Fr. Ambrose and Fr. Anastasios,
Let me see if I understand correctly where the charge of heresy lies. HOCNA will not depict the Holy Trinity in icons nor venerate them while the HOTCA says that such icons are well within the tradition of Orthodoxy and thus should be venerated? Do I have that correct? Is that the only reason for the schism between them? Let me know.
I think Fr Ambrose is getting that impression from the commentary that one or two individuals have made on the thread on the other forum, but those individuals are not members of either Church and at least one is rather anti-HOCNA (he doesn't seem to be too pro-GOC[HOTCA] either given the way he writes about our bishops, but you can't please everyone).
HOCNA has in the past made an issue about the Holy Trinity icon and there are a few people in HOCNA that are vocal against it, but as with many of these things, actual opinions vary, and I don't see it as "the" major issue though.
There are certainly some differences between our church and theirs, but their views are essentially the same as when they were in ROCOR so I hardly find them to be insurmountable. We have some canonical concerns regarding some things that happened in their Church in the past to add to differences in views, and one of their major issues is our deposition of the former Archbishop, Auxentios, in 1986. I don't really think it would be profitable to go in to all of that though, since the aforementioned dialogue is unofficial and still in its infancy, and I would not like rehash the debates online since we are addressing them in the context of said unofficial dialogues.
