Author: Alex. Nemoianu
June 19, 2009
Recently, a letter signed by Fr. Adrian Balescu and the President of the Parish Council of the Holy Trinity Church in Miramar, Florida was circulated on the internet and published in the Detroit newspaper Curentul International.
Basically, the letter tries to promote the project of subordination (”union”) of the Romanian-American Orthodox bodies to the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate. This is a project. Some people agree with it, and some do not. But one thing should be accepted by all, and that is that certain, minimal standards should be observed when debating the issue.
In his letter, Fr. Balescu said, “The Romanians were Christianized by the Holy Apostle Andrew and his disciples brought by the Emperor Trajan’s armies”. This is a strange interpretation of history.
Such examples continue to abound in the letter. The author complains that the Paschal Greetings used by the OCA (2009) were in Greek, Russian and English, and this was offered as an “example” of the Russian character of the OCA. In fact, the greetings were in Greek, Slavonic, and English. Apparently, the author is unaware that the liturgical language of the Russian church is Slavonic and that the traditional liturgical languages of Orthodoxy (including in the historic Romanian lands) were Greek and Slavonic. Other examples are found in the letter.
The logic used in arguing for Unity under Bucharest is that since communism has fallen, we in North America should then Unite under them. What is not said is that in 1956 for example, this might have happened since many faithful were new immigrants, but by 1989 and certainly by 2009, our ROEA Episcopate had become a “local” church, no longer an immigrant church, an extension of the Romanian church, separated from its bosom only for political reasons. Our Episcopate has evolved and has now developed into a different and unique grouping, as an integral part of the OCA. Thus, the ROAA could now logically join the ROEA in the OCA, but of course this logical line of reasoning is not even presented in this letter.
The arguments used in the letter focus on the ethnic argument. The author claims that if you are not supporting Unity under Bucharest, you are against all things Romanian. No mention is made to the effect that the Unity debate is not about the past, but about the future of our American-born children and their Orthodoxy.
The same priest then castigated the existing ecclesiastical order of the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America and his own Metropolitan and without merit, quoted the Council of Ancyra (misspelled as “Ancira”). (This was a council held in 314 AD which dealt with the situation of the “lapsi,” those who fell from Faith under persecution.) If a priest who insults his Hierarch and the canonical order of the diocese he belongs to is not in flagrant canonical rebellion, then we must ask what must be done to get there?
It is really sad that such a letter is circulating in that it does a great disservice to all involved in this “unity” debate. In fact, this is an example of the problems faced when trying to rationally discuss with those who only know how to insult others in attempting to get their point of view across – priests included!