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.