This most recent instalment of Archbishop Paul’s Reflections appeared on January 20 on the Orthodox Family Life page of the website of the Diocese of the Midwest, Orthodox Church in America.

Two weeks ago I posted about why Jesus needed to be baptized. I then went on to celebrate Theophany Liturgy at Holy Trinity Cathedral. I had a glorious experience. The feast taught me about what community is, as the “worship of the Trinity made manifest.” I truly believe that we find true communion with one another in the waters the Lord sanctified when He entered the Jordan. The waters we prayed over that day became waters of sanctification, salvation, reconciliation, and love.

Then I went home that day only to observe the horrendous sight of our nation’s Capitol being invaded. The Congress needed to suspend their work for a short time to be kept in a place of safety. Thankfully, by evening, the Congress was able to reassemble and continue their work. I felt as if I went from heaven to hell that day.

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This article by Doug Mainwaring appeared earlier today on LifeSite News with the title Priest suspended for attending Jan. 6 DC rally is target of LGBT attacks. LifeSite had previously gone after Orthodoxy in Dialogue for our support of Father James Martin, SJ.

We question whether Father Hodges has the blessing of Archbishop Paul (Gassios) to speak to the press, especially as he repeatedly refutes His Eminence’s reasons for suspending him.

LIMA, Ohio, January 25, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — The priest who was suspended after attending the controversial “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington, D.C., earlier this month believes that news outlets covering his story are overlooking the crucial role that LGBT activists played in triggering his ordeal.

Fr. Mark Hodges, an Orthodox priest living in Ohio (who is also a former LifeSiteNews writer) said that when he has communicated with media outlets reporting on his story, he has been careful to point out that “LGBT targeting” is “the origin of this controversy.”

None of the more than three dozen local, national, and international reports mention that significant detail. “They sidestep it completely,” noted Hodges.

The Orthodox priest said that he attended the January 6 event not as a Donald Trump fan but as a supporter of election integrity.

“The rally was advertised as an entirely peaceful protest for election transparency,” said Hodges. “To me and to nearly everyone I talked to at the rally, it wasn’t about Trump versus Biden, or Left versus Right, but about free and fair elections.”

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While we applaud the Assembly’s commonsense statement, it seems symptomatic of the strange times in which we live that some of the faithful need a “blessing” to see their doctors for their medical care.

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This brief op-ed appeared yesterday on the Kyiv Post website.

On January 6, Father Mark Hodges of the Moscow Patriarchate’s daughter church, the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), traveled from his home in Ohio to Washington DC to participate in Donald Trump’s conspiracy theory-driven Stop the Steal rally, where the then-President had promised his supporters “a wild ride” in their efforts to overturn a democratic election by any means possible. The highly combustible, seditionist rhetoric that morning—by the President, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and his son Donald Jr.—erupted in a violent insurrection against the United States government which left five dead, including a Capitol police officer bludgeoned to death by a rioter wielding a fire extinguisher.

Hodges showed up at the rally in his cassock and pectoral cross, purposively identifiable as an Orthodox priest and a representative of the Orthodox Church. Were it not for a concerned reader of Orthodoxy in Dialogue, the blog that I founded in August 2017, no one but Hodges’ Facebook followers would have known of his activities in Washington on that deadly day. Instead, our publication of our reader’s open letter to Hodges’ diocesan bishop, followed by his open appeal to Hodges himself, has gotten Hodges suspended from all priestly functions for three months. He faces the possibility of permanent defrocking. Archbishop Paul Gassios, to his credit, acted swiftly.

The story wound its way quickly from Orthodoxy in Dialogue to numerous smaller online newspapers, and finally to Newsweek, Fox News, the Daily Beast, The Hill, and the UK’s UNILAD as of this writing. The Newsweek report links directly to Orthodoxy in Dialogue.

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