There's something about a bishop...

There's something about a bishop...
There's something about a bishop that is
comical but at the same time deeply unnerving.

From Flavius Josephus, at Byzantine, Texas. The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

Bulgaria's commission charged with announcing the names of people who collaborated with the country's former communist-era secret services announced on January 17 2012 that 11 out of 15 members of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church's governing body, the Holy Synod, had worked for State Security....

Galaktikon was agent Misho; Domitian, agent Dobrev; Ignatii, agent Penev; Yoanikii, agent Kirilevich; Grigorii, agent Vanyo; Yosif, agent Nikolov; [jump]
Kalinik, agent Rilski; Kiril was a secret collaborator with the code name Kovachev and was an agent code-named Vladislav; Nataniel was a collaborator code-named Blagoev; Simeon of Western and Central Europe was a collaborator, as Toris, and an agent, code-named Hristov; Neofit's code name as an agent was Simeonov.

Yes, more than two thirds of them were spies on their parishioners, the clergy that served under them, and of course each other. It wasn't just the Orthodox, to be fair: according to Josephus,

Georgi Yovchev, bishop of the Roman Catholic eparchy of Sofia and Plovdiv from July 31 1988, was agent Petar.

Among Muslims, chief mufti Moustafa Alish Hadji was named as agent Andrei. Other senior Muslim clerics were Iskren Dobrouzhaliev, as agent Dobromir, Hasuf Halil Hasuf, a regional mufti and an agent code-named Hristo, Hedim Gendjev, collaborator, Osman Ismailov, collaborator, Ridvan Kaduov, an agent and Shefket Murad Hadji, an agent.

And you know who else has been a bishop? A part-time volunteer one (they're all volunteers) in the Latter-Day Saints? Of course you do. 

Several Mormons affectionately describe him as a man who can't remember names and can't tell a joke, but did preach inspiring sermons....

The candidate has always "smiled faintly when listening and talking, even about serious or controversial matters," [says Philip Barlow, chairman of Mormon Studies at Utah State University who was a counselor, or assistant, to Romney when he was a bishop]. "Romney smiled in conducting religious services or planning meetings. He smiled while hosting friends at his Cape Cod vacation home. He smiled when comforting a wounded congregant."

This was not a false persona, Barlow writes, but a "mixture of good will, confidence, optimism, enjoyment of intellectual challenge, and idiosyncrasy."

I love Romney relishing the intellectual challenge of hosting friends in Cape Cod, or comforting a wounded congregant. And the Mormon Girl herself, Joanna Brooks, warns us not to judge him too harshly over his sometimes problematic relations with those Mormon feminists (who knew?):

To put Romney’s record into perspective, it should be said that adhering to the LDS Church’s conservative positions on gender is nothing exceptional for a Mormon bishop. Like most clergy, bishops typically uphold the policies of the institution they serve. This, of course, does not excuse Romney’s egregious incidences of coldness and disrespect towards women as reported in Salon and elsewhere. But it’s wrong to depict Mitt Romney as some kind of hardliner, because as far as Mormon men of his generation go, on gender, Romney is rather moderate.

Oops, Joanna, careful! Some of those Republicans might be listening!