The Hole in the Conspiracy Narrative

As those of you who are following the ‘Conspiracy Against Metropolitan Jonah’ being strung along, there is a curious piece of the story that is missing.  Let us examine this for a moment.

Here are the main points of the Conspiracy Narrative:

-- Mark Stokoe is a homosexual seeking to bring the OCA in line with the  Episcopal Church when it comes to homosexual immorality.

-- Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) is against such immorality.

-- Stokoe has manipulated the Metropolitan Council and the entire Holy Synod against Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen), preparing for the compromise of the OCA’s morality.

-- All those who do not unquestioningly support Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) are part of this homosexual conspiracy.

-- You must either support Stokoe or Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen).

This is obviously a simplistic outline, but outlines are by nature without nuances of meaning.

Now, here’s a the problem with that narrative: Bishop Matthias (Moriak).

On August 9^th, Bishop Matthias (Moriak) unceremoniously fires Mark Stokoe from the Metropolitan Council, directly citing his activities on the internet  as unacceptable.  Here’s the message Stokoe got from Bishop Matthias (Moriak)-

Membership in the Metropolitan Council and the Diocesan Council are privileges and honors bestowed upon those who should be examples of faithful living and the promoting of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether we are clergy or lay people, we are to be examples of living the Orthodox way of life.

In the months that I have been administrator of the diocese and now its archpastor, I have observed the divisiveness and the promoting of gossip that your website “Orthodox Christians for Accountability” provides. It is not a healthy vehicle for the Church. It has hampered Pan-Orthodox unity, and it has encouraged those who disrespect the clergy and the Church to express their distain and sometimes outright hatred for the Church, the hierarchs, the clergy and its faithful.

As the archpastor of this diocese, I can no longer tolerate the existence of this website being administered by a member of the Metropolitan Council and Diocesan Council. Your representation on these Councils leaves the impression, whether correct or not, that I approve of your website, and I do not! You once even wrote on your website when someone was criticizing you that “you had your bishop’s blessing to be on the Metropolitan Council and Diocesan Council”. At this time, I am removing that blessing. Upon the reception of this letter, you are hereby dismissed from serving on the Metropolitan Council and Diocesan Council. Alternate members will assume your positions for the remainder of your terms.

It saddens me to do this because I do see the talent and abilities that you possess that could be helpful to the Church. Unfortunately, you cannot serve two masters! You cannot serve the Church in these capacities while providing a website that is counterproductive to Church life.

The final straw that “broke the camel’s back” for me was when you printed a lengthy article promoting homosexuality, written by an anonymous author. That article was a complete distortion of the Church’s teachings and twisted the canons of the Church to justify its position. If that isn’t bad enough, the author did not have the courage to put his name on the article. It appears to me that if someone cannot reveal themselves in the light, they are coming from darkness.

I can only hope and pray that someday you yourself will realize the harm this website brings to the Church and you will decide to close it down. The time has come for us to work together for the glory of God and His precious Bride, the Church!

It looks as if Bishop Matthias (Moriak) is pretty unequivocal on the matter of homosexuality.  Yet, he is not mentioned by Conspiracy Theorists as a supporter of Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen).

 

Why is this?  The narrative that one must either be for one ‘side’ or the other rests on the assumption that the conflict between the Holy Synod and Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) on the matter of homosexuality and its acceptance or rejection by the OCA, and more broadly on “culture war” positions.

 

The fact of the matter is that the conflict really has little to do with homosexuality: Bishop Michael (Dahulich) is another hierarch who speaks unequivocally on the matter (most of us have already read his diocese’s resolution), and yet he is part of the Synod that is attacked, counted as an ‘enemy’ of Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) by the Conspiracy Theorists.

Tolerance towards homosexual conduct (including the absolute perversity of transsexual surgery and the mutilation of one’s body!) is incompatible with the Church, period.  Stokoe’s active homosexuality makes his candidacy for any office of the Church a no-go, but it does not necessarily make him a liar.  He’s been right on facts more often than not, since no one really questions the fact that both Metropolitans Theodosius (Lazor) and Herman (Swaiko) were morally impaired when it came to money.

 

But, the situation is far more complicated than Metropolitan Jonah versus Mark Stokoe.  The Fabulous Four (Bishops Tikhon [Fitzgerald] & Nikolai [Soraich], Fr. Joseph Fester and Bob Kondratick) are not backing Metropolitan Jonah out any commitment to heterosexuality.  After all, the indiscretions Bishop Nikolai tries to pin on Bishop Benjamin (Peterson) did not bother them enough at the time to prevent them from recommending Bishop Benjamin for consecration!  None of the Fabulous Four ever had a reputation for standing up to immorality.  Rather, Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) loves to drop hints about the sins he witnessed but never did anything about.

We must look beyond the political veneer and see what is happening underneath. 

