Schism

I haven`t really had the heart to blog this week.
We are facing a major problem in our parish, which is a great grief.

We belong to X (insert ethnic description of your choice) Orthodox Archdiocese, and we are only a fairly small community, worshipping in three different locations within our huge parish boundaries.
Our priest, Father A, is a good and loving man, committed to spreading the Gospel of Christ to as many souls as possible, regardless of their ethnicity. He believes, as do most of us, that there is no ethnicity in Christ.

But we have a faction in the community.

Probably most communities have a faction, but this one, ironically, is an unholy alliance between disgruntled members of X ethnicity and an English speaking person who is a fanatical X-ophile.

We have always had a chunk of the Liturgy celebrated in X language, as there are several members of that ethnicity in our parish, and Father believes in making peple feel as at home as possible. Sometimes it is a token amount if we know that person speaks good English and can understand what is going on, sometimes it is a lot of X if we have many visitors who may not understand English too well.

We often also use language Y to a certain extent, for those of the congregation who hail from that part of the world.

Some members wanted more X language used.
Lots, lots more X, in fact.

We have many second generation X members, whose families are English speaking and they have said they don`t want more X language as they and their families can actually understand the Liturgy in English far better.

However the tiny but highly vocal faction insisted on more X, claiming it would attract large numbers of nominally Orthodox non-attending members of that ethnicity.
Father, being a reasonable priest, listened to their requests and turned one Liturgy a month into X Sunday, when the desired language was used liberally.

Guess what ? Attendances dropped quite markedly. We were not getting more members from X ethnicity turning up, in fact it was the opposite.......
It was given a six month trial period, and when it obviously was bombing out, Father wrote to all members and said it was not going to continue.

To say there was rebellion in the ranks was an understatement.
The ringleader of the faction caused non-stop discontent and dissent, broadcasting opinions to any who would listen and petitioning the Archbishop with repeated multiple accusations and complaints against our priest.
That was hurtful enough, yet the Archbishop did not uphold that perosn`s complaints.

Now, however, this group has separated itself from the parish, and set up its own commmunity, publicly advertising its services and done totally without the blessing of the Archbishop.
A liturgy has even been held by a priest from abroad without the knowledge of our priest or the consent of our Archbishop.

Call me a party-pooper, but this is schism pure and simple................

Matters have come to a head, and the archbishop has launched a formal investigation which will begin next week.
Please, please, pray hard that this may be resolved according to God`s will for our parish.

This trouble has been caused by literally a small number of folk, whereas the overwhelming majority of members support our priest and his mission work.

Lord, have mercy.

We need all the prayers we can get.

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