And that stands for Metropolitan.

Word reaches us here in our remote westerly province of a storm brewing back east and with many different ideas as to why it’s brewing. Please take a look at that article and I’m going to ask you to assume all of it’s 100% true for the sake of this blog post.

The Metropolitan is certainly “my generation” and not the generation which has hitherto lead the OCA. There are not Baby Boomers leading the OCA: they are my grandparents’ generation. And, blunt fact, they will soon be dead, if any of them are still alive outside of the Holy Synod. Mtr Jonah is, roughly speaking, my age. He was a Diocesan Bishop ten days before he was elected Metropolitan because of the grace of his wisdom in communicating with a crowd of angry people in a packed room. Angry at what? Sex and Money scandals caused by the aforementioned Grandparents. How scandalized would you be by your grandfather sleeping around… with college boys?

There ya go.

You’d want to start new as well.

As Bernard Woolsey said to Prime Minister Hacker, when it comes to picking bishops you simply have to pick the right card out of the stack: either a knave or a queen. I think the Bishops elected Jonah for two reasons: one, because he was clearly not one of them; and, two, because he was a good son of the Church and knew how to respect his elders. I think our grandfathers wanted to put a spring chicken out there with a funny hat to distract our attention and, for a while they actually got what they wanted.

Any complaint leveled at Jonah just now arises from the fact he was too damned inexperienced to do the job at all and too pious to do it right once he figured out how to do it. Of course he was running things like a Autocrat: his very election proved no one trusted the Grand Old Dames of Synod! But in the end, trying to placate his elders and hold on to what little power he had, he ended up abusing it all.

So sixty days of rest and recuperation followed by what? Another 60 days and the election of a new one? God forbid. I disagree with some of what Mtr J has done… I’ve been honest about my disagreements too. But I think he’s a great choice and he will grow into being our first American Orthodox Primate. God grant him many years! And while the Russians, Arabs and Greeks keep fighting over who can best Anglo up without getting too white, I think the OCA will, in the end, prove that she is the Americanest Church.

But can she do that without folding in on herself?

Save, O Lord, and have mercy on his Beatitude, Our Metropolitan, Jonah and his Grace, our Bishop Benjamin, and on all you have called to feed your people and to minister in your Church; and by their prayers, have mercy on me, a sinner.

PS: I know there are some Orthodox who don’t want us to air our dirty laundry. Transparency is the cure for dirty laundry – especially in Church. Sunlight bleaches all the crap out of the sheets. Scandalizing the faithful happens because we hid the scandals and let the faithful imagine we’re all pure. 100% Bullshit. The faithful are adults and deserve to be treated as such.

I also know that some outside Orthodoxy want to imagine the “True Church” would be beyond such things. They want to imagine that “True Church” means “Pure Church”. Pumpkin: there ain’t no such animal. There have been sex scandals and money scandals and political scandals in the Orthodox Church since um… well: people were scandalized that Paul didn’t have a wife and the Peter did. People were worried about Timothy’s age and Paul’s socializing with undesirables. And Jesus ate with Prostitutes. There ain’t no pure Church: if there was, you wouldn’t be welcomed and neither would I.