"Something to offend just about everybody."

Orthodox extend hand to Duncan's new Anglican Church
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

BEDFORD, Texas -- The spiritual leader of the Orthodox Church in America offered to begin talks aimed at full communion with the new Anglican Church in North America, then named a series of obstacles whose removal could tear apart the hard-won unity among the 100,000 theological conservatives who broke from the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada.

The Anglican Church in North America hopes to be recognized as a new province of the 80 million-member global Anglican Communion, of which the 2.1 million-member Episcopal Church is the U.S. province. The new church believes the Episcopal Church failed to uphold biblical authority and classic doctrines about matters ranging from the divinity of Jesus to biblical morality, a criticism that the Orthodox share.

Metropolitan Jonah, who was elected last year in Pittsburgh, is a convert who was raised as an Episcopalian. He spoke with humor about both traditions, warning, "I'm afraid my talk will have something to offend just about everybody."

"Calvinism is a condemned heresy," he said, to a smattering of applause from some Anglo-Catholics in the new church.

"For ... intercommunion of the Anglican Church and the Orthodox Church, the issue of ordination of women needs to be resolved," he said, again to applause from many of the same people.

"I believe women have a critical role to play in the church, but I do not believe it is in the [priesthood or as bishops]," he said. "Forgive me if this offends you." He called for an effort to "creatively come together to find the right context for women's ministry in the church."

"We will have much to talk about and we will talk," he said.

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