Opinii

July 1, 2008

Dear Mr. Popescu,

Let me go straight to the subject matter: the restoration of unity between brothers and sisters of the same blood, heritage, and faith in North America. What can be wrong with that? "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity," it says in Psalm 133:1.

A personal observation:

Two good points about your negative epistles regarding the subject matter are that they are awfully long and very confusing. I suppose one needs many and twisted words to explain and justify a warped position. A post-modern person, as I consider myself, does not have the patience and the attention span to read such. By glancing over them, however, I got the gist. Your position made me very sad.

A few rhetorical questions:

What makes you such a specialist in the canonical laws of the Church, when for most of your life you worshiped in an independent (non-canonical) church? I do not think you have any formal theological and canonical education.

What makes you such an exclusivist, given the fact that our diocese, guided by an inclusive love, accepted your father (may his memory be eternal) and his parish in our midst?

You may not know that there were voices (from the same people who are now against the greater unity) who said that we should not accept you in our midst because no penance was made and forgiveness was not asked for by you. Looking back, I would hate to think that they might have been right. The Bible says that the person for whom much is forgiven should love more (Luke 7:47). We forgave and forgot all the not very nice things that were said by members of your community against Archbishop Valerian and our diocese and accepted you – and now you turn around and want to get rid of us?

How and what makes you believe that you can accomplish the unity of Orthodoxy in North America when you are against the unity of two small dioceses formed by members of the same family?

A conclusion:

Mr. Popescu, you are stuck in the cold war times. You are stuck in your personal little wars that you have had in your town with other parishes and certain people. You do exactly what we should not do in our drive for unity. We should not let our personal fears, uncertainties, and unforgiving feelings work against this greater restoration of unity. We should not look back to old hurts and political squabbles, but to the future of our Romanian Orthodox Church in North America, and to the strengths that come from unity. The Bible says that if a house is divided against itself, it cannot stand (see Mark 3:25).

Fine:

The cold war is over, thanks be to God. I am looking forward to seeing you at the Congress and I have a good story to tell you. I hope it will make you chuckle. Lighten up!

I think you are taking yourself too seriously.

With love in Christ,
Pr. Cornel Todeasa