American Orthodoxy Seeking Unity

 Me, who has been separated from the church by geography, thinks if there is a church representing the best of Christianity, then it is the Orthodox Church. It also has organizational problems, probably has always had organizational problems, which are not to be found in the Western Church. There is no one person being able to direct the Church's operations. It is a bit like herding cats, in my opinion.

Today, the following have come to me:

•  A Unified American Orthodox Church: Do Parish Priests Want It? (a pdf) and 
• A Possible Scenario – “The Celebration of the First Anniversary of the Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of the United States of America” . 
• These are audio interviews with Orthodox bishops: Conversations with our Bishops – Hierarchical interviews on the nature and work of the Assembly of Bishops 
• Albanian Church calls for Pan-Orthodox Council 

“The painful ecclesiastical problems that have arisen in recent years and recently in Africa, which have led to clear cracks in the relations of the Local Orthodox Churches and widespread concern among Orthodox believers, are not being addressed by chain retaliation by some churches and consensus gathering by others through the media,” the Albanian Church added.

“The responsible point of view of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania is expressed in official church correspondence, in communications from the General Secretariat and will be directly presented to the competent body, the Pan-Orthodox Council or Synaxis, which, in accordance with the principle of synodality, is the only body capable of solving the basic problems and ensuring unity and peace of the Orthodox Church worldwide,” the message resumed.

Before leaving prison, I read about the Albanian Archbishop, and those posts are on this blog. He sound like an amazing man. Start with For a Change: An Orthodox Christian Book and has 5 sequels and many quotes from Archbishop Anastasio. I found him to be a remarkable man.

I think you can learn the organizational problems and visions, but there is even more the spiritual side.

For that I recommend Dr. Candace Lukasik preaches for the Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt:

Even Protestants might learn from this video.

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