{"id":3959,"date":"2010-01-29T11:28:47","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T16:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/?p=3959"},"modified":"2014-04-18T11:25:58","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T18:25:58","slug":"thanks-to-fathers-reardon-and-hodges-on-opposing-rowan-williams-honors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/thanks-to-fathers-reardon-and-hodges-on-opposing-rowan-williams-honors\/","title":{"rendered":"Thanks to Fathers Reardon and Hodges on Opposing Rowan Williams Honors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"St<\/a>Orthodox Forum | by Cathy Tatusko | Jan. 28, 2010<\/p>\n

I write in support of two Orthodox priests, Fr. Patrick Reardon and Fr. Mark Hodges, for their principled and public stance on the decision by St. Vladimir’s Seminary to invite Rowan Williams to deliver the Schmemann lecture and to confer upon him an honorary Doctorate of Divinity. As Fathers Reardon and Hodges so accurately and forcefully state, these actions are scandalous not only to many of the faithful Orthodox Christians in this country whose priests have been schooled and formed at this seminary, but also to the many Anglicans and other Protestants who may have been contemplating a move to the Orthodox Church to escape the immoral practices within their own communion with respect to homosexuality. <\/p>\n

The decision to confer an honorary doctorate on Archbishop Williams seems almost intentionally provocative, as it is difficult to imagine a more polarizing individual on the contemporary Christian world stage. Are we really being asked in the OCA to overlook this man’s stature as the leading clerical advocate of a homosexual episcopacy, as Father Mark so aptly referred to him, simply because he has studied and written about Orthodoxy? I am baffled by the idea that our new Metropolitan, who has signed the Manhattan Declaration and who has openly invited disaffected Anglicans to take refuge in the Orthodox Church, would have sanctioned this action by St. Vladimir’s Seminary.<\/p>\n

Is Orthodoxy destined to become just one more variation of vanilla Christianity in America? Aren’t there enough such “expressions” of the Christian faith in this country to satisfy the appetites of those who seek spirituality without moral accountability? Are we so desperate for the world’s approval that we are willing to sacrifice our moral teachings to obtain it?<\/p>\n

Have we forgotten that friendship with the world is enmity with God? The faithful Orthodox in this country are deserving of answers to these questions with respect to this action by St. Vladimir’s.<\/p>\n

While I hope that the Orthodox Church will always be a hospital for repentant sinners (whatever the sin), I pray we will not lose our ability to distinguish between sickness and health. For our part, my husband and I will be withholding any future support of St. Vladimir’s Seminary until some explanation is offered to the Church as to why this action was taken. I doubt that our puny protest will be felt by the seminary, but it will satisfy our consciences that we are not blindly supporting false teaching in the name of Orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

In Christ,
\nCathy Tatusko<\/em><\/p>\n

——————————————<\/p>\n

More information regarding this unfortunate situation:<\/p>\n

Archbishop Rowan Williams to deliver annual Schmemann Lecture at St. Vladimir\u2019s Seminary<\/strong>
\nwww.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/2009\/12\/14\/archbishop-rowan-williams-to-deliver-annual-schmemann-lecture-at-st-vladimirs-seminary\/<\/a><\/p>\n

TOUCHSTONE Editor criticizes conferral of Doctorate on Rowan Williams<\/strong>
\nwww.aoiusa.org\/blog\/2010\/01\/touchstone-editor-criticizes-conferal-of-doctorate-on-rowan-williams\/<\/a><\/p>\n

——————————————<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Orthodox Forum | by Cathy Tatusko | Jan. 28, 2010 I write in support of two Orthodox priests, Fr. Patrick Reardon and Fr. Mark Hodges, for their principled and public stance on the decision by St. Vladimir’s Seminary to invite Rowan Williams to deliver the Schmemann lecture and to confer upon him an honorary Doctorate … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,130],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orthodox-christianity","category-orthodox-church"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}