A couple more words on Metropolitan Jonah's resignation

I am, ultimately, fine with what happened because I have an implicit trust in my own bishop. I don't know him well, but he seems like a decent, honest man and I can trust that he is looking out for the interests of the Church at large. I don't know much about the other bishops, but I know that my own wouldn't let himself be steamrolled into accepting something he couldn't accept. The request for his resignation was, as they said, unanimous. If my bishop is behind it, I can accept it.

Not everybody can have that much trust for their own bishop. I think mine has earned it from me: I don't think a bishop demands that trust by virtue of his office, unfortunately. One large and significantly pro-Jonah part of the country does not even have a bishop right now. I might as well name names: the Diocese of the South is disenfranchised right now. With their historic ties to Metropolitan Jonah, that is only going to multiply their frustration. If I still did not have a bishop (our diocese had a vacuum for a while and would have had one longer if we did not already have a committee in place because our bishop was planning on retiring), or if I could not trust my bishop, I know that I would have a hard time with this news. Even more so if I had a personal trust in Metropolitan Jonah.

My major worry is that this will "poison the well" for some. While I am sure that Metropolitan Jonah would not encourage partisanship, I would worry that some of his partisans will view this as a call for "Metropolitan Jonah contra mundum". We already have seen Rod Dreher, formerly one of the anonymous web-loggers behind the OCA Truth propaganda site, say, "I wish he had gone out like Samson instead of yielding to this pack of wild dogs." Like Samson! This is why I am worried about Metropolitan Jonah's backers: with friends like Dreher, who needs enemies? For some reason, Dreher does not think that his journalistic promotion of the "Metropolitan Jonah contra mundum" narrative is destroying the OCA and that this is a bad thing - he sees it as Bakunin-esque creative destruction. If Metropolitan Jonah is given a diocese, especially the Diocese of the South, perhaps it will become a center for this discontent and alienate, eg, the DOS further from the rest of the OCA. Who knows? This is merely speculation and worry.

All I know is that some people are going to try to use this as an opportunity to stir up a lot of ----, apparently not realizing that a lot of us will have to live with the ---- they stir up and don't want to sit around in a pile of ---- all day. If you want to pull things down like Samson, do it in somebody else's Church.

But what is it to me? Because of my personal circumstances, I'll be with the Greeks, soon, anyway (at least, for a few years). I'm sure the OCA will have figured it all out by the time I get back, if I ever get back.

And may God have mercy on us all.