Give peace to Thy world, to Thy Churches, to Thy priests…

War is bad. Wars should cease. Peace is the way of the Royal Path.

Within one week of his meeting with the President of Russia, the Archbishop of Stika and Alaska has issued a public apology for the pain inflicted upon the faithful in the wake of this meeting.

Indeed, the optics, to many, appeared bad. But optics are not reality. The optics of the Easter morning were that a body was stolen. The reality is that death was dead and Life was alive.

Here, too, a hierarch of the Church of God greeted a dignitary. Is he a war criminal? Should he be arrested? Whatever one might think of Mr. Putin, he is also a sitting President. The optics were that the Archbishop was too effulgent in his talk of Russia. But those are just optics. The Archbishop of sacred Alaska greeted a sitting dignitary from the land that gave birth to Holy Orthodoxy in the Last Frontier.

What is far sadder, however, is the public rebuke by some brother hierarchs, clergy, and faithful of the Orthodox Church, without any conversation with His Grace about motive or purpose.

“Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother” (Matthew 18:15). Lengthy Facebook posts are certainly not offered with the goal of bringing a brother to repentance by telling him his fault between “you and him alone.” They are, instead, often meant to shame, cajole, threaten, and harm.

What the reaction will be by those who were hurt by all of this is anyone’s guess. Will they relent, following this apology? God willing, yes!

One will, of course, be looking to see if an upcoming visit of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the USA and his scheduled visit with the President, members of Congress and the Senate, and members of the Diplomatic Corps will bring the same kind of rebuke to corrupt, immoral behavior that was so longed for in this current situation.

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