Bishops: East, West, Reposed & Proposed?

Fr Alexander Webster, writing in the WSJ, on Archbishop Iakovos:

Archbishop Iakovos literally became the face of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in America when he appeared on the cover of the March 26, 1965, issue of Life magazine–a bearded patriarch bedecked in cassock and the black headdress and veil of Orthodox bishops. He was shown standing alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., labor leader Walter Reuther and the Rev. Ralph Abernathy.

The occasion for the photograph was a historic march for civil rights in Selma, Ala. Archbishop Iakovos was there, alone among his fellow Orthodox bishops–in fact, way out in front of the rest of the Orthodox community on one of the most vital moral issues of the day. For this visible prophetic stance, he earned acclaim from most of the members of his church but bitter enmity from others, who were not yet ready to embrace the civil-rights movement or its demands for equality.

The other key episode in the archbishop’s life led to his forced retirement, or so it is widely believed. For three days in late 1994, 29 bishops from the various Orthodox “jurisdictions”–a convenient Latin term that describes the scandalous ethnic fragmentation of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Orthodox church in this country–met in Ligonier, Pa., at the invitation of the archbishop. Their purpose was to contemplate the formation of a united Orthodox community in America.

Read more H E R E.
THX: Thunderstruck

Farewell Remarks — Archbishop Iakovos, 1996:

Orthodoxy is a religion and theology that places no boundaries or barriers along the way of those who search for happiness in unity, in peace, and in justice. Orthodoxy will one day, and hopefully soon, rediscover its essential oneness and disavow hunger for power, ethnic superiority and secularism which leads it to unchurchly ambitions. Orthodoxy must definitely identify itself as a religion that leans over all people with genuine compassion and declare that its chief concern is to gather and unify all those who drifted away from Christian truth.

Read this short beautiful speech in its entirety H E R E.
THX: OrthodoxyToday

Then again we read on NRO:

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, based in Istanbul, has acted as the leading voice in favor of freedom and democracy in the Orthodox world. A prominent promoter of interfaith ties and environmental issues (he has, somewhat unusually, been labeled “the green patriarch”), Bartholomew I has taken a special interest in the anti-authoritarian movement that has steadily gained steam in Orthodox countries over the last two decades. Standing at the center of coordination among all the Orthodox, he strongly supported the independence of the church in Estonia, which led to a major split within the Orthodox Church (between Russian and Greek churches). Today he is the key to the independence of the Georgian and Ukrainian churches, as well.

More H E R E.

THX: OrthodoxyToday

From The Dawn Patrol …

Hopes for a Lesbian-Related Pope:

If one were to give advice to these grand old men [of the College of Cardinals] — and they are not, I notice, seeking advice — it would be simple. Find a cardinal who was brought up with many, many sisters, who has a lesbian in the family, a cardinal whose life has been bound up and fully informed by women, who knows the problems and challenges they face in a church where they cannot minister. Even if the next pope and his cardinals were not to change the rule against female priests quickly, it might be important, as acts of witness and of love, to enter into real dialogue with women in the church, and to be seen to listen, to take heed, as St. Patrick did centuries ago, to the other’s pain.

Full story H E R E.

Cardinal Ratzinger: On the Orthodox.
THX: Serge


And finally …

PHOTOS of Metropolitan Herman, Greek & OCA Clergy, praying by the body of Archbishop Iakovos.