When “Defending the Faith” Forgets Christian Charity: A Pastoral Response to “The Juneteenth Joke”

By Bishop Stephen Victory

The recently published article entitled “The Juneteenth Joke” presents itself as a defense of Orthodox faith and canonical order. Those are worthy concerns. Canonical order matters. Apostolic succession matters. The boundaries of the Church matter. No responsible Orthodox Christian should treat these things casually or suggest that every religious body claiming the name “Orthodox” must therefore be accepted without examination.

Yet the defense of the faith must itself be conducted according to the faith.

Orthodox Christians are not permitted to defend truth through misrepresentation, ridicule, guilt by association, or judgments concerning motives that only God can know. Christian charity is not an optional ornament placed upon theological argument. It is part of the very truth we are commanded to defend. As Saint Paul teaches, we are to speak “the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15).

Truth without love becomes a weapon. Love without truth becomes sentimentality. The Church is called to neither.

The article’s central error is its failure to distinguish between Orthodox Christians whose canonical status is universally recognized and Orthodox Christians whose canonical standing remains disputed. Instead, it treats those outside the presently recognized canonical structures as though they were simply Protestants dressed in Orthodox vesture.

That portrayal is inaccurate and unjust.

The Juneteenth gathering at Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine was not a prayer service between Orthodox Christians and Calvinists, Lutherans, Baptists, or ministers who reject the sacramental and episcopal life of the Church. It was an ecumenical prayer service among Christians who profess the Orthodox faith.

Some belonged to jurisdictions universally recognized as canonical. Others belonged to Orthodox ecclesial bodies whose canonical standing is disputed or not presently recognized by the larger communion of canonical Orthodox Churches.

That distinction is real, and no serious person should deny it. But it is not the same distinction as that between Orthodoxy and Protestantism.

The clergy of the American Orthodox Catholic Church were not present as Calvinist pastors wearing borrowed vestments. They were not Lutherans temporarily reciting Orthodox prayers. They were not religious performers pretending to believe in apostolic succession, the episcopacy, the Holy Mysteries, the veneration of icons, or the authority of the Ecumenical Councils.

They were present as Orthodox Christians.

The American Orthodox Catholic Church confesses the Orthodox faith received from Holy Scripture, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Seven Ecumenical Councils, and the consensus of the Holy Fathers. It professes the sacramental life of the Church, including the true Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. It maintains episcopal government and possesses apostolic succession received through historical consecration and ecclesiastical tradition.

One may examine that succession. One may dispute its canonical regularity. One may request documentation, clarification, and synodical review. Those are legitimate ecclesiastical concerns.

But examination is not the same thing as insult.

Neither I nor the clergy of the AOCC are “pretending” to be Orthodox. We are not claiming Orthodoxy because we wear cassocks, burn incense, display icons, or employ Byzantine titles. Orthodoxy is not religious theatre. We claim to be Orthodox because we confess the Orthodox faith and have received an episcopal, sacramental, and liturgical inheritance that stands within apostolic continuity.

The article repeatedly fails to distinguish between Orthodox identity and present canonical recognition.

These realities are related, but they are not identical.

Canonical communion concerns recognized ecclesiastical order, jurisdiction, mutual accountability, and communion among bishops. It is gravely important. The AOCC does not dismiss the need for canonical order. We do not regard ecclesiastical fragmentation as desirable. We do not believe that every independent cleric who purchases vestments and claims succession must automatically be received as an Orthodox bishop.

Yet canonical recognition is not a magic wand that changes Protestant theology into Orthodox theology. Neither does the absence of present recognition automatically transform an Orthodox confession into Calvinism.

An ecclesial body may possess the Orthodox faith, Orthodox sacramental theology, Orthodox worship, and episcopal succession while remaining outside presently recognized canonical structures because of historical disruption, disputed jurisdiction, political upheaval, broken communion, missionary irregularity, or unresolved questions of reception.

Orthodox history is far less tidy than modern polemics often suggest.

Jurisdictions once dismissed as irregular have later been received or regularized. Clergy whose orders were disputed have subsequently been accepted through economy, reception, or recognition. Churches have moved in and out of communion because of jurisdictional and political conflict without altering the Creed they professed.

This does not make canonical order unimportant. It means that canonical irregularity and doctrinal heresy are not synonymous.

The sacred canons must also be applied honestly. The canons prohibit common prayer with heretics and schismatics. They protect the faithful from religious indifferentism, false doctrine, sacramental confusion, and the suggestion that truth and error are equally acceptable.

We receive those principles seriously.

But before a canon concerning prayer with heretics can be applied, one must first establish that the persons involved are actually heretics. A writer may not simply decide that every Orthodox body outside his preferred jurisdictional list is therefore Calvinist, Protestant, or outside the Christian faith.

What Orthodox dogma did the AOCC representatives deny at Saint Nicholas?

Did they deny the Holy Trinity?

Did they reject the divinity of Christ?

Did they repudiate the Theotokos?

Did they reject the Seven Ecumenical Councils?

Did they deny the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist?

Did they preach iconoclasm, congregationalism, symbolic sacraments, or justification by faith alone?

The article establishes none of these things.

Instead, it assumes that lack of canonical recognition is itself equivalent to doctrinal heresy and then uses that assumption to prove its conclusion. That is circular reasoning, not canonical discernment.

The ancient canons were not written as a modern denominational directory. They arose from concrete ecclesial circumstances involving identifiable heresies, rival altars, schisms, pagan worship, and groups whose doctrines or rebellion had been judged by competent ecclesiastical authority. Their application requires episcopal discernment, historical understanding, and pastoral sobriety.

