Well, perhaps I was a bit inaccurate in my wording.. I don't know if I'd say they are necessarily "right"... more like, "I don't have the right or vantage point to say that they are wrong". It might yet happen that we will find out that I will be condemned for not acting. Or, it might be found out that some others will be condemned for being presumptuous and condemning others before they should have done so. As I said in this thread, though, I think even within ROCOR there is a wide range of tenable positions (again, though, that wording doesn't exactly reflect what I believe). At this point, I don't think that either position is necessarily "safer" from a doctrinal standpoint--I think all positions can give evidences and patristics and such to support their case, and that all the positions have pious--and even saintly--men that now, or have in the past, defended their position.
Therefore, the "safest" course according to the Fathers (such as St. Vincent of Lerins) is to follow what has been handed to me: to follow my fathers in the faith. I'll stick with my spiritual father, then, and let him be the guide. I might also add that for me personally, the safest course would be the most moderate one. I have a tendency to talk a lot, and I already say so many things that come out wrong! By taking up a more extreme position I'd undoubtedly say many more things that would be harmful, offending both others and hurting my own soul. The strange thing is, one of the reasons that I wanted to become ROCOR was so that I could leave these types of arguments (over ecumenism and monophysites and such) behind for a while, and just focus on our salvation (ie. the salvation of my wife and I). Thing have not gone according to that plan--but I can only imagine how much worse we would have went off course had we joined the GOC or ROAC, had no local Church to attend, and possibly had no spiritual father to seek advice from. This is not a knock against the GOC and ROAC--but a knock against our own weaknesses--weaknesses which surely the world and the devil, and our own daily sinfulness, would have magnified.
Now, I do many times speak out against those ecclesiological positions to the left and right of me, and sometimes get frustrated--not because I think they are untenable within an Orthodox framework, but because I just think there's a better solution or answer. At the end of the day, however, I can't say "I'm right and you're wrong" with any great degree of assurance. For now, I'm actually trying to distance myself from such discussions... I don't know how much they will help at this point (most people currently using this forum already know the basic arguments and points, don't they?) I do think that such discussions can be beneficial, but I'm not sure that this is the time.
I've never seen that done in the ROCOR or the OCA. It didn't seem right. Correct me if I'm wrong.
but I did want to say one more thing in clarifying what I said earlier. Some compare the situation to the iconoclastic period. I think its comparable in many ways to the early Church and it's eschatological beliefs. After all, some Fathers held to beliefs that were eventually condemned by the Church, but that doesn't mean that the Fathers at the time who held to the later condemned beliefs were without grace. There are more examples of this type of odd situation (e.g., Gregory of Nyssa and his universalism), but then I'll admit that there are people who have the opposite happens and it is said that they were not in the Church (e.g., Origen and... well... a lot). Whether moderate people in ROCOR are right, or firm-standing people in ROAC, I think it's possible that centuries from now (if we make it that long) Orthodox Christians might look back on this period, praising those who were found to be right, and "covering the sin" of those who were wrong, though not denying that they were, in some mysterious way, both wrong and yet still in the Church in spite of their error.
