Browsing: Governance & Unity Essays

Source: Orthodox Christian Laity I write to you as an eighty-year old grandfather; a life-long, active member of our Church.  My message has not been approved by the board of Orthodox Christian Laity (OCL).  It is a deeply personal message. I received the news of the retirement of Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America with sadness…and a glimmer of hope. Sadness, because the condition of the Archdiocese entrusted to his care is in dire straights…not just financially. The crisis is deeper than that. The lack of transparency and accountability in the governance of the Archdiocese has dealt…

Source: The National Herald By Amb. Patrick Theros The Orthodox Church has lived through and survived many near-existential crises in the 2,000 years since the Apostles established it. It would appear that the 21st Century brings a whole smorgasbord of existential threats to the table. One would think that the headline issues threaten us the most. To wit: Constantinople and Moscow are locked in a titanic struggle for political leadership of the worldwide Church. Antioch has picked a fight with Jerusalem over jurisdiction in the Arabian Peninsula and the Persian Gulf despite the fact that the former must deal with a…

Source: The National Herald By Antonis H. Diamataris From one end of America to the other, our community follows, with justifiable anxiety, the issue of the successor of the resigned Archbishop Demetrios. The community has lived the decline in which the successors of Archbishop Iakovos have led to our Church and endured the consequences with remarkable patience. But it has reached its limits. That’s why it wants to prevent another mistaken choice. So, the Greek-American community is turning to the voice that it trusts, to The National Herald. People are telling us: “Do something.” But what can a newspaper do,…

Source: The National Herald By Antonis H. Diamataris At last, Archbishop Demetrios, submitted his resignation. The first time he was asked to resign was almost 20 months ago. Since then, there were at least two more requests by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. But he refused. He did everything he could to dodge it. To gain time. But to what end? No one is pleased with the situation that has been created in our Archdiocese – no one was happy to see the agony experienced by the Archbishop as the situation unfolded, or the pain of his ultimate resignation. There was, unfortunately, no…

Source: Orthodox Christian Laity Historically, the administration of the Orthodox Christian Church is shepherded by a bishop in a geographic area.  Geography, bishops and cities are interrelated.  This reality remains until today, and this is a major cause of the impasse among Patriarchs and Assemblies of Bishops in the USA and other parts of the world. Historically, the Orthodox Christian Church taught the faith and conducted its missionary work in the language of the people where they lived and in their own cultural setting. It helped create written languages where the people had none, and it taught in that language…

Source: Critical Research on Religion by Stratis Psaltou National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece This paper considers the emergence of Mount Athos’ monk elders in Greek society in recent decades until the current economic crisis. Their social influence has grown over these decades, especially after some of them were recognized as charismatic and gerontismos (elderism) became one of the most important forms of religious discourse in contemporary Greek society. These elders were presented as a kind of cultural resistance in the service of an alternative economy of desire. This analysis suggests that they have ultimately worked in the service of a…

Source: Orthodox Christian Laity The Synaxis of Patriarchs in 2008 decided that the Orthodox Church in the USA is uncanonical.  How many more years can this situation fester?  The Synaxis developed an Assembly of Bishops of all the canonical bishops in the USA to address the issue.  They have been meeting for ten years and have reached an impasse.  It is now up to the Patriarchs to act either in a synodical conciliar meeting with the 14 Self Ruling Patriarchs/Hierarchs, or if that cannot happen, the Ecumenical Patriarch needs to act as he did in  Ukraine.  On his visit to…

Source: The National Herald By Theodore Kalmoukos BOSTON – Dr. Aristotle Michopoulos, Professor of Greek at Hellenic College and Holy Cross School of Theology in Boston for the last 31 years, having arrived there from the University of Florida where he taught previously, knows Hellenic College and Holy Cross better than anybody else. In addition to his teaching, he also served as Dean of Hellenic College from 1995 to 2002. Michopoulos has also supported the School financially in a substantial way with his own money. During an interview with The National Herald he noted that he served as Dean of…

Source: Oinos Educational Consulting by Frank Marangos, D.Min., Ed.D., FCEP Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” ~ William Butler Yeats The sole survivor of a storm-battered shipwreck prayed feverishly for rescue from the prison of his uninhabited South Pacific Island. After days of scanning the vacant horizon, the hopeless man eventually built a small driftwood hut for protection from the elements. To make matters worse, one day after scavenging for food, he returned in the evening to find his makeshift shanty in flames.  With smoke rolling up into the, otherwise, cloudless sky, the frustrated…

Source: Orthodox Christian Laity It is our right and duty to communicate with each other across Orthodox Christian jurisdictional groupings. Every month, we must celebrate and report the ministry and outreach programs and activities we do by joining together in unity. Thank you, Baltimore, for sharing your Bible Learning program. We are disappointed that the Greek Orthodox parishes did not participate. We are also disappointed to read the Greek Orthodox response to a request to inform parishioners in Naples, Florida, of the OCL Open Forum which was held on March 29 in neighboring Bonita Springs, Florida. The presenter was Dr Gayle Woloschak, and the…

Source: Orthodox Christianity Zaporozhye, Ukraine, March 26, 2019 The Ukrainian nationalist-schismatic church wasted no time in distinguishing itself as the more “progressive” church in Ukraine, eschewing the conservative attitudes in the canonical Ukrainian Church. In late December, the schismatic primate “Metropolitan” Epiphany Dumenko declared: “Of course, I am for starting reforms in the church, so there wouldn’t be conservatism, so we would depart from Russian tradition and so the church would be open and a spiritual guide for the Ukrainian people.” Asked specifically about softening the position on the LGBT issues, Epiphany said: “This is a difficult issue that we…

Source: Orthodox Synaxis The recent letter of Patriarch Bartholomew to Archbishop Anastasios of Albania is a remarkably revealing document, not only for its candid expression of the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s ecclesiology, but also for the insight it gives into the patriarchate’s internal discourse and the historical touchstones of its self-understanding. It is striking that most of the examples and quotations that the letter cites to illustrate the “Throne of Constantine[‘s …] universally recognized hallowed and dread responsibilities that transcend borders” date from the Ottoman period, to a degree that one might be tempted to suggest that the “Throne of Mehmet” might be…