By Lambros Karpodinis
Representing the Apostles and Christ on earth is not for the faint of heart. 1 Timothy 3 provides us with the qualifications that are essential for fulfilling such an important calling. The responsibility of hierarchs and all clergy is tremendous. It can not be taken lightly or overlooked, even for a moment. Of course, all of us Orthodox Christians have the same responsibility in representing our faith as we were taught by scripture and church tradition. And we also have the responsibility being forgiving for human frailties in our hierarchs, being ready to provide our assistance and also hold them responsible for shortcomings. As long as we are educated in what our church parameters are. Not what we personally approve of, or what society tells us is proper.
Hardly a week goes by that the leader of the Greek Orthodox archdiocese, Elpidoforos, won’t come up with an idea that is not antagonizing to the faithful and casts the church as a heartless corporation, the church that we and our parents have built and support with our hard earned money and volunteerism, from Greek festivals, to teaching Sunday school and so many other non-paid work that keeps our churches functioning.
After “solving” a problem that we never knew existed, by allowing eye seeing dogs in churches, as if the disabled person would need a dog to hear the liturgy, then, he picked a fight with the St Demetrios community in Astoria, until the parishioners gathered and held a protest, which protest had the desired results, by exposing the machinations that were designed to take over the church’s finances.
Then, continuing with the archbishop’s dictatorial decrees, the resident attorney of the archdiocese, George Tsougarakis, sent a threatening letter to a Greek-American publication, which publication had used an image without authorization from the archdiocese. As if the archdiocese owns those pictures, that were taken by a photographer that gets paid from parishioners’ contributions. This was the third Greek-American publication that was threatened with a lawsuit.
This past week, the archbishop reached a new low. He hired a private detective, paid from the parishioners’ contributions, to discover the person who had “leaked” to a Greek American newspaper,  the details of a meeting that was held about the St Demetrios Greek school. This is an unprecedented and troubling development. Secrecy should not be part of the church’s actions, according to 2 Corinthians 8:21
St Basil’s Academy has also been in the news for the terrible treatment of a poor family that was given shelter at St Basil’s residence for the poor, after the mother complained about the unhealthy and dangerous conditions at the residence. The family was ordered to leave, without concern for where they were going to find a new residence, which would have rendered them homeless and on the street, with three children aged six and younger. And to make sure that they were as cruel as they could be, as this church is known to do, other children were forbidden from socializing with the family’s children.
The mother, who is of Greek descent and Orthodox, as are her children, contacted the archdiocese’s scribe, George Tsougarakis, who is a master in hypocrisy and in presenting the archdiocese as a heartless corporation, concerned only with threatening parishioners who dare to file a complaint, when he realized that the St Basail’s school’s actions were wrong, chose to disregard the family’s request, in order to sweep the incident under the rug, as is known to be the policy of this church.
Moreover, the mother contacted the archdiocese and asked to speak to the archbishop. She was promised that he would contact her. Of course, he never did. He has no concern for the poor. If you’re a wealthy parishioner, even if gay, and you want him to baptize your children, and you pay for first-class travel to Greece, he’ll jump to it. If you’re a wealthy couple planning to get married in Panama, he’ll be happy to accommodate you. If you’re hosting a lavish dinner to honor his friends, he’ll be there. But if you’re poor, he has no time for you. And he is supposed to be Christ’s representative on earth.
Philoptochos, who were also contacted, since they are major financial contributors to St Basil’s, did not respond for a long time, until finally they said that they have nothing to do with the running of the academy.
A Greek-American lawyer took the poor mother’s case pro bono, went to court, and won a settlement for the family.. When a civil court censures a church for its inhumane actions, that church needs new leadership. This archbishop, the scribe, and most archdiocese “workers” clergy and laity should all be re-trained, learn from the Bible and the church fathers, stop being poodles to the archbishop, or be immediately sacked. It is better not to have any leadership than to have bad leadership.
The actions that I am describing have happened to me and many others. That is why the church has 175,000 members, down from 500,000, rather than the 2-3 million Greek Orthodox in this country. Thank God I don’t have a financial need from those “men of God”. If you have a grievance, you will be ignored, and if you persist, you will be threatened with arrest, as happened to me, or evicted, as happened to this needy family.

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3 COMMENTS

  1. Another example of our shepherds distance from Jesus teachings, is their silent permission for the sneaky trespassing of Masonic AHEPA in our churches!

    When did Jesus say to his disciples to create lodges, fraternities, sororities etc? What a Masonic lodge doing inside a Greek Orthodox church?

    And not only the crooked clergy permits to the AHEPA masons to gather in our churches, free without paying a rent, but also they permit them to do fundraisers in our churches for the scholarships of their children!

    So, the smart asses of AHEPA ask us to pay for their children’s scholarships! Jesus said we must help the poor. When did Jesus say that we must help ONLY the not so poor AHEPA children?

    And by the way, AHEPA never does anything to help the Greek Schools, they don’t even send their children to them…

  2. As Lord Jesus said on the Rich:

    “It’s easier for a camel 🐪 to get thru the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

    These worldly characters can drink gallons of communion wine, chant Byzantine prayers, have degrees in theology + drag their bodies to a building on Sunday —
    but bc they lack empathy + no heart, they’ll never have the beatific vision of Theos.

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