisdiction, the Orthodox Church in America. The examples above are taken from at least three jurisdictions. Worse, the instances I list above are but a subset of the cases I’ve heard. Details are omitted to protect the innocent from further mistreatment.

Dear readers: what cases have you heard of? What can be done about it? Your comments are appreciated. Please omit identifying details. (Be sure to read the preceding post about the new site policy.)

Update: Byzantine, Texas has a post that gives voice to what I have pondered myself. If a post-jurisdictional North American Church is ever established, what recourse would these priests have? At present, abused clergy have the option of pursuing a change of jurisdictions or dioceses. I suspect this is why some clergy aren’t all that positive about the prospect of a unified North American Orthodoxy.

Update 2: Priests who are or are have been in similar situations are invited to submit private summaries, either in the comments or via the contact page. Again, please omit identifying details. I will not divulge your identity (if I know it). I’m looking for trends along with representative samples that can be used to correct this sorry situation.

Like many other clergy in the Orthodox Church in America, I’m attending the 16th All-American Council. Also like many other clergy, I attended the first plenary session (or was it an episode of Oprah?) Monday evening. During the question and answer period that followed Metropolitan Jonah’s address and the responses from some members of the Holy Synod, the Internet came in for some rather negative criticism. (See AFR for the audio; time references below are for that version).

Bishop Benjamin (fairly) derided partisanship on the web:

I think one of the great challenges us to in this age is the Internet. And it is no secret that there are often dueling websites, this site for the metropolitan, this site is against the metropolitan. And it has made our life a living hell. And I would like to say to those who run those websites: just stop it, grow up, and get over yourselves. (applause) The Internet is a great tool, and we need to use it for good, to build up the body of Christ, not to destroy it or to wound its members. (1:20:45ff)

Metropolitan Jonah, in the final response of the Holy Synod to questioners, went further:

If there’s no market, if people aren’t interested in reading it, they’re not going to publish it. Right? You’ve gotta turn off the Internet. It’s fine for email, but I was quite surprised, for example, to find my own personal emails read to me, and even SMS texts. Isn’t this immoral, unethical, and just downright sinful? Brothers and sisters, our first task, we really have to think about how we are acting in regards to one another. As Vladika said, the children, what are they reading? No wonder. So, just remember, if there’s no market, they’re not going to publish. And if they do publish, who cares? Because if we don’t read it and if we don’t allow our minds to be polluted by this kind of verbal pornography. (2:25:58ff)

Time does not allow an extend response, so two brief thoughts:

Uninformed or malicious partisanship is bad for the Church. But what are we to do about the situation of the past year, where the most partisan of the websites (on both sides) were operated with the spiritual and material support of the highest levels of leadership in the Church?

Silence gives cover to the Evil One. In the first few months of this year, the faithful received leaked news from a questionable site, followed by information at OCANews, a video of the Metropolitan speaking from the ambo of his cathedral in DC, and, finally, the minutes of the most recent Holy Synod meeting. Not too long after this, OCATruth was established, and Monomakhos took up arms, anonymous mercenaries in service to then-unknown masters. The barrage of information was contradictory, inflammatory, and disconcerting, and spread all manner of spiritual infection.

In the face of this, the Holy Synod was silent. The Metropolitan Council didn’t say much more, in favor of allowing OCANews to function as its de facto press organization.

All of which leads me to recall the experience of Jesus in the boat with his disciples in Luke 8:22-25:

Now it happened, on a certain day, that He got into a boat with His disciples. And He said to them, “Let us cross over to the other side of the lake.” And they launched out. But as they sailed He fell asleep. And a windstorm came down on the lake, and they were filling with water, and were in jeopardy. And they came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. And they ceased, and there was a calm. But He said to them, “Where is your faith?” And they were afraid, and marveled, saying to one another, “Who can this be? For He commands even the winds and water, and they obey Him!”

Christ did not allow the storm to rage, keeping silent or murmuring soothing platitudes that “everything will be alright.” Rather, his first act was to stop the waves and the storm. He didn’t teach until after the disciples had no care about the tumult.

It is clear that the faithful of the Orthodox Church in America needed (and still need) someone to rebuke the waves and the wind, to calm the storm, to remove the fearful distractions that steal faith and joy. The same Internet that was the medium for the revelation of the problems (but not, in the main, the problem itself) could have been the medium for stilling the waves and bringing peace to God’s children. It’s time to go beyond silence, finger-pointing, and delegation of the public response. The Internet is not the problem. Our leaders should make it part of the solution, using the medium to dispel the storm of confusion, contradiction, and worry.

I encourage all visitors to read this full article carefully (i.e., much slower than “web speed”). St. Ignatius makes many helpful points regarding how delusions first appear to the fallen mind, how they then develop, and how they are especially common among “beginners” on the spiritual path.

As he says, “The most dangerous and most incorrect method of prayer is when he who is praying fabricates, on the strength of his imagination, dreams or pictures, borrowing them ostensibly from the Sacred Scriptures, but in actuality from his own sinfulness and self-delusion.”

