Even I’ve heard about Bishop Job! He’s got a great reputation. He hammered Herman for quite a while as I recall. The Hammer of Herman! But, I think the OCA is just going to go POOF. How fitting with all its poofters! Seriously, it just doesn’t have a reason to exist. The MP and ROCOR are legitimate, and they have an EXCELLENT reputation among all Orthodox. The OCA is an odd thing that no one really knows what to do with. Add to that the historical and other falsehoods and Metropolitan Open-Mouth-Insert-Foot, and I’m sure Moscow is just biding its time.
It’ll be interesting to see what the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Archdiocese are up to. Something’s definitely cooking. The silence of the bishops after Jonah’s initial outburst was extremely odd. Actually, the candour of those responses was quite telling, too. Our bishops are skilled in Byzantine ways, in all the meanings of that word. Their communiqués are usually very carefully crafted so that the main point lies not in the words on the paper, but, typically, in how they use those words. But, instead of a whisper in the ear this time, their response was an in-your-face shout: BACK OFF, CHILD! Then… silence, while they plan a Byzantine reorganisation of the empire, so they can spring on him… he hasn’t the slightest inkling of what he’s really done and what they’re about to do to him. This should be good! It’s time to change into comfortable clothes, order a pizza, chill the beer mugs, and sit back to watch the show!
A Good Ol’ Workin’ Chap
Those of you who are familiar with old English music-hall songs know that “a good ol’ workin’ chap” (actually, “a common ol’ workin’ lad”… hey, I used a liberty or two) is from the old Will Fyffe standard, “I Belong to Glasgow”. The character described in that song seems to fit my friend. So… I made him into a Greek Scotsman… or is it a Scots Greek? Hmm… Here’s a video of the song (This one’s for you, hon. I think you’ll love it and agree that it fits you to a tee!). Many thanks to Timothy Connelly for originally handing the link to me… (Sorry, Tim, for what happened on Easter Sunday… that was a dumb thing I did… I should’ve realised that Easter is a crazy time and that it’s too easy to mess things up. Egg on face… OUCH.)
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What I like about my Greek friends is that they’re as Orthodox as we Russians are, but, of course, their thought processes are so DIFFERENT. You can live in the same town, and, yet, see the same thing with a very dissimilar perspective. That’s why I asked him what he thought of the OCA situation. It’s interesting to note that the only OCA bishop that he named was Job Osacky… it seems that he’s one of the few OCA hierarchs to have any respect outside of his archdiocese (“jurisdiction” is a weasel-word from ADS… we shouldn’t use it). Metropolitan Open-Mouth-Insert-Foot… I wish that I’d thought of that one! It so TOTALLY describes what JP did at Antiochian Village in his rant before the OCL pirates. “Unity in our time…” Wow… Goldilocks and the Three Bears has more reality than that… the Millennium is just around the corner. Now, just send your cheques off to Syosset…
Nevertheless, what’s important is the EXPECTATION that the Workin’ Chap shows. “I’m sure Moscow is just biding its time… he hasn’t the slightest inkling of what he’s really done and what they’re about to do to him”. In short, he sees JP as a Dead Man Walking. They’ve divvied up his belongings and they’re getting ready to fillet him neatly and evenly from stem to stern… yet, JP hasn’t an inkling of what’s going on. I believe that he shot himself in the foot with his idiotic statements about “overseas patriarchs” earlier this year and the Nashotah House débâcle just nailed the coffin-lid down tighter. On top of that, he ranted in front of one of the most narcissistic groups in the Church (and one of the most hated, by all accounts… OCL is an organisation that’s nothing but a front for a naked anti-clerical power-grab on the part of the affluent effluent) on how we are going to have “unity in our time”.
He’s not connecting with Demetrios Trakatellis or Hilarion Kapral. The only person he’s enlisted in his cause is Philip Saliba… and Saliba is really no-one’s friend… he’s a devious, deceitful, and crafty politician through and through (a true and dutiful son of Niccolò Machiavelli and Lucrezia Borgia if there ever was one), and he’ll leave JP hanging in the breeze without a second thought or any lingering hesitation… “It’s not personal, it’s business”.
I agree with the Workin’ Chap that the OCA isn’t long for this world. I chose the title of this post with malice aforethought. There are those of you who caught the scriptural quotation… but, how many of you understood the culinary note? Before the days of packaged dry yeast (or even cakes of pressed baker’s yeast), the rising agent in bread was an unbaked piece of dough from the previous batch… the “sourdough”. Back then, people called that the “leaven”. What we’d call the “dough”, they called the “lump”.
One can see the meaning of the scripture, can’t you? The baker briskly kneaded a piece of the last batch of risen dough into a new batch to leaven it. Nowadays, we no longer use “sourdough” (except for flavouring), but, you still have to knead dough for bread with energy and vigour… you must PUNCH IT DOWN… you must push it against the surface with all your strength. In short, it ain’t passive in the least! The analogy with the present situation is clear. The Good Lord is readying a new batch of dough… the Russian Orthodox Church in the US and Canada. The “sourdough” for it is plain… the MP and ROCOR… and most of the OCA, as well (but, not JP, BP, Hatfield, SVS, and New Skete or their fellow-travellers). The Baker shall knead it all together energetically, leave it for a while to rise, punch it down again, shape it into loaves, leave it for the second rising, and, finally, place it in the oven to bake. When He takes it out, it’s gonna be very good, indeed. It’s not ADS Wonder Bread (aptly named… you wonder if it’s bread at all)! It’s the Bread of Life baked by the Creator Himself… not that phony witches’ brew concocted by a bunch of half-crazed and delusional pseudo-intellectuals drunk on their own chimerical illusions and delusional whimsies.
Note well that the baker kneads the dough energetically, punches it down with vigour, and pushes it with some force against an unyielding object. We’re in that stage now… that is, there’s some time left to go before we finish things and we take the loaf out of the oven for dinner (isn’t the odour of freshly-baked bread SENSUAL?). However, one can see the result of it all… and that gives me hope. I am the Bread of Life… Our Lord was not referring to a loaf with the consistency of a pillow and the taste of sawdust (ADS Wonder Bread)!
He’s preparing the good stuff now… that’s why it’s dicey at present. He’s kneading away with joyous abandon… can’t you hear the happy tune that He’s whistling? I do! Boy, that kneading and poking sure is unpleasant. Nevertheless, He has to do it so that it turns out right! Keep the faith and have a wonderful weekend.
Barbara-Marie Drezhlo
Saturday 7 November 2009
Albany NY
Voices from Russia 
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