Time to Exit Eli’s Road

”Then the LORD said to Samuel: ‘Behold, I will do something in Israel at which both ears of everyone who hears it will tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knows, because his sons made themselves vile, and he did not restrain them. And therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be atoned for by sacrifice or offering forever.'” 1 Samuel (1 Kings, LXX) 3:11-14

This passage has a backstory. Young Samuel was placed into the guardianship of the priest Eli, who had two sons of his own, Hophni and Phineas. Like their father, they were priests. Unlike Eli, they were evil, stealing from the offerings brought by the faithful of Israel. (The Scriptures do not give many further details of their sins, but one can surmise that a priest willing to steal from offerings to God would have other moral failings as well.) Eli admonished his sons, but they would not stop (1 Sam 2:22-24). Eli had already been told his evil sons would perish in the same day (1 Sam 2:34). His sons continued in the evil with no interference from their father and, indeed, they died as promised (1 Sam 4:10). However, it is even more significant that Eli himself was to be punished for failing to go beyond a warning, for failing to stop his sons’ actions. Eli knew of the iniquity, “and he did not restrain them.” For this refusal to act, God ended Eli’s familial priesthood, even though Eli was not guilty in the same manner as his sons.

We have a problem in Orthodox North America. Worse than matters of theft and malfeasance, we have sexual sin among some of the clergy