OCL conference hears clarity on quest for unity

November 8, 4:22 AMSF Eastern Orthodoxy ExaminerJeffrey Holton

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Metropolitan Jonah (photo by J. Holton)

Metropolitan Jonah of the Orthodox Church in America spoke in the final week of October at the Orthodox Christian Laity conference in Ligonier, Pennsylvania. He provided clarity to the laity on the requirements placed upon the American jurisdictions by the recent Chambesy conference. The international conference in June sent a requirement to all American Orthodox bishops to meet together and determine a course of action to approach a unified American Orthodoxy.

Metropolitan Jonah, whose Orthodox Church in America did not take part in Chambesy IV, welcomed the process. He encouraged the laity to recognize that the leadership of the Church will make the hardest decisions, but the laity must nonetheless be very involved with each other.

"Part of the challenge is simply to be together: to work together, to pray together, and for our children to grow up together, our seminarians to study and pray together and our people to marry one another. There is a gradual process of integration that will take generations and will eventually result in a completely unique American Orthodoxy," he said in a presentation at the Thursday night session in Ligonier.
(Read more here.)

Metropolitan Jonah conceded that all jurisdictions including the OCA must give up their own structures to form a new church. This concession was a welcome offering to a discussion that has been complicated by territorial and ethnic claims from a variety of parties, as well as worries about what properties, activities, and claims several authorities would be required to abandon, transfer, or share in the hypothetical new order.

"When the time comes for that autocephaly, then the vision that we were given in 1970 will be fulfilled in something much greater than we are ourselves," he said.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew completed a rare visit to the United States several days ago. During his visit, he met with Metropolitan Jonah, who said he was encouraged by the Patriarch's public words and also by their private conversation.

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