I see the most recent post on another site ostensibly devoted to truth reads as follows (formatting as in the original):

Sadly, there is a “need to print,” and that’s why we’re printing this. The Synod has got to wake up and understand what it is doing to the Church. It sat around for years and did nothing about Met. Theodosius’s abuse of office. It did nothing but wring its hands over Met. Herman following in that tradition. When we finally got a primate who was uncorrupt and visionary, though one who needs help mastering the finer points of administration, oh, that’s when they suddenly got vigilant — and now are willing to risk tearing the Church apart to have their way.

The following table shows ordination dates  of the current members of the OCA’s Holy Synod, along with the dates of their enthronement as ruling (i.e., diocesan, not auxiliary) bishops and, as a result, full members of the Holy Synod. (Dates taken from biographies at oca.org and diocesan web sites; this really should be in one place.)

Metropolitan Theodosius served a primate from October 1977 until July 2002, with Metropolitan (then-Archbishop) Herman serving as administrator from September 2001 until September 2002 (during Metropolitan Theodosius’s medical leave of absence and subsequent vacancy of the Metropolitan’s see), and then as primate from September 2002 until his retirement in September 2008.

So, of all the hierarchs currently comprising the Holy Synod, exactly one of them, Archbishop Nathaniel, was on the Holy Synod during Metropolitan Theodosius’s service as primate. Five of the current members of the Holy Synod served there during Metropolitan Herman’s leadership. However, in their case every one of them with the exception of Archbishop Nathaniel were junior members of the Synod, having been enthroned as ruling hierarchs after Metropolitan Herman became primate. In addition to these five, the other diocesan hierarchs on Herman’s Synod included Archbishop Kyrill (Yonchev) of Toledo and Pittsburgh (now departed), Archbishop Dmitri of Dallas (now retired), Archbishop Peter of New York (now departed), Archbishop Seraphim (Storheim) of Ottawa (now suspended), Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) of San Francisco and Los Angeles (now retired), Archbishop Job of Chicago (now departed), and Bishop Nikolai of Sitka (now retired). [UPDATED 8:50pm: Added Archbishops Kyrill and Peter to the list of hierarchs. I regret the omission.]

Apart from Bishop Nikolai, those other bishops had significantly more episcopal experience than the four junior bishops. The political escapades and machinations of Bishops Tikhon (Fitzgerald) and Nikolai are now well-documented. Some questions still remain concerning Archbishop Seraphim’s role in the past scandals. Robert Kondratick’s actions and influence on the Holy Synod, Metropolitan Council, and OCA administrative staff are well known from the report of the OCA Special Investigative Committee (to be uploaded here ASAP; I can’t find it at oca.org at present). Archbishop Job of blessed memory was the only senior hierarch willing to pursue an investigation of the corruption going on at the time.

However, I need to return to the the Ninth Commandment. The quote above says The Holy Synod “sat around for years and did nothing about Met. Theodosius’s abuse of office. It did nothing but wring its hands over Met. Herman following in that tradition.” In terms of Metropolitan Theodosius, it cannot be true for seven of the eight current members of the Holy Synod (including Metropolitan Jonah). With Metropolitan Herman, it cannot be true for three of the eight current members of the Holy Synod, including Bishop Melchisedek, who is repeatedly accused of conspiring against Metropolitan Jonah. And, four of those five bishops that served on the Synod during Metropolitan Herman’s primacy were clearly dominated by those senior bishops who are no longer present.

Accusing the entire current Holy Synod of looking the other way and general hand-wringing with previous metropolitans is just plain false. The Holy Synod in April 2011 is very, very different from the Holy Synod of even 2005. Seven of its eight members have under eight years of service as diocesan bishops, six of its eight members have under six years of service. Four of them (half!), including the Metropolitan, have under three years of service as diocesan bishops.

Thus, the accusation that the Holy Synod is “willing to risk tearing the Church apart” in response to the Metropolitan’s being “uncorrupt and visionary” and his lack of administration skills is just plain false. Half the members of the Holy Synod have similar administrative experience, and three-quarters don’t have much more. The repeated assertion of this as some kind of self-evident axiom is a form of false witness by suggesting that the rest of the Holy Synod is acting only when their (corrupt) interests are threatened.

Leading (even as primate) means casting a vision, not imposing one. If the Holy Synod is balking at the latter, or, more likely, having great difficulty reconciling the stated vision with His Beatitude’s actions and inactions, it’s worth hearing them out. What was being handled as an affair internal to the Holy Synod has now been turned into a circus of suspicion and accusation. One must also ask what real vision is being presented and pursued by His Beatitude? A pro-life Orthodoxy? His predecessors and brethren have both articulated this (and His Beatitude was strangely silent a year ago). An evangelical Orthodoxy? The Metropolitan is not the only one pursuing that. (For example, Bishop Melchisedek has begun a pilot of Natural Church Development in four parishes in his diocese, and I serve a new outreach with his blessing.) An Orthodoxy with pious, monastic bishops? His Beatitude isn’t the only one. What else?

