Browsing: Governance & Unity Essays

Source: Houston Chronicle Non-priests should be given role when Catholic bishops are accused of scandals. This week’s meeting of American bishops in Baltimore offers an important test of whether the Roman Catholic Church is prepared to do what’s necessary to restore the hemorrhaging credibility of its priests and prelates. The assembled bishops will vote Thursday on rules for implementing new directives by Pope Francis. Among other changes, the pope’s decree requires all instances of child sex abuse be reported to the Vatican and to local police. Allegations that bishops have covered up accusations or mishandled investigations of priests will also…

Source: Oinos Educational Consulting by Frank Marangos, D.Min., Ed.D., FCEP “Let justice run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”  ~ Amos 5:24 Pitcairn is a South Pacific island that was made famous by a group of mutineers that landed on its volcanic shores in the late 18th century. On April 28, 1789, twenty crew members of the British warship HMS Bounty rebelled and set their commander, William Bligh, adrift in a lifeboat. The account has been told many times and glamourized by the 1962 film The Mutiny on the Bounty that chronicles the subsequent life of the maritime fugitives. Debarked on…

by Hagiographos Elias Damianakis Archon Maestor Great Church of Christ June 9, 2019 When I choose to write an article, I expect to write in a professional and impersonal voice. But the regular expectations change a bit when I respond to an incompetent fraudster’s article. This is just one response. The once cogent Orthodox Christian Laity (OCL) has lost its standing in the community. The constant duplicity of republishing of the fanciful “works” of less than reputable authors like Nick Stamatakis proves this. The OCL’s June 8th article “NEW MISSTEPS BY A CONFUSED ELPIDOPHOROS” goes too far. Literally every line…

The Greek-American Community banned the corrupt politicians of Greece from participating in this year’s Greek Independence Day parades across the U.S., accusing them as “traitors”.  But Elpidophoros invited every one of them to his “enthronement”! by Nick Stamatakis Elpidophoros is languishing in Athens, supposedly preparing his tenure in New York.  The harsh reality, however, is that he is lacking the legitimacy of a regular Archbishop, as his election violated the Archdiocese’s Charter by ignoring the governing bodies of our Church. None of our Metropolitans showed any warmth – even the one or two of them who bothered to issue an…

Source: The National Herald By TNH Staff Archbishop Elpidophoros has not stopped working for a minute, paving the way for his arrival – in just a few days – in the United States. He is visiting the leaders of the political parties of Greece, large and small, without distinction, as well as its religious leaders. And what he is doing is right and useful on two levels: First, it is good to have a personal relationship with them, as it will come in handy when America’s Archbishop needs the Motherland’s co-operation. And second, because it is time for us and…

Source: Orthodox Christianity MOSCOW — Any Local Church has the authority to call a pan-Orthodox Council, His Grace Bishop Qais (Sadiq) of Erzurum recently told RIA-Novosti. Bp. Qais spoke with the Russian outlet while in Moscow for an international conference dedicated to the protection of the rights of the faithful in Ukraine In his address, he called the Canonical Church of Ukraine to contact the International Community to force Ukraine to respect the religious freedom rights of the members of the canonical Church if the violence against the canonical Church does not cease and if there is no progress in…

Source: Orthodox Christianity Istanbul, May 31, 2019 – The Patriarchate of Constantinople restored canonicity to the entire Ukrainian nation, although the “presence of the Moscow Patriarchate” threatens the unity of the Ukrainian nation, Patriarch Bartholomew boldly declared in a recent interview with the Bulgarian outlet BGNES, even as the so-called “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” (OCU), created by him along with President Poroshenko, battles to maintain unity simply within itself. Pat. Bartholomew’s brother primates, the Holy Synods of the Local Churches, and a number of hierarchs from throughout the Orthodox world have repeatedly called on him to convene a pan-Orthodox council to…

Source: Orthodox Christian Laity “Relent, do not be unjust; reconsider, for my integrity is at stake”. (Job 6:29)  The study of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and its relations with Greece and Constantinople is troubling as these documents described by Professor James Counelis of blessed memory demonstrate.  As the stepchild of Constantinople, the autonomy of the Archdiocese has been diminished with each Charter.  With the present Charter, the Archdiocese has been reduced to a colony controlled from abroad.  The Metropolitans and Archbishop in the United States are auxiliary bishops of the Patriarch in Constantinople.  There is, in effect, no Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.…

By Nick Stamatakis In this weekend’s interview to the Greek edition of “Kathimerini,” it became even more evident that Elpidophoros’ so-called “election” will send the already troubled Greek Orthodox Archdiocese into a new more problematic phase.  His answers to the open-ended “softball” questions created more question marks than his speeches, writings and actions in the past.  But, what to say about the journalistic standards of the interviewer, Alexis Papahelas, when he starts the interview with “how are you feeling…?”. Especially when Elpidophoros had clearly shown his intentions for the “throne” years ago (as early as 2015 according to one report…

Source: The National Herald By Theodore Kalmoukos His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the Holy Synod expressed eloquently and courageously the language of their historic responsibilities with the election to the Archbishopric Throne of America of then-Metropolitan Elpidophoros of Bursa, putting an end to the drama of our Church in America. They ignored the last minute intrigues and delaying tactics by theologically and ecclesiologically illiterate individuals who are trapped in legalisms and regulations. Undoubtedly, they are ignorant of the fact that the constitutions and the regulations are granted by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, because it is Supreme – the Originating…

Source: Orthodoxy in Dialogue Following the rubles seems to be a reliable predictor of where a given Patriarchate will stand on the question of Ukrainian autocephaly. A May 19, 2019 report by Russia’s Union of Orthodox “Journalists”—arguably the Moscow Patriarchate’s most loyal peddler of propaganda after the Department for External Church Relations itself—cites the following statement by Patriarch Theophilus III of Jerusalem, delivered by his proxy to the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society and published on the Patriarchate’s website. The Patriarch’s statement is remarkable for two reasons: first, while Jerusalem is lauded as “the Mother of the Churches” in our liturgical hymnography, we question where in Orthodox tradition…

Source: Orthodox Christianity Patriarch Bartholomew is Isolated: The Danger of Ethnophyletism Fr. Theodore Zisis For the first time, the Constantinople Church has found itself isolated from the other autocephalous Churches, due to its anti-canonical and anti-conciliar actions in granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian schismatics. Thus, it itself has placed under doubt its accepted coordinating role as a unifying factor and driven its hitherto proven and effective ecclesiastical politics into complete failure. It all began with the incomplete, truncated representation of the Body of Christ at the pseudo-council in Kolymvari, Crete. In our previous articles we noted the unavoidable danger arising…