Browsing: Salt Lake City UT
Source: The Salt Lake Tribune The conflict between the parish council and clergy at the Salt Lake Valley’s two Greek Orthodox churches has reached that faith’s highest authority: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. The patriarch, who lives in Turkey, instructed Archbishop Demetrios, who oversees the American Greek church, “to solve the problem immediately,” according to a recent article in The National Herald, a weekly Greek-American publication in New York. At issue in the four-year-long battle is the plan to divide the valley’s parish into two, a move that was pushed by the Denver-based Metropolitan Isaiah and two priests — the Rev. Michael Kouremetis…
Source: The National Herald BY THEODORE KALMOUKOS Salt Lake City, UT – Following the violence at the Prophet Elias Church on January 19, Divine Liturgy, services there and at the other Salt Lake City Church, Holy Trinity, are being celebrated with plainclothes police officers on hand. The January 19 violence was a clash between supporters of Rev. Michael Kouremetis and Parish Council members, including President Demetrios Tsagaris. When parishioner Steven Zervos and former Parish Council President Jim Mylonakis attacked – both physically and verbally – other Councilmembers, including Tsagaris, the police were called, according to signed statements by eyewitnesses. The…
Source: City Weekly (Salt Lake City, UT) by Stephen Dark The Metropolitian Isaiah, head of the Greek Orthodox Church of Greater Salt Lake City (which is a single parish with two churches — the Holy Trinity Cathedral in downtown Salt Lake City and Prophet Elias Church in Holladay) has ordered that both churches discontinue offering sacrament, liturgy, weddings and baptisms indefinitely as of Sunday, August 4, 2013. The surprise decision marks a bitter climax in a power struggle for the future of the Salt Lake City-area’s Greek Orthodox parish. A call seeking comment from Rev. Matthew Gilbert of the Holy…