Monday, May 25, 2020

Jad Ganem: Everybody's Crisis

Arabic original here.

Everybody's Crisis
 
I was struck by a comment a friend wrote on Facebook with regard to what he called "the heresy of primus sine paribus" that has been promoted for years by the literature and practices of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, where he indicated in a response to a reader's disapproval of the content of several articles defending this "heresy"-- especially the speech stating "in the beginning was the Patriarchate of Constantinople... and in it is life and this life is the light of the churches"-- that "those who follow the positions coming out of the Fanar notice that they lost their minds after the complete failure of what happened on Crete. Unfortunately, their sickness is everybody's problem."
Perhaps this diagnosis encapsulates the dilemma of the Orthodox world today, which is suffering:

-- From the megalomania affecting the Phanariots, represented by their abandonment of Orthodox tradition that has been constant for two thousand years in favor of a theology of "the Throne of Constantinople" and the one sitting upon it, with everything that accompanies that in terms of damage to conciliarity and disregard for the holy mysteries, especially the mysteries of the priesthood and the Eucharist, which have become something like a "commodity" tied to the Patriarch of the Fanar's fiat.

-- From the tendency of this madness to use politics and politicians in order to establish the "Constantinople's primacy without equals" as a fait accompli, either through direct pressure on the local churches to entice or intimidate them to step into line behind the Fanar or through exploiting existing schisms as leverage to force them to submit or to break them up in favor of the emergence of national churches in the Fanar's orbit.

Constantinople's madness, however, which affects the body of the Orthodox Church, has turned into a problem for the entire family of Orthodox churches, which are now confronted with limited choices:

-- Either they turn a blind eye to what is happening, written and said, each of them turning to the daily affairs of their local church as though nothing has happened, with all the dangers that go along with this, including fragmentation, the weakening of common witness, and the risk of consecrating this deviance with time as a fait accompli.

-- Or they confront this madness by holding fast to tradition and putting into practice true conciliarity. That is, that which includes all Orthodox bishops in the world, removed from any balancing of sees and the logic of representation, in order to solve the crises that exist, formulate a viable ecclesiastical order and clarify the role of the primus in the Orthodox Church.

-- Or they go into effective schism, with those who agree with the new Orthodox order following the Fanar and submitting to its leadership while those who oppose this regime and are faithful to Orthodox tradition remain within Orthodox conciliarity as it is currently practiced.

Whichever choice is followed, there is no doubt that its repercussions will not be easy for the Orthodox Church, which has come to be in the eye of the storm of schism now that the Fanar's sickness has seeped into all parts of the body and nothing will help except to remove the rot to save the body from certain death. Will the Orthodox take heed from the Corona crisis that has struck the world today and hurry to heal the wounds and unite in order to face the challenges that await the Church in the coming days?

1 comment:

jr said...

Thankyou well writtern