Only when we see Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) leading the Holy Synod by engaging his brethren will we see the real ‘cleaning’ that needs to take place in the OCA, in such places as SVOTS, New Skete and other stavropegial institutions that need to be reformed.

Despair versus Hope

If you listen to Stanley Drezhlo or Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald), the OCA appears to be coming to an end. Yes, everything is hopeless, though for very different reasons. I would like to offer a theory as to why their despair is a sign that there is hope for the future of the OCA.
 

Why would anyone take these two ‘fringe’ characters seriously to begin with?

  

Stanley (known after is cosmetic surgery as ‘Barbara Marie,’ which is neither his birth name nor his Baptismal name) Drezhlo is desperate for the OCA to collapse and be absorbed into the Moscow Patriarchate. But, he never asks the real question: why would Moscow want the OCA? The OCA is not that Russian. The old Slavic base in the OCA was more Carpatho-Rusyn than Russian, and the OCA has gone beyond its Slavic base.

 

They are entirely different when it comes to church politics as well. The crisis in confidence was only deepened by Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen)'s reported attempt to invoke 'primacy as exercised in the Moscow Patriarchate', which is among the most centralized, if not the very most centralized of the Autocephalous Churches. And the Church in Russia lives in a culture which has a distinct taste for centralization, quite unlike America in that regard.

 

Moscow does well with ‘real’ Russians, something that the OCA lacks. In major cities, those “new” Russians pack the ROCOR churches in droves (during holidays). Moscow, it may be remembered, took drastic measures to keep control of Sourozh in England. Now we must remember that Sourozh has a lot of new Russian émigrés. It makes sense from a Russian perspective to keep hold of it. But, why the OCA? It is poor, uninfluential and (mostly) ethnically unrelated to Moscow. Liturgically speaking, the comparison is an even bigger stretch: the average parish hears no Slavonic, and in certain places, including (especially?) influential stavropegia (SVOTS and, of course, New Skete), there is a relish in dumping “19^th century Russian” liturgics.

The OCA clearly has many 'issues' to resolve, and just as clearly will refuse to solve them in an MP way. Why would the MP want to 'own' it?

Therefore, Stanley Drezhlo’s odd craving for a transsexual-embracing, Communist-dominated (somehow without the religious persecution) Russian concept is unrelated to the OCA other than for historical purposes and the delusions that Mr. Drezhlo has about both his own sexual identity and Russia in general. His politics are centralized, and so is his view of church politics. No surprises, except perhaps that which he will experience if he ever sets foot in his ‘Russian paradise’ only to discover that his loyalty to the Motherland still won’t get him restored to communion until he renounces his homosexuality and starts living like a man again. Russians are not a gay-friendly tribe.

Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) is also a leftist and so also for centralized control. This is part of why he pines for the days of Bob Kondratick running the OCA’s benign-neglect reign of Metropolitan Theodosius (Lazor). The Holy Synod was largely self-absorbed as the bishops gazed intensely at their own dioceses while ignoring the greater OCA. Metropolitan Theodosius (Lazor) pretty much did what he wanted, which was not much, but that was OK with all the bishops because it meant that they didn’t have to work together. If there was a conflict, Bob came in with a solution, usually involving cash that seemed to magically appear and disappear.

His despair came with the realization that the quiet world of the early years when his cathedral in LA was packed with immigrants and the Slavonic services were packed have given way to an almost empty church in a Hispanic neighborhood, and the immigrants have been replaced by converts who don’t share his fantasies. When Bob Kondratick’s Episcopal baby-sitting service ended with his removal and deposition, Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) could no longer remain as bishop because he simply could not handle the strain of cooperating with the other bishops on the Holy Synod.

He, he threatened to retire and everyone accepted his offer with gladness.

The new Holy Synod now requires a very different touch. Metropolitan Jonah’s (Paffhausen) problems appear to stem from his inability to lead in a more pluralistic context, which is how Synods are supposed to function. He received bad advice from Moscow (a centralized church) and Fr. Joseph Fester (a remnant of the Kondratick regime), which was bad match for his pre-existing character. He didn’t take charge of Syosset, he moved away from it. He didn’t build consensus on the Holy Synod, but rather avoided working with the individual bishops one-on-one prior to Holy Synod meetings to bring the various hierarchs together.

Stanley Drezhlo and Bishop Tikhon (Fitzgerald) want a dictator, but the hope for the OCA is a balanced Holy Synod that works together to preach the Gospel and build up the Faithful. The weaknesses of the OCA really do come from over-centralization: dictators sacrifice effectiveness for control. Many of the most festering problems have gone along unchecked for decades as the central administration amassed power, locum tenencies, elaborate 'programs', and of course assessments and had no energy left over to actually use that power.

But, there is hope so long as the Holy Synod’s members continue to work together.