Cleveland Greek Orthodox Priest Arrested For Solicitation

Of course the secular justice and the ecclesiastical court processes will have to take their course on this case, and even if the priest convicted, it would not be the first case of its kind throughout Church history…

But in general, if someone in the priesthood is exhibiting a “spiritual weakness” at the age of 76, that “weakness” likely existed at the age of 26 too, when he was originally being examined on “worthiness” to become a priest to begin with…the examiner / sponsor (the one providing the “συμμαρτυρια” would be equally responsible for ignoring a material spiritual weakness at that critical time prior to ordination)

And without getting too graphic, the risk of “relaxing specific Canons” that have been on the books for centuries which precisely regulate who should- and who should NOT – be ordained to the priesthood is the exact risk GOARCH has been taking for decades, which usually results in headlines like this…The problem becomes more acute when someone with a “high-risk spiritual weakness” is promoted to the rank of bishop.

The grossly exaggerated counter-argument (to enforcing the existing impediments {κωλυματα} to the priesthood) that we frequently hear from those with authority to promote others into the priesthood is “then there would be no priests”. That is probably a massive exaggeration, but a related topic for another day. This back-and-forth discussion can go on for pages and pages, but it comes down to one point of comparison. All Orthodox jurisdictions have “spiritual problems” with certain members of their clergy from time to time…mistakes are made by all bishops who ordain clergy, and there is always “free will” to sin. But just compare the relative percentage and “type” of “incidents” in GOARCH compared to other jurisdictions to examine which organization has “minimized” the problem, and what that jurisdiction happens to do differently. There should be a uniform standard across Orthodoxy, but unfortunately there isn’t right now, depending on the conservative or liberal appetite of the bishop in charge…

And as a side-bar example of the importance of “paying attention to Canons PRIOR to ordination”, remember Theophan? The Church of Albania was warning Constantinople “NOT” to promote him to bishop…Constantinople ignored (just like they ignored warnings about legitimizing Schismatics with a Ukrainian tomos), and what did Theophan do as his first act? He recited the Filioque at his Ordination…(and they still accepted him in the Church)

Nevertheless headlines like the one in this article can be reduced over time if:

a) greater care is taken up front to protect the Church from scandal, by NOT ordaining certain individuals to the priesthood, and
b) even if “something” occurs later in life (no reason for graphic descriptions), the priest needs to “know himself” enough to resign responsibly and retire from public view (if he can’t control himself), WELL BEFORE the headlines occur and the flock is scandalized…that becomes very hard when the priest is “totally dependent” upon a Church salary, which in turn happens to be a relatively modern problem vs. examining 2000 years of Church History (different discussion for a different day)…

Ty Markos – you mean like the elevation of homosexual Bishop Emanuel of France to a Metropolitan after his gay orgy escorts scandal at Fanar.

Probably if this priest had long hair and beard and wore his rasso none of this would have happened.