This entry isn’t intended to be critical of His Beatitude, but rather to call the Metropolitan’s supporters, particularly the Anonymous Cowards, to accountability. Accusing bishops of actions they could not have taken is, well, …what would you call it?

A post from a few days ago included some excerpts from then-Bishop Jonah’s address at the last All-American Council. It is no overstatement to say that this address was the primary cause of the council delegates’ sending his name to the Holy Synod. In repudiating the corruption, the secrecy, the autocracy, and the paralysis that had come before, it proposed returning to an ancient image for leadership, in both style and substance, within the Orthodox Church in America.

Within that address, the line that garnered the greatest applause was the monumental declaration, “Authority is responsibility. Authority is accountability, it is not power.” However, another equivalency can be derived from +Jonah’s address: “Conciliarity is obedience.”

Consider then-Bishop Jonah’s words:

But the leadership that is within the Church, the leadership of bishops and the dioceses of the Metropolitan among the Synod–because what it the Metropolitan? He is the chairman of the Synod. The leadership of a parish priest in his parish: If you sit there and you lord it over your parishioners that ‘I am the priest and I can do whatever I want and I can spend the money however I want without accountability and without…’ you are not going to go very far. In fact you are likely to get thrown out because you will get into all sorts of problems.

…

“[Our leadership] has to be a voluntary cooperation. And obedience, within that context, is not some kind of, some guy, who can lord it over you and make you do what he wants you to and you are going to get in trouble one way or another. Obedience is cooperation out of love and respect.”

Using these statements as a basis, one can then say that proper Christian leadership is ascetic, inasmuch as it is a denial of self and the setting aside of personal desires in exchange for the edification (in Christ!), harmony, and cooperation (synergy) of the whole. This does not lead to democracy, for it does not represent a transfer of authority from one individual to many. Instead, it is an authority that finds its force in persuasion and meekness rather than in personal fiat or coercion, an authority working to achieve unity and harmony rather than discord and resentment. (For the record, meekness is not the quality of weakness, but rather the strength of bearing insult and injury without resentment and violence.)

It is in this spirit that our diocesan bishops, even the primate, promise to live in obedience to the Holy Synod. It is in this spirit that the OCA Statute describes the relationship between the parish priest and flock: “No activities in the parish can be initiated without his knowledge, approval, and blessing; neither should he do anything pertaining to the parish without the knowledge of his parishioners and parish organs elected by them, so that always and everywhere there may be unity, mutual trust, cooperation, and love.” (OCA Statute X.4) And if this applies to the priests, how much more should it apply to the bishops of the Church.

Of course, many of us already know of St. Ignatius’s exhortations that the faithful be obedient to the bishop and presbyters (priests), as demonstrated by his epistle to the Trallians (in but one instance among many):

…Let all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters as the sanhedrim of God, and assembly of the apostles. –Ep. Trallians III

Not only is there the simple comparison of the bishop with Christ and the presbyters as the apostles, but there is also the depiction of the presbyters as the “Sanhedrin” of God(*), which is to say they form a consultative body established by the Holy Spirit, arrayed around the master. While the reading of St. Ignatius is complicated slightly by the difficulty of understanding the precise historical relationship between the offices of bishop and presbyter(**), the imagery is absolutely clear.

Further, in the same chapter, Ignatius emphasizes that the bishop’s authority is not wielded as a club (italics added):

For I have received the manifestation of your love, and still have it with me, in your bishop, whose very appearance is highly instructive, and his meekness of itself a power; whom I imagine even the ungodly must reverence.

Indeed, the life in imitation of Christ’s meekness is not the property of a single bishop, but is instead shared abroad among all those who hold the office. This life is led in a spirit of service that is willing not only to give spiritual admonishment but also to receive it from the lives and words of others (italics added):

I do not issue orders to you, as if I were some great person. For though I am bound for His name, I am not yet perfect in Jesus Christ. For now I begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as my fellow-servants. For it was needful for me to have been admonished by you in faith, exhortation, patience, and long-suffering. But inasmuch as love suffers me not to be silent in regard to you, I have therefore taken upon me first to exhort you that ye would run together in accordance with the will of God. –Ep. Ephesians III

Conciliarity is obedience, according to both Metropolitan Jonah and St. Ignatius. For a bishop, this kind of conciliarity is maintained particularly by communion, reciprocity, and mutual consideration – “voluntary cooperation” in the Metropolitan’s words – with his brother bishops, and secondarily in the shared prayerful deliberation with his flock. If the parish priest is exhorted not to say, “I am the priest and I can do whatever I want and I can spend the money however I want without accountability and without…,” what exhortation is to be given to our hierarchs?

As for the applicability of this understanding in our current situation in the Orthodox Church in America, more on that soon.

(*)The Sanhedrin functioned as the supreme court of Jewish life.

(**) St. Ignatius maintains a greater distinction between the offices of bishop and presbyter than the New Testament and patristic writers before him, but the presence of at least one bishop in each city leads to a natural conclusion that an individual bishop’s authority had a narrower geographical scope in the post-apostolic period than now.