On July 20 the website and Facebook page of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America showed their first sign of life in six months. Six months! The new post consists of nothing more than a new directory of clergy brotherhoods and lay organizations.

Prior to four days ago, the Assembly had posted nothing on either platform since January 30: not a Lenten greeting, not a Paschal greeting, and most certainly not a response to our White Supremacy in the American Orthodox Church: An Open Letter to the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America of January 22. Its most recent “Pan-Orthodox News” is over a year old.

(By contrast, the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is a beehive of daily activity. The social consciousness of the USCCB boggles the mind.)

The Assembly’s January 30 post contained the sobering news that almost half of our bishops in the United States reject the goal of a united Orthodox Church organized in accordance with the canons along strictly territorial lines. The percentage of dissenting bishops skyrockets to 72%—nearly three-quarters—in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese. We reported on this here: please take the time to read it.

Why does this matter? From the About page on the Assembly’s website: Read More

The two incidents related below took place thirty years apart, the first in 1986 and the second in 2016. Both involved highly respected senior priests, one in the Orthodox Church in America and the other in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. 

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I completed the course requirements for the MDiv at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary between 1986 and 1989.

In class during my first year, one of the seminary’s most esteemed professors recalled an incident that took place during a previous parish assignment. A young male couple came to his church office seeking counseling for their troubled relationship. “Get out!” he shouted at them.

He laughed heartily as he recounted the story. Most of the class laughed with him. I didn’t.

At the time, I was married with three kids. I did not believe that there was a place in the Church for same-sex couples. Yet I was appalled by the priest’s callous disregard for the humanity of a young gay couple, the reality of their love for each other, their sincere appeal for help from a man of God.

More than 30 years later I am still haunted by the emotional and spiritual trauma that this trusting young couple must have suffered at the hands of this priest. Read More

Dr. Ionuţ-Alexandru Tudorie

On July 20 it was announced that “St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS) has appointed Dr. Ionuţ-Alexandru Tudorie [first name: yo-noots] to the position of academic dean. The Seminary’s Board of Trustees selected Tudorie, a native of Romania, on July 18 after the Academic Dean Search Committee had narrowed down the list of possible candidates to two. The announcement concludes an extended and carefully-undertaken search process that began at the start of the 2017-2018 academic year.”

We recommend that you read the full announcement here. We draw your attention especially to Dr. Tudorie’s impressive Curriculum Vitæ.

A number of factors in Dr. Tudorie’s appointment appear to give cause for optimism:

• First among these is that it comes at the end of a proper search that lasted almost a full year.
• Second, he brings to his new post a scholarly, teaching, and publishing record that seems hard to match in someone as young as he.
• Third, a significant portion of his work focuses on dialogue, so important to our readers and writers at Orthodoxy in Dialogue. Geographically, linguistically, and culturally, Romanian Orthodoxy has long seen itself as a “natural bridge,” so to speak, between the Christian East and the Christian West. We hope that Dr. Tudorie evinces as much openness to dialogue within the Orthodox Church as he has shown toward other Christian traditions. 
• Fourth — and we express this as a hope — if Dr. Tudorie brings to Orthodox scholarship in America something of the spirit of Father Dumitru Stăniloae (1903-1993) of thrice-blessed memory, his presence and work at St. Vladimir’s Seminary and in the broader intellectual landscape of Orthodoxy in the Western Hemisphere can portend nothing but good. Father Stăniloae’s unvanquished optimism toward life and the inherent goodness of all things human — despite unimaginable personal sufferings at the hands of the Communist regime — compelled him to engage positively with the political, philosophical, cultural, and social currents of the 20th century. More than once in his writings, Father Stăniloae affirms the activity of the Holy Spirit in the multiple sites of human progress taking place in the “secular” world.

Read More

The Very Rev. Archpriest John E. Parker III, DMin

On July 5 it was announced that “[t]he Board of Trustees of Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Canaan, PA, has named the Very Rev. Archpriest John E. Parker III, D.Min., as the new Dean of the school.” The announcement (available here) mentions that he wrote a ThM thesis at St. Vladimir’s Seminary entitled “The Sanctity of Chastity: An Orthodox Approach to Homosexuality” and that his parish — “well-known for its warm, southern hospitality” — hosts the meetings of Sexaholics Anonymous, “especially devoted to freeing men from slavery to pornography.” Three paragraphs later we read, “He has given talks and retreats… internationally in Finland and Greece.”

This appointment raises a number of concerns and questions which Orthodoxy in Dialogue finds necessary to share with our several tens of thousands of readers around the planet.

The first and perhaps most obvious question is this: Why did St. Tikhon’s not conduct a public search for such an important position as that of dean? The second is related: What qualifications of Father Parker’s make him such an overwhelmingly compelling choice as to make a proper search superfluous? The third question: Why is the outgoing dean said to despair that he doesn’t even recognize the Church anymore?

Of all the worthwhile extra-ecclesial organizations to which a parish church might rent or lend its meeting space, why Sexaholics Anonymous in Father Parker’s case? Have a look at the website: a “sexaholic” is defined as anyone who masturbates or has sex with someone other than his or her spouse. The word itself and its astonishingly broad meaning imply a psychological or psychiatric disorder — rather than a focus of Christian ascesis — for which there appears to be no support from the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association, or the Center for Disease Control. The Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t even recognize the word. 

Father Parker took the fast track to ordination following his fast track conversion to Orthodoxy: Read More