Archbishop Alexander of Dallas

June 5, 2020
The Leavetaking of Ascension

To the Clergy and Monastics of the Diocese of the South,

The blessing of the Lord!

It is with great sadness that I have learned about the continued detrimental impact that the the so-called “Orthodox Ethos” website [here], which is sanctioned by no canonical jurisdiction to my knowledge, is having upon the spiritual wellbeing of the flock entrusted to my care. I am reminded of the words of our Lord, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” (Mt. 7:15) It takes so little effort to devour and destroy, while it is so very difficult to heal deep wounds of the soul. God forbid I stand by in silence!

I would never encourage censorship – we may read what we will. The articles on the “Orthodox Ethos” site are written by people that do no answer to me (though they will certainly answer to God). On balance, I offer to you not my words, but the letter of a “wise priest in the diocese” [here] who is unfortunately facing the scandal of doubt, fear and anger provoked by “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” Please use all or parts of this as you see fit in the care of your flock. Read More

Crowds bearing placards gathered at Sydney Town Hall (ABC News: Jack Fisher)

I write these words as one who is deeply conscious of my own white privilege, a legacy of societal attitudes resulting from the infamous and now dismantled White Australia Policy.

The repercussions of the slaying of George Floyd were evident in the large rallies witnessed around Australia’s major cities last weekend, many in defiance of the COVID-19 restrictions. The victim’s final words—I can’t breathe—were exactly those uttered six years ago and twelve times by David Dungay, an Aboriginal man who died while five prison guards were restraining him.   Read More

The following archive of Orthodox synodal and individual episcopal statements will be updated as Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s readers bring them to our attention. Send links for inclusion to editors@orthodoxyindialogue.com.

We invite our readers to evaluate each statement carefully to discern which ones adequately address the current crisis gripping the United States, which are found lacking, and which are egregiously bad.

Reach out to us at our email address if you would like to write an article or letter to the editors in response to one or more of these statements.

Given the multiple, overlapping Orthodox jurisdictions in America, we have listed individual hierarchs in alphabetical order irrespective of rank or seniority. 

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Dr. Porumb’s article is the second in our Academic Papers series. It first appeared in 2017 in Forerunner, the journal of The Orthodox Fellowship of St John the Baptist. 

Dr. Razvan Porumb

In the year 1960, 48 year-old Jewish erudite intellectual Nicu Steinhardt is imprisoned and joins the vast contingent of political prisoners in communist Romania (where approximately 17,600 people were detained at the time by the oppressive government). A refined scholar – among many other scholars, scientists, priests, writers – is thrown in a cruel grimy cell in the prison of Jilava. Political prisoners throughout Romania at the time – as well as in other parts of the communist world – were subjected to a life of continuous pain and humiliation, they were kept in unsanitary conditions (with no medical care) in dirt and cold and constant hunger, they were subjected to regular torture and beatings, and suffered indignities and insults on a daily basis. It was, in a sense, a slow process of extermination and thousands of political prisoners died in excruciating anguish. Steinhardt the intellectual finds himself first in cell 34 in the Jilava prison, which is, in his own words, ‘a sort of long dark tunnel, with plentiful and potent elements of nightmare. It is a strip, a canal, a subterranean intestine, cold and profoundly hostile, a barren mine, a crater of an extinct volcano, a rather accomplished image of some discoloured hell.’ And yet, he continues, ‘in this almost surreally sinister place I was to know the happiest days of my entire life. How utterly happy I was in room 34! Neither in Brasov with my mother as a child, nor on the endless streets of mysterious London, nor on the beauteous hills of Muscel, nor in the blue postcard scenery of Lucerne – nor indeed anywhere else in the world.’ Read More