On December 1st, the Feast of St Andrew the Apostle delegations from the Orthodox Church in America and the Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth met at St Seraphim Cathedral in Dallas to begin local ecumenical discussions. It was wonderful to make new friends. I look forward to the continuing dialogue.
I also visited with the cathedral's iconographer. He came from Ukraine to paint the walls and ceiling of the new church--a process which took ten years.
6 comments:
WOW!! THat place is beautiful!
Is that Metropolitan in the photographs?
Beautiful photos as always Father, but it's my understanding from your brief remarks yesterday (which were echoed by some of our other delegates at the meeting) that we Westerners, and especially we Anglicans were pretty much dismissed and our tradition denigrated by the representatives of the OCA at this meeting. It's seems to me that the Catholic offer is much more generous to us and honors our Anglican tradition in a way that the OCA will not.
Pcasso,
Metropolitan Jonah is in the center of the bottom photo
Fr. Stainbrook,
I wouldn't throw in the towel just yet. I did characterize the talks as changing my perception of the discussion as one of "coming to full communion" to "coming to full conversion."
However, you must realize that my impression came out of the midst of an informal and introductory "getting to know you" session. Since all but one of the orthodox delegation were former Episcopalians, it was more about getting to know the orthodox and their perspective. I think several of the priests were also trying to share their joy at being able to leave all that Episcopalian baggage behind and discover the riches of orthodox life. That tended to give off the impression that they did not value the Anglican tradition as much. There was also the dynamic of the Anglicanum coetibus at work. Many of the anti-Roman (and thus often anti-Western) comments came out of their desire to dissuade us from the Roman option and convince us that the Orthodox way is the way we should be looking.
I will say that I did feel enriched by the discussion (even though it was not what I was expecting) and felt like I was among friends and colleagues. I look forward to our next meeting.
It is frankly refreshing to see the Metropolitan "hangin wid da boyz".
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