Our first duty is to fight the fire…
______________________________
Got this titbit from a Cabinet member (opinions expressed are those of my informant):
He’s accusing Dahulich and Mickey Herzak of conspiring to fire him as Dean. Atty filed an employment discrimination complaint against Seminary board with US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What gall! Board includes three bishops and several priests. The Holy Synod should suspend him for violating church canons prohibiting clergy from suing other clergy in civil or secular courts. Board confirms the federal complaint, which is filed confidentially, not open to the public. That Sons of Job story also mentions it. You might as well report it, as it’s out in the open now.
This is sad. The OCA’s falling apart in a very public way… and no one’s overly upset over it. Nevertheless, I do have a question… if clergy aren’t supposed to sue other clergy in secular courts, why did Fathausen sit droolingly by when Velencia sued Michael Regan? He was Velencia’s immediate superior, so, he had the obligation to shitcan Sir Ray for having the gall to sue a fellow priest. For this reason alone, JP deserved le sabot, and the vehement defence by the konvertsy of Fathausen shows massive ignorance and shallow vapidity. What compounds this situation is that Sir Ray wasn’t even a priest “in good standing”; he was disgraced, in a suspended status.
This isn’t going to have a good end. I’m not happy to see this; no one is. At times like this, I just want to walk away from it all… but if I do, the bastards win. I stand my post… you have a right to know what’s going on. As one of the Cabinet once said, “You say openly what other people just whisper”. I think that’s no longer the case, but we all have to hang in there for a while longer. You don’t walk out of the trenches until the war’s over… and that hasn’t happened yet.
I’m seeing the end of it all in the distance… then, we’ll have the long task of healing the Church and rebuilding Russian Orthodoxy here. It isn’t time for “American Orthodoxy” yet… it may never be. I say, let’s attend to reality and cut out the fun n’ games. If our kids are to be Orthodox, that’s what we must do…
Barbara-Marie Drezhlo
Sunday 14 October 2012
Albany NY
