On Looking into “Xenophobia in the Cloak of Progress – How English Liturgies Hurt the American Orthodox Church” by Katherine Kelaidis A Response by P. Stamatis, M.A. The above article appeared on the Public Orthodoxy site on March 12, 2025. At first glance, the intriguing title pulled me in to read, only to become confused by the attached sub-title: “How English Liturgies Hurt the American Orthodox Church.” If the author ascribes to the Orthodox Church in America the moniker “American,” how can using the English language hurt the Orthodox Church? That’s like saying: “How Greek Liturgies Hurt the Greek Orthodox…
Browsing: Katherine Kelaidis
Source: Public Orthodoxy Katherine Kelaidis National Hellenic Museum (Chicago) While it is fashionable of late to talk about the influx of racist actors into the Orthodox Church via conversion, we should probably admit that Orthodoxy in America has always had a race problem. Early 20th-century urban immigrants from the Eastern Mediterranean and Eastern Europe were not exactly famous for their enlightened attitudes about race. Some of America’s worst racial tensions have been between Black Americans and the very sorts of immigrants who form the core of Orthodox Christian America. Of course, whenever this comes up, people like to deflect by…
Source: Public Orthodoxy by Katherine Kelaidis People really like Hell. Or at least they really like the idea of Hell. And many are positively gleeful at the notion of some or another of their fellow human beings being tormented forever in its fiery furnaces (that’s right, forever, for eternity, for an expanse of time the human mind cannot fully comprehend). Oddly enough, it is clear that, pious professions aside, even eternal damnation’s most ardent supporters do not believe themselves in line for torments everlasting. I suppose I always knew this. I grew up in Colorado before Colorado was cool, in a time…
Source: Public Orthodoxy by Katherine Kelaidis Above my desk is a sign I bought years ago in an antique shop in the town where my Yiayia Kay grew up. It says, “No Dogs, No Greeks.” I originally bought it with a fair amount of Millennial irony, too gleeful at the fact that it would preside over a room that normally contains only me and my 4.5 lbs Maltese named for the fourth Musketeer. On the same wall is hung a framed copy of the famous Life Magazine cover of Archbishop Iakovos standing next to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I…