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Officers' Reports Metropolitan Council Meeting Fall 2016 Officers’ Reports Meeting of the Metropolitan Council September 19 to September 22, 2016 Officers’ Reports Table of Contents 1. Metropolitan's Report Metropolitan Tikhon 2. Chancellor’s Report Archpriest John Jillions A. ORSMA Report (Executive Session) Cindy Heise B. SMPAC Report Dr. Albert Rossi 3. Secretary’s Report Archpriest Eric G. Tosi A. Archives Report Alexis Liberovsky B. Information Technology Update Ryan Platte C. Website Refurbish Archpriest Eric G. Tosi 4. Treasurer’s Report Melanie Ringa A. External Auditor Report D'Arcangelo & Co B. Internal Auditor Report John Skrobat C. 2017 Preliminary Budget 1 Chancellor’s Report to the Metropolitan Council September 20, 2016 The Metropolitan Council September 19-22, 2016 Chancellor’s Report “To prominently position the OCA within the broader cultural context” Over the last couple of years His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, with the concurrence of the Holy Synod, has been putting forward the vision of an OCA built on four pillars, like the pillars of the altar: spiritual life, stewardship, evangelism/outreach and external relations. Helping to shape this vision into concrete forms is one of the main tasks of the Metropolitan Council, together with the Holy Synod and the OCA’s officers and administration. His Beatitude’s and the OCA officers’ shared hope is that at this meeting of the Metropolitan Council we could begin to plan more systematically. As a starting point we can go back to His Beatitude’s report to the Spring MC meeting this year. For each of the pillars he spoke about “enduring goals” (more on this later.) For example, under “Evangelism and Outreach” he listed the following as enduring goals: • To plant, grow and revive current and future parish and mission communities within our dioceses; • To prominently position the OCA within the broader cultural context in addressing: o Contemporary moral and ethical issues (family and human sexuality; bio-medical; and philanthropy) o Improve communications both internally and externally • To effectively practice Mt. 25 ministries in reaching out to those in need, both within and outside our parishes I would like to consider the second of these, “to prominently position the OCA within the broader cultural context.” This past July I heard Bishop Paul speak very frankly at the FOCA convention in Chicago about our mission in North America. He said that we as Orthodox often talk about “baptizing the culture,” but when it comes to North America with its varieties of cultures— ethnic, political, social, religious, age-related—we haven’t even begun to understand what we’re dealing with. This means that we need to do a lot more listening before we can just go out and baptize that culture. In fact, if we don’t do more listening, we will find that many in this mixed set of cultures will just dismiss us out of hand. Bishop Paul did not underestimate the difficulty of listening, especially to views that conflict with Orthodox tradition, but he said “we need to get out of our comfort zones and listen to what people are saying”—even our own people—if we really wish to do the apostolic work of the gospel. The news is not all bad: if we listen closely we will find opportunities, since Orthodox Christianity at its best can respond to the deepest spiritual longings of many who have given up on religion and life. 1 Chancellor’s Report to the Metropolitan Council September 20, 2016 Orthodoxy and the Religious Landscape in America The Pew Research Center completed some extensive studies last year on religious behavior and attitudes of Americans, and this included a sampling of Orthodox. The data are not perfect, but they are instructive and give us good reason to dig deeper and listen more. If you ever thought that the Orthodox were unified in their attitudes on some fundamental questions of the day you will be surprised (and perhaps shocked) at the range that was found. I’ll just focus on a few of the findings that are relevant to us (for the full study, which is well worth reviewing, see http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/.) First, the number of unaffiliated increased significantly, by almost 7% over seven years (2007-2014) to almost a quarter of the US population. The growth of the “nones” is especially dramatic among the younger generations. More than a third of all millennials (born 1981-1996) now consider themselves atheist, agnostic or nothing in particular. And let’s not fool ourselves: they include many of our own children and grandchildren. 2 Chancellor’s Report to the Metropolitan Council September 20, 2016 But this doesn’t mean that this vast swath of people has given up on spiritual life. The chart below shows attendance at religious services by religious group. Mormons and Jehovah’s witnesses are by far the most active, followed by Evangelicals and the Black churches. Orthodox are just so-so (only 31% attend at least once a week.) But notice that 28% of the unaffiliated (religious “nones”) attend once or twice a month or at least a few times a year (and 4% of them go weekly.) Similar findings comes through in the practice of prayer, as seen in the chart below. 3 Chancellor’s Report to the Metropolitan Council September 20, 2016 Here again Orthodox are only in the middle of the pack among those who pray at least daily. But notice too that 20% of the “nones” pray at least daily. These are spiritually thirsty people who can’t seem to find a water-fountain in the religions they have encountered. For some of these seekers Orthodox Christianity could be a home. And they represent an opportunity for the Orthodox if we are ready to listen. The Pew study also reveals an opportunity to listen to our own Orthodox people, because the findings show a disconnect between many who describe themselves as Orthodox and what we have come to regard as standard Orthodox positions on some key contemporary social questions. Here for example is the chart of findings regarding attitudes toward abortion. 53% of the Orthodox believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. A similar disconnect appears in attitudes on homosexuality, where 62% of Orthodox believe that homosexuality should be accepted in society. In a related finding, 54% of Orthodox strongly 4 Chancellor’s Report to the Metropolitan Council September 20, 2016 favor same-sex marriage. All of this reveals the need for more listening as well as teaching if we are going to “prominently position the OCA within the broader cultural context” and truly baptize our culture. The MC, Leadership and Planning It might appear that none of this information about American religious attitudes is immediately relevant to the business at hand for our Metropolitan Council meeting. But as I pointed out at the beginning, if our task is to help put into practice the vision His Beatitude outlined, then we are going to face such questions all along the way. And since our main business as the Metropolitan Council is governance, it is wise to keep in mind the broader framework and mission we have as Orthodox Christians in America before we get too stuck into the weeds of reports on current business. Also, from time to time during the course of our meeting we ought to be able to lift up our eyes to these bigger questions. For this same reason the Internal Governance Committee invited Protodeacon Peter Danilchick and Mr Charles Ajalat to conducting a retreat on leadership for the Metropolitan Council and the Standing Synod. As part of the preliminary homework for this retreat, Protodeacon Peter created a survey to help the members of the Standing Synod and Metropolitan Council assess where we are collectively and individually concerning important governance issues. The first item on the retreat agenda will be to review the results and I look forward with interest to how we see ourselves. We have dealt with a number of major challenges over the last few years, and we successfully navigated the All-American Council in 2015 that passed the revised Statutes and the Financial Resolution, both of which were landmark decisions that required huge amounts of labor in advance of the AAC and no little discussion at the Council itself. In the end those two resolutions passed overwhelmingly. Now that this necessary business is done, it is time to turn our attention as MC to serious planning for the future. This has been a regular item of discussion within the Chancery at meetings with His Beatitude and the officers. As the old saying goes, “failure to plan is planning to fail.” A quick review of the OCA Statute shows that the planning function needs to be spelled out more clearly among the competencies of the various bodies. If there is a gap in the list of 5 Chancellor’s Report to the Metropolitan Council September 20, 2016 OCA responsibilities between the Holy Synod, the Standing Synod, the Metropolitan, the All American Council and the Metropolitan Council, it is this issue of planning, which appears to fall between the cracks. In fact, planning is not mentioned there at all. Everyone who is working for the Church at the OCA-wide level is working very hard and puts in enormous numbers of hours. The reports from the Secretary, Treasurer, Offices and Departments are excellent testimony to this. We do a lot of things, we listen to lots of reports, many good people are offering their time, talents and treasure for the building up of the Church, but we seem to lack focus.
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