On the Fordhamite Heresy

By George Michalopulos

Recently, our friends at Fordham University have made waves about changing the date for the celebration of Easter.  Their arguments were challenged most eloquently by Michael W Davis, himself a recent convert from Catholicism.  (“The Case for the Old Calendar: A Response to Fr John Chryssavgis”).  

I have no intention of contributing more to this particular issue other than to say that those Orthodox theologians who are ensconced at Fordham are firmly within the liberal-ecumenist camp on other issues as well.  Their primary mission, it seems, is to accommodate themselves as fully as possible in the world.  This is nowhere more evident in their desire to homosexualize the Orthodox Church.

The puerile groveling before the Vatican is disturbing.  Their incessant need to use their place at Fordham (a Jesuit institution) hints at a character defect, that is to say, an inability to be certain in their own faith and an unwillingness to defend it.  At best, it reflects a cultural inferiority which many ethnic Orthodox academics evince when it comes to top-tier American educational institutions.

Nowhere is this more evident than when it comes to the issue of homosexuality, specifically its normalization.

Years ago, many of us in the more conservative camp took on Fr Robert Arida, a priest in the OCA, who likewise wanted to normalize homosexuality, at least within his own parish.  (Here’s an oldie but goodie:  www.aoisusa.org/fr-robert-arida-why-don’t-you-become-episcopalian.)

This latest round from Fordham is proof that the homosexual juggernaut has not lost steam.  Regardless of the certainty of their position, the facts on the ground have overtaken the gay ideology.  And they are not pretty.  We can ask Arida and the Fordhamites why it took the Boston Globe to expose the massive rape of young boys by homosexual predators?  We can also ask why it was left to the judicial system to bring these predators (and their episcopal enablers) to heel?  What corrosive rot exists that renders the Latins incapable of any meaningful internal reform?  This is a question that needs to be asked and for some reason, they dare not.

Why would we want to join such an institution, much less imitate it?

The Fordhamites and other liberals are so weak in their own faith that they don’t see that the Latins need us, not the other way around.  Union can happen, but only if they offer a deep repentance to God that returns them to what they were before the Great Schism.  By most indications, that does not seem likely to happen.

Let us be clear:  Orthodoxy is coming into its own in America at precisely the point when the nation needs it.  (May God bless our ancestors in the faith who brought Orthodoxy to this land and protected it!  Except for Alaska, without these immigrants, there would be no Orthodox Church on these shores.)  At this critical time, a cadre of “men without chests” hide behind the cloak of expertise, false gravitas, contrived positions of authority, and weaponized ambiguity in order to disguise their cowardice.  They are afraid of the scorn that a full-throated defense of the truth is required to bring the Gospel to the millions –yes, millions–of people who are thirsty for the Gospel, which they have never heard and which only Orthodoxy can preach in its fullness.

It is bad enough that whenever the Ecumenical Patriarch comes to North America, he immediately goes to Catholic institutions such as Fordham and Notre Dame instead of Orthodox ones.  (Again, another example of the cultural inferiority that plagues the Greek-American mindset.)  But given the context of the paltriness of Orthodox higher education, it is understandable.    After all, many in his patriarchate are reduced to doing things “on the cheap.”  That’s why Greek Orthodox theologians are perched at Fordham in the first place.

So what’s in it for Fordham?  Why does it offer a safe academic space for Orthodox theologians?  For the same reason that the Unia exists:  to co-opt Orthodoxy and bring it under the Vatican’s control.

It is time to stop playing these academic games and to start being Orthodox.  They are not doing our Church –or this country–any favors.  This country does not need nice men but Nicene men. Let us stop acting like dilettantes and start behaving like men.