A website article is not a synod.

The Juneteenth gathering was also not a Eucharistic concelebration. There was no common offering of the Divine Liturgy. There was no intercommunion. No declaration was made that every canonical question had been resolved. It was a prayer service concerning the wounds of slavery, conducted in an Orthodox setting and employing Orthodox prayer.

That distinction matters.

Orthodox Christians praying with other Orthodox Christians who are seeking greater unity, mutual recognition, or canonical reconciliation is not equivalent to Orthodox clergy participating in a Calvinist communion service or endorsing Lutheran doctrine. To collapse these very different situations into a single category is to abandon discernment while claiming to defend it.

The article also names me personally, although I was not present at the service, did not organize it, and exercised no authority over its proceedings. My inclusion appears to rest upon my public support for dialogue among Christians who profess the Orthodox faith.

That is guilt by association.

My support for dialogue does not mean that I endorse every action, claim, title, historical narrative, or practice associated with every participant. Christian conversation is not sacramental concelebration. Pastoral engagement is not automatic ecclesiastical recognition. Dialogue toward reconciliation is not the same thing as declaring that reconciliation has already been completed.

These distinctions should be obvious to anyone writing in defense of the Orthodox faith.

There are legitimate questions that may be raised. Publicity should be accurate. Clerical identities should not be confused. If ecclesial bodies are discussing reception or regularization, the nature of that process should be stated carefully. Nothing should imply Eucharistic communion where Eucharistic communion does not yet exist.

If mistakes were made, they should be corrected plainly. The Church is not served by ambiguity.

Yet legitimate questions do not justify imputing motives. The article repeatedly assumes that particular clergy sought only recognition, desired a public photograph, or intentionally encouraged spiritual delusion. Such claims presume knowledge of the human heart that no journalist possesses.

Saint Paul asks, “Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant?” (Romans 14:4). Public teachings and actions may be examined. Historical claims may be tested. Contradictions may be identified. But assumption must not be dressed as fact merely because it serves a preferred conclusion.

The article’s passing reference to married bishops is similarly revealing. It offers no careful historical or canonical argument. It simply mentions their marriages as though the observation itself settles the entire question.

The Orthodox discipline of episcopal celibacy is deeply established and must be treated seriously. But a disciplinary irregularity does not automatically erase the Nicene faith, destroy every claim of succession, or convert an ecclesial community into Protestantism. These matters require competent synodical judgment, not rhetorical contempt.

Likewise, dialogue concerning canonical reception does not require the AOCC first to confess that it has never been Orthodox.

We reject that premise.

Dialogue with a recognized Orthodox jurisdiction may concern reconciliation, canonical regularization, mutual examination, restoration of communion, or reception into a wider ecclesiastical relationship. It need not be understood as the conversion of Protestants into Orthodox Christians.

We are not seeking permission to begin believing the Nicene faith.

We already believe it.

We are not waiting to discover the sacramental life of the Church.

We already live it.

We are not borrowing an Orthodox identity from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese or any other jurisdiction.

We have received that identity through faith, tradition, worship, sacramental life, and succession.

Should dialogue lead to fuller canonical communion, that would not mean that we had previously been Calvinists who suddenly became Orthodox. It would mean that an existing Orthodox body had entered a recognized canonical relationship after the necessary examination, correction, reconciliation, and synodical action.

There may indeed be matters requiring correction. Every ecclesial body should possess enough humility to admit that possibility, including those already recognized as canonical. Historical succession does not make every administrative decision wise. Canonical recognition does not make every public action beyond criticism. Likewise, irregular standing does not make every doctrine false or every sacrament imaginary.

The author invokes the saints in warning against superficial ecumenism. That warning should be heard. But the sayings of the saints must first be applied to ourselves. The saints did not give us their words so that we might decorate anger with patristic quotations. They corrected error with grief, discernment, prayer, and love.

The concerns of the article could have been raised responsibly. Questions could have been asked concerning the participants, the terminology employed, the nature of the service, the history of the AOCC, and the meaning of future dialogue. Instead, the article employs ridicule, insinuation, and public contempt.

That is not pastoral correction.

It is humiliation clothed in canonical language.

The Orthodox Church must guard her boundaries. But those boundaries are not guarded faithfully when every unresolved ecclesiastical question is answered with derision. The gate of the sheepfold belongs to Christ. It must be guarded by shepherds, not wielded by executioners.

We remain open to serious conversation. We are prepared to discuss doctrine, history, succession, sacramental practice, canonical order, and the requirements of greater Orthodox unity. We do not demand that every question be answered in our favor. We do insist that those questions be approached honestly and charitably.

The AOCC is not a Protestant denomination staging an Orthodox performance.

We are Orthodox Christians by received faith, tradition, worship, sacramental life, and succession. We recognize that our canonical standing is contested. We also recognize that canonical reconciliation requires patience, humility, accountability, and synodical discernment.

But we will not accept the claim that we must first deny what we have received before anyone may speak with us.

The Church’s unity will not be healed by pretending that canonical recognition and the substance of Orthodox faith are exactly the same thing. Nor will it be healed by humiliating those who seek dialogue.

The faithful deserve better than slogans. The clergy deserve better than insinuations. The sacred canons deserve better than to be used as stones in an online quarrel.

Let us therefore speak plainly, but charitably.

We are not pretending to be Orthodox.

We are Orthodox.

The proper question is how those who confess the same apostolic faith may resolve division, heal irregularities, and walk together toward fuller communion in truth and love.

For when “defending the faith” forgets Christian charity, it risks contradicting the very faith it claims to defend.