I Love My Church

Thursday night I attended a meeting with about 30 people (lay and clergy) from our diocese during which we discussed the problems (if you don't know, I won't tell you) in the Metropolitan's chancery. I arrived late, and after greeting Bishop Benjamin and receiving his blessing, took a seat. The discussion was frank, and I do not mean angry or hateful. Anger and hate care little for truth. Things said:

"People who say there is no black and white, but only gray, have already sided with black."

"We already have a vision statement:'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature'."

"It isn't only the Metropolitan's job to be the face of Orthodoxy, we are all supposed to be evangelists."

"We all need to learn how to say 'anaxios'."

"I have this to say to the All-American Council: The Metropolitan should be fired... [crowd noise]... but since the Council can't do that, they should at least cut off his salary."

"When something has to be justified as being 'for the good of the Church' it isn't really for the good of the Church."

"The investigation [of the Metropolitan's chancery] has been like digging in a cat's litter box."

"The problems, the main problem isn't all of this administrative stuff. It's spiritual."

"The Russian state wants to use the Orthodox Church to exert its influence, but I'm not into that. And I don't want to be part of the Greek ethnos. I'm not Russian. I'm not Greek. I'm Scottish. I have a kilt on under this [cassock]. I don't want foreign Patriarchs bossing us around."

"We don't see him, but Fr. Schmemann is here with us now."

"Metropolitan Herman will be gone before the All-American Council. If he isn't it will be horrible."

"We have all sinned in this."

"None of the other Orthodox Churches does what we're doing. What we are doing here in America is unprecedented. Fr. Schmemann used to say 'we change to stay the same'. The Orthodox Church has always changed. If we do not change we do not stay the same."

All of this was being talked about in the presence of Bishop Benjamin, who several times stopped the conversation to teach us the words of The Lord, and tell us what he, Bishop Benjamin thought was important for us to think about. I would pray that he be made Metropolitan, but I don't want to lose him in San Francisco.

I can't say how the meeting started (probably with "O Heavenly King") but it ended with the singing of "It is Meet" and Bishop Benjamin giving us his episcopal blessing.