“Faith Over Fear – The Common Spoon”: The Petition That Rocked the Church!

The latest step to introducing the “novelty” of washable spoons: A letter of monumental duplicity by “fat cats” John Catsimatidis and Michael Psarros…

By Nick Stamatakis

THE PETITION DEMANDING THE KEEPING OF TRADITION IN USING THE COMMON SPOON HAS ALREADY REACHED ALMOST 5,000 SIGNATURES IN A WEEK!!!  GOA leadership and the Patriarchate are feeling the ground shaking beneath their feet after the scathing rebuke by the faithful of their “novelist” approach to delivering the Holy Communion, suggesting the use of multiple washable spoons. Initially they thought that just a short, rhetorically deceiving editorial by a theologian, Fr. Alkiviades Kalyvas, would be enough to do the job. Fr. Kalyvas spent his whole essay on the history of the common spoon, but he failed to note that before it was introduced Christians used the common cup since the time of the Last Supper! A practice still used today among the priests! Whatever happened to the concept of “common”, directly related to the notions of “communion” and “ecclesia”, so central to our Faith? Are we also to use reusable plastic cups? Unbelievable! The faithless leadership would turn a 2,000 yr old tradition to an equivalent of a restaurant visit or a Greek Food Festival!!

Then another disingenuous letter was issued by the Patriarch himself who called all leaders of Orthodoxy, in a Holy Synod to decide whether they could come to agreement on this issue… This time the common cup was mentioned but the holy spoon was left out for discussion and debate. What was the real goal of the Patriarch? His goal was to call the Synod which predictably would come to a disagreement, as the Russian Church and some others are already practicing various ridiculous “methods” of “cleaning” the holy spoon.  After reaching an impasse, the Holy Synod, under his “leadership”, would establish that many “novel” ideas could alternatively be used; Bartholomew’s hope was that, eventually, the common spoon would go by the wayside…  We could expect nothing else from the divisive Patriarch Bartholomew, who has brought infighting anywhere he touched, from the Ukraine, to Greece to America… Yes, the same Patriarch who called himself “First Without Equals” as if he was a Pope, the same Patriarch who caused a “Schism” in world Orthodoxy by ignoring the democratic “synodical” traditions and giving Autocephaly to a 25% of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians, this Patriarch was now calling for a Holy Synod!  At the one single issue when he had the moral and religious authority to take the lead and confirm our Faith, he wanted to cover his faithless acts behind a synod! Suddenly the Russians could now be the “useful idiots” and become his allies! After having caused the Ukrainian Orthodox to start violently attacking each other, he now wanted to cause similar division everywhere.  But the Church of Greece and others rejected his call and his effort failed miserably…

Despite the failure of the “novelty” effort, the so-called “leadership” could not believe their eyes by the resistance of the faithful in America.  They could not understand how deep is the Orthodox faith in a Church they always saw as the equivalent of a “milking cow” to finance their arrogance and their luxurious lives. The faithful’s reaction was immediate, it was genuine and it was a complete rejection of the novelty.  First, the reaction came from many priests who called us, emailed us the “secret”(?) letter by AB Elpidophoros and asked us to write against the faithless leadership – and we did!  Then the faithful, the common people, revolted initiating the FAITH OVER FEAR PETITION, WHICH IS NOW CLOSE TO 5,000 SIGNATURES!

Desperate to save their faithless ideas, they made their final attempt by asking the two extra-wealthy leaders of the Church, Catsimatidis and Psarros, to write a letter supporting AB Elpidophoros on his novelty of the reusable spoons and ask the people to adopt it.  Does anybody in the GOA have an ounce of brain in their heads?  Do they really believe that a letter by the two “fat cats”, who have become the symbol of what our church should NOT be, would convince anyone? Especially when they stupidly note that “for the first thousand years of our Church, the spoon was not used, that the faithful drank from the Cup and received the Body of Christ in their hands…”  One has to wonder how on earth they made their millions, when they seem to suggest that somehow the cup is a less “infectious” method of delivering the Holy Communion. Or maybe we have to get rid of the holy cup also? But, again, their goal is to introduce “variety”, water down the faith and deal a fatal blow to Orthodoxy by dividing the faithful n two camps, the “novelists” and the “traditionalists”… Bartholomew’s leadership: divide, divide and divide…

I will not waste one more word on the worthless letter of Catsimatidis and Psarros.  But I have a suggestion for AB Elpidophoros: Your Eminence, why don’t you collectively threaten the priests, who totally depend on GOA for their salary and their future, in the same way it was always done to each one of them individually, when they did not follow every whim of the leadership?  PLEASE GO AHEAD AND THREATEN THEM!! This is how the Phanar and many Metropolitans have solved insubordination problems in the past! Why not now? What are you afraid of? Are you maybe afraid that the priests will revolt and the faithful will follow the priests?  Are you afraid that the faithful will revolt? You maybe right on this last one… The faithful will revolt and they will demand your immediate departure along with the establishment of autonomy for the GOA!!

But again the truth is you do not need anyone!… You have 20-30 “fat cats” supporting the church financially – you do not need anyone else!.. Go ahead blackmail the priests and impose your novelty!

As for the faithful we all have a chance to show our will – PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION!

June 7, 2020, n.stamatakis@aol.com   www.helleniscope.com