An article in the 23 June 23, 2008 New York Times, Delaying News in the Era of the Internet, points out how very hard it is to postpone the release of news in the Internet age. The story deals with the death of NBC’s Tim Russert. Despite the network’s desire to delay publicly announcing the news to insure that the family was informed first, zealous “connected” people on their own were publicizing the event on various outlets.
But then we come to the OCA, whose bishops have a Synodal meeting in mid-May and who write up minutes of the meeting, but more than a month later release nothing to the public (which is not to say that the minutes do not exist on the Internet, but officially no release has occurred). The OCA bishops do not see the Era of the Internet, only the “Error of the Internet.” The bishops do not want to exist in the 21st Century and prefer to deal with the world as if it doesn’t exist.
NBC of course is a news agency and its whole business is predicated on getting the news out as quickly (not even timely is good enough) as is possible. Trying to delay the news of Russert’s death for one hour was not possible.
The OCA is supposedly in the business of telling the Good News and of speaking the truth always (though it has no concern about timely let alone quickly). Despite decisions being made by the bishops on behalf of the entire membership of the OCA, the bishops do not believe they have any responsibility to report to anyone and certainly deny they are accountable to anyone.
Good News for Orthodox Christians will occur when the leadership decides to enter the 21st Century and to actually speak to our world in real time.
Fraternized 