There are a number of individuals who wish to see this church fail and cease to exist. Some are members of SCOBA churches and some are members of independent jurisdictions who have claimed to be us or continue to lie and claim they are us.
They fail to consider one point - They will never be us and cannot legally be us at any time. This Church has been setup to maintain an independent life as a legal entity with control and ownership of the name and logo as well as our copyrighted materials are ours by law.
Those who claim to be us under the American Orthodox Catholic Church name are not. They have no legal claim on our 1927 short name no matter what they try to claim.
If you think you can take control of the church by joining us do not bother, that has also been tried and the corporate board works independent of the Synod.
Those who claim to be the Society of Clerk's Secular of Saint Basil are also making false claims. The SSB was originally established within this Church in 1931 and continues within this Church. Anyone using this name violate our former Registered Service Mark since the law does not require continued Registration. We had the name Registered for more than the required 5 years and previously claimed the name as a common law service mark.
Anyone claiming any of our other common law service marks as listed on our websites are also acting in a criminal manner by infringing our intellectual property.
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Please note: The Ross Stefan is a reproduction, but still a somewhat valuable piece since his originals are selling in the thousands
REMEMBER - Only 2 defining forces have ever offered to die for you - Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul and the other for your freedom.
Definition of a Veteran
A Veteran - Whether acive duty, retired, National Guard or reserve - is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check, made payable to the "United States of America", for an amount of "up to and including my life".
That is honor, and there are far to many people in this country who choose to no longer understand it.
Author Unknown
Over the years I have tried to respond to all the false claims made against THEOCACNA by members of the independent movement and later by so called ethnic clergy. Thanks to the Canons and traditions we can easily prove the Old Catholics who claim to be Orthodox with lines to this Church are not, which is something the ethnic churches could easily have done anytime but they preferred to allow the original American Church to be attacked so they look better.
By allowing these members of the ethnic churches, mostly clergy it appears, they have done 2 things.
1. They have attacked this Church with undocumented and unproven speculation and in the process assisted us in estabishing a timeline to prove the independent claims false.
2. They have proven by their false statements and claims and continued attacks* against Orthodox clergy that they are unchristian, violate the canons and do not deserve the office they hold. Any bishops over them are also as bad. Evil begets Evil!
We have written to the Church leaders of many of these Orthodox jurisdictions to make them aware of these attacks and lies. Failure by these synods to act and end these attacks makes them as guilty as their clergy.
Archbishop Victor
February 27, 2009
We continue to hear of folks dying at home alone and not being found for weeks. We also hear they have no funeral arrangments which leads to hard feeling among family members. It is time for everyone to plan for the future. If you had a family you planned for the education of your children, you planned your meals, you planned your vacations but you ignore the important fact - You will die!
we suggest you get your affairs in order if your 40 or 80! Look into funerals and related costs. To be buried you need a coffin, a grave lot, should consider a headstone and you need to tell a few family members and friends what your last wishes are. Leave money for your burial or buy a prepaid package. If you only get part of the costs paid it will help the family and friends you leave behind.
If you live alone consider having a friend share your home or apartment. If you are injured or ill you will have someone around to help you even if its only to call an ambulance or the police.
There are way to many independent groups running around claiming to be Anglican, Orthodox or "Old" Catholic. Many are paper clergy and churches meaning they generally do not hold services, many have little or no formal theological training and fail to follow the canons of the Church they claim to be.
Do not misunderstand what I am saying here. I in no way mean that the independents are all like this. There are many good people who have small active ministries. They follow the canons and are serious about their ministry. The problem is being able to tell the active clergy from the paper ones.
We believe the only way to grow is to establish one large American Orthodox Church from the active splinter groups. The same goes for the Old Catholics and Anglican jurisdictions. These merged jurisdictions would be able to have Churches and clergy in many areas, more than they have ever dreamed of, and they could serve the people.
Our doors are open to True Orthodox Jurisdictions as well as Old Catholic and Anglican jurisdictions who could comfortably join us and use the Western Rite Service Book and the Liturgies, posted on this website, we use.
Unity will lead to growth and allow us all the recognition we are entitled to. Those who remain small independent jurisdictions will be the paper groups who only seek titles and make claims of being who and what they are not.
On behalf of the North American Holy Synod an offer of Unity and/or merger was sent to the Synod of the OCA. Due to their problems over the past year or more we felt it was the Christian action to take. We need to unite American Orthodoxy for the laity and clergy. People tell us of all the in-fighting they encounter and the feeling they get that one Orthodox Jurisdiction will act as if they are better or more Orthodox than others.
This evening (Aug 7, 2008) as I dozed in front of the television I received a phone call from a friend who is neither Catholic or Orthodox. He was telling me how he had contacted some priests from various "canonical" Orthodox Churches like the Greeks, a ROCOR church and others in his area and how they all bad mouthed the other Churches they are supposed to be in communion with. His comments were how unchristian these priests are and how surprised he is now that THEOCACNA has survived all these years.
I considered mentioning, again, how these so called canonical groups are in Schism with us and that we ignore them for the most part.
He also has been talking to a Roman Catholic priest he met not long ago and this whole experience has left a bad taste in his mouth.
More recently this same friend has stated something about it being sad the Roman Catholics have placed such barriers up preventing people from joining the Catholic Church.
We need to seek out other active jurisdictions who may be viewed as independent based on their background and how they started but who are serious about Orthodoxy and suggest they consider joining with us. We have members who have no priest near them, we have others seeking a church home and we are not there. We need to grow and we need to gather members and clergy.
The clergy and members of this Church do not associate with the SCOBA ethnic clergy who were part of and party to the Schism in American Orthodoxy. These same jurisdictions will claim we cannot be canonical since we are not in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch but to be in communion with schismatics would make us schismatics also and would lead to our excommunication and being deposed.
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Many in the Independent Movement have heard about us at some point. Some claim their lines come from us, some claim our Charter was issued to them, and some have even claimed they are us under a different name. On the internet you can find all sorts of information - some true, some false and a lot of fairy tales. To avoid all the junk that exists here is an outline about this Church.
The independent movement for the most part seems to exist for the title seekers. They want to be in Holy Orders but do not want to have to follow orders or directions so they want to be the "boss" over others. Many will ordain those who have no vocational calling, education or temperment for the Holy Office. There are some good active clergy in the independent movement but they are independent clergy and not part of any historic Church.
We are the same Church that was chartered in 1927 and headed by Archbishop Aftimios Ofiesh of blessed memory.
All the groups calling themself the "American Orthodox Catholic Church", our short name, are not associated with us in any way. Others using similar names like "American Orthodox Church" are also not associated with us.
A group that was started up after a few former clergy left our Church [called a major internal Schism by some ethnic clergy] made false claims that they were us under a different name, that the Metropolitan was the "former primate" of their new group, and later certain rumors of a claim they excommunicated me was traced back to them. All claims are proven false and documented on our website. Many pages are no longer linked to the public but the information is still available on request. Example: Clergy left this Church, one resigned in writing, one by phone and another just walked away without a word. After they harassed us the synod issued decrees against the 4 involved since they had in one way or another been associated with us at one time and they violated the canons and claimed they were us. This was not a major internal Schism, just some clergy who wanted to do things as they saw fit and in an unorthodox manner
Today we have a Synod of well trained and educated individuals. One has over 25 years with the Byzantine Orthodox, earned degrees and continues to work on a doctorate degree, another has numerous earned degrees including a Ph.D. Two are well trained in the Byzantine liturgy. We have Chaplains who can offer the Tridentine Latin Mass to Catholics on request. One who has retired from this Synod for health reasons had been a Uniate mitred Archpriest.