Report on the Unity Forum

Archdeacon David Oancea said: "Unlike the Church of Romania, our Church depends on the laity and the clergy together [for financial support and administration]. I would hope that as this process continues, the laity would take their rightful place, step up to the plate, take responsibility, show up at meetings, be present at the Congress and really take the time, like you did today, to learn what this is all about and respect both sides of the issue."

This identifies a key difference between the Orthodox churches of the Old World and the New: financial support. In a country where the Church is supported by the government or where the Church has use of churches and building that have been built up and preserved over centuries, there is little need for lay financial support comparable to that required in a growing Church in a traditionally non-Orthodox country. This gives Orthodox Christians in North America far more 'input' than is otherwise canonically 'required' - though such working together is something always put forward as right and good, fitting for spiritual fathers (bishops) and their spiritual children.

The danger should also be noted, however. It is possible for rich Orthodox Christians to wield too much power and to misuse the Church for their own purposes, e.g., cultural and linguistic preservation, political influence, etc. It is also possible for a foreign government to agree to fund their peoples' Orthodox Churches abroad and thus misuse their influence toward phyletistic and purely secular ends, e.g., the Church jurisdiction becomes a tool of the country's government.

While financial support is a lever by which laity and lower clergy have wielded influence - to good ends in the recent OCA scandal to less worthy ends in other phyletistic jurisdictions - there is danger in reducing influence in the Church to money and power. There is another way. It must always be remembered that the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ - the Church is His, and not ours, not our bishops', not the laity's, not our financial backers.