This week, a group of Anglican traditionalists who have broken away from the Episcopal Church have declared the Anglican Church in North America. Met. Jonah of the OCA (my church) is in the Dallas area today to address the ACNA assembly. Today he told the group that the OCA has broken off ecumenical relations with the Episcopal Church (which Jonah was raised in) and established them with ACNA. Excerpt:
Asked what the OCA's stance toward ecumenism might be under his tenure, Metropolitan Jonah said, "If the matter concerns The Episcopal Church USA, then this dialogue has stopped. "We engage in dialogue with Episcopalian traditionalists, many of whom embrace the Orthodox faith," Jonah told a Moscow-based weblog. "And I personally, and our entire synod, give great attention to bringing these people into the fold of the Orthodox Church in America."
Hooray for Jonah, and hooray for ACNA. But I'm not sure how the ACNA folks will take the idea that they're seen as a potential weigh (way, sorry) station for entry into the Orthodox church. I mean, I hope they will ultimately come over, but still.
UPDATE: David Virtue's blog has a full report from Met. Jonah's speech to the ACNA today, which clarifies some things. Excerpt:
What would it take for this reconciliation to occur? The Metropolitan was explicit:.Full affirmation of the orthodox Faith of the Apostles and Church Fathers, the seven Ecumenical Councils, the Nicene Creed in its original form (without the filioque clause inserted at the Council of Toledo, 589 A.D.), all seven Sacraments and a rejection of 'the heresies of the Reformation."
His Beatitude listed these in a series of 'isms'; Calvinism, anti-sacramentalism, iconoclasm and Gnosticism. The ordination of women to the Presbyterate and their consecration as Bishops has to end if intercommunion is to occur.
These are controversial words, especially given the make up of the Assembly, which is admittedly divided on key issues such as the ordination of women, the nature and number of the Sacraments and perhaps the essential character of the Church itself. Still, the delegates welcomed his candor with applause, perhaps because His Beatitude was self-evidently "speaking the truth with love." Less controversially, he called for a true renunciation of sin and immorality, "We must eliminate any shred of immorality in our lives," not least because sin "kills and maims the soul," likewise immorality, which destroys the soul and "demoralizes our culture." Coming from a faith tradition fully alive to the aggressive threat of militant Islam, the Metropolitan issued the following warning:; a culture demoralized by immorality "cannot stand up to the strict asceticism of Islam."
He then spoke to the current blurring of gender identity. Homosexualism not only "destroys authentic masculinity, it destroys authentic womanhood." Again, "gay ideology is neither from nurture or nature... we cannot accept their lifestyle or validate their unions." These are not something healthy, but "something to be healed". His Beatitude was equally emphatic on abortion, "Abortion not only rips out the soul of the fetus from the body of a woman, it rips out her own soul also... We must stand together in an absolute condemnation of abortion." The Assembly rose in thunderous acclamation. There should be no doubt whatsoever that ACNA stands for the life of the unborn child.
The Metropolitan's words on the unity of the Church were equally well received. We must find, "unity of vision, unity of life, unity of being in Jesus Christ" in the power of the Holy Spirit. This is to be found in true orthodoxy, which means, for Jonah at least, not simply "right opinion", but also "right glory", which is discovered in the worship of God. This gives the faithful entry into the liturgy of the Angels and Saints as revealed to Moses, Ezekiel and St. John, being a true participation on earth in the worship of heaven. The same meeting of heaven and earth is to be found in the Church; this "is not simply human, it is divine," and to be believed in as we believe in Jesus Himself - not merely as a man made institution, who may or may not "like the same prayer Book", but as the organic union of Christians with Our Savior in the Body of Christ. Again, this met with spontaneous applause.
Sounds great to me. But I'm still not sure how that's supposed to work.
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Simon,
I think the rub here ultimately is that Anglicans welcome Roman Catholics and all other baptized Christians to participate in our Eucharist, but not the other way round. It's hard not to feel that lack of reciprocity or that absence of mutual respect as anything else besides a slap in the face, whether RCs intend it to be felt that way or not -- and I don't believe most of them do.
Bill Butler,
Best wishes to you are your brethren as you continue the Protestant tradition of schismatic behavior. Let's see, the ANCA now becomes the 23,659th denomination of Christianity. Congratulations Einstein.
"George in Tulsa,"
Since Orthodoxy is tied with Roman Catholicism for the title of the very first schismatic sect within that rather large Jewish schismatic sect called Christianity, I'll take it from one who presumably knows, on the basis of his brethren's thousand-year practice at schism, that such things can sometimes work out quite well in both the short and long terms.
Now, if you're still p*ssed-off at Met Jonah, go pull his beard out and leave me and the rest of us hellbound non-Orthodox alone.
Like "Roland," whom you (ahem) resemble *very* closely, you are as singularly poor an evangelist for Orthodoxy as "Roland" himself is for the Roman Catholic Church.
Nu, so now I'm an evangelist? Who knew?
Guys, I'm shutting this thread down. None of this is edifying.
BTW, Bill, non-Orthodox (not even Catholics) are allowed to receive the Eucharist at Orthodox churches. Catholics allow only Orthodox, of the non-Catholics, to receive their Eucharist, but I don't think the Orthodox church allows its communicants to receive in Catholic churches. None of this is personal; all of it is rooted in solid theological reasons, and if anyone from our church lords it over you, he or she is being most uncharitable -- but at the same time, we can't pretend that history never happened, or that it doesn't matter. Anyway, it's all a sad sign of Christian division, and I doubt it will be ended until the Second Coming. Alas.