With joy we are posting this statement from the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America (see the original here). We would like to think that our Open Letter played some small role in this. We provided our Letter’s link to the Officers of the Assembly as soon as we published it.

Friday, August 18, 2017

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America
Response to Racist Violence in Charlottesville, VA

The Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America stands with all people of good will in condemning the hateful violence and lamenting the loss of life that resulted from the shameful efforts to promote racial bigotry and white supremacist ideology in Charlottesville, Virginia. Read More

The editors of Orthodoxy in Dialogue consider the recent horror in Charlottesville important enough to post this letter prior to our launch date of September 1. Readers wishing to sign this letter must write to us at the address in Contact Us from a personal email account, giving their full name and state/province/country of residence. Ordained clergy are asked to include the jurisdiction to which they belong. The link for this letter will be provided to the Officers of ACOBUSA with a request that they share it with all member hierarchs.

Esteemed Metropolitans, Archbishops, and Bishops, our beloved Archpastors, Members of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America:

Masters, bless.

On Saturday, August 12, the very day that horrifying events unfolding before our eyes in Charlottesville took a turn for the worse with three tragic deaths—civilian Heather Heyer, Lt. H. Jay Cullen, and Trooper Berke M.M. Bates—and the injury of many more, your brothers in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops hastened to publish their first news release. A second news release appeared the following day. (See here and here.)  Read More