I think somebody better call in the devil's advocate before they canonize Met. Orestes.
If that is "sullying" then you have a very unique dictionary.
You may use this tactic to shut me up on the BC.forum but this group is a bit more honest than the one where you spend most of your time.
Funny that I am more welcome among the Orthodox than I am among my own: I realize that I am defining "welcome" to include having most of my ideas rejected by many here: but I have yet to be "banned for life" or told that my vocation was "dead in the water, in this Church" because I publicly stated what many others stated in private.
I am not aware of using any tactic to shut you up on byzcath. And actually I probably spend more time here than there lately. I was not aware you were banned. I don't know you posting name there nor do I remember being consulted about banning one for some time nor am I always consulted. What vocation is dead in the water? Are you trying to enter a monastery?
You're not the subject or object of my discontent...please see the note prior to this one.
As to the vocation: I have lived the life of a penitential hermit for nearly 15 years with the aid and counsel of the same spiritual father for those years. I would like to take religious vows as a hermit and have not only been given little help from my chancery, I was actively attacked by my pastor over the phone on several Saturdays running and in one of those awful conversations, he told me "Your vocation is dead in the water in this Church."...meaning, I suppose that he was not going to help me and would actively hinder me.
I've been offered help from the Orthodox and am about to contact the Latin rite bishop in my old diocese, since I am not going to enter Orthodoxy. But I am holding out some hope that perhaps once we have a new Metropolitan...So I continue to hold fire and hope.
Part of the problem, for me, technically is that there is no equivalent canon in the ECC to the one in the western code for the canonical religious status of "hermit"....It was on those grounds that I was pushed away in my own Church. Granted I never was allowed to actually speak to my bishop and I don't think the letters I wrote ever got to him either. They have all remained unanswered including those written by my spiritual father. This was all before the Metropolitan became so terribly and finally ill.
I had hoped to have some resolution before my spiritual father dies. After he is gone there is no one who knows me well enough to speak for me or about my journey.
M.