As many of you know, I was one of two keynote speakers at “Gathered as One Body: Disability, Accessibility, and Inclusion in the Orthodox Church,” a large conference by the Huffington Ecumenical Institute and the GOA (Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America) Center for Family Care. It was great to be with them for two days and I hope this conference really sparks a lot more inclusion of disabled individuals in the Orthodox Church.
I want to note two sets of reflections: one about disability inclusion, including my talk, and the second about hopefulness regarding ecumenism.
Disability Inclusion in the Orthodox Church
Several signs are positive for disability inclusion in Orthodoxy. There is the commitment from the hierarchy, the commitment of conference attendees, and the way they responded to my speech.
Hierachy’s Commitment
A big step that you could see at this conference was that on Friday morning, they had a conference with five bishops including Archbishop Elpidophoros, the head of the entire Greek Orthodox Church in the US. In this panel of five, you had three of nine Greek Orthodox bishops (ranked metropolitan or above) in the USA and two Bishops from other Orthodox Churches. It was impressive to have such commitment from the hierarchy.
For comparison, the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, the main national Catholic disability group, is holding a conference in August of this year. I doubt they will get more than a bishop or two, despite there being many many times as many Catholic bishops as Greek Orthodox bishops. (Sidenote: I will not be at the NCPD conference this year as the timing is difficult and I have several other conferences I am going to this year, but I hope to go again in the future.)
Participants
There seemed to be a lot of commitment to looking at disability from the participants. They had a mix of more theological and more practical perspectives, but all positive.
My Speech
Finally, I want to note my keynote. I came after bishop Nathanael from Chicago who talked about being open about his ADHD, as the second of two keynotes. It was a kind of tough act. I focused more on disability inclusion in general. My outline was based on the 4 steps (or 4 A’s) of acceptance – Aversion, Awareness, Accommodation, and Apostolate – along with some tips like thinking in the social model of disability. I had many people come up after and point out how this helped in very particular ways, not just a general “good speech.” I hope this helps them. Also, many were interested in my book, God Loves the Autistic Mind. (Sidenote: I am open to giving more speeches like this.)
Moderate Hope for Ecumenism for the Orthodox
The conference also provided me a moderate hope for ecumenism.
Specific Parts of the Conference
Fr. John Chryssavgis, who organized the conference was very happy to have two Catholics and several from other branches of Orthodoxy sharing at the conference. The second Catholic was a lay professor from Boston College. It is really good to see such a desire.
Fr. John also always wanted to put me in the front of events. both two liturgies (one to call down the Holy Spirit to start and a Divine Liturgy [like a Catholic Mass] on Friday) and the bishops’ panel, I tried to sit near the back as a bit of an introvert, but Fr. John insisted I was an honored guest so should be up-front. I felt kind of embarrassed but it showed a degree of respect for me as a Catholic priest.
General Sense from the Conference
Multiple times people noted their respect for Pope Francis and condolences for his loss. In talking about the next Pope, interest in a Pope who might continue to move their church and ours closer together seemed genuine.
When I mentioned that we have some theological differences although none regarding the topics of the conference, many of the Orthodox participants minimized even that to indicate our common theology to the degree possible. Obviously, there still are questions like the authority of the Pope and harmonizing purgatory and aerial toll houses to deal with, but the ground-level desire to focus on our theological unity is a good sign.
I think it is possible to see some big steps towards a reunion between Rome and Constantinople in my lifetime. Of the ecumenical projects the Catholic Church pursues with various Churches and ecclesial communities, I think this is the one that has the best chance of success. However, we need to be realistic and not assume reunion while we are still in schism: for example, neither I nor the non-Greek Orthodox bishops took Communion at Divine Liturgy.
A Summary
Overall, I think this was a positive experience. I would be happy to help the Orthodox further with both disability inclusion and with movement towards ecumenism.
