Is This the Real Reason Why the Archbishop Got Sick In LA?

By Nick Stamatakis

Please take a careful look at our main photo.  It’s from the Archbishop’s visit to Los Angeles’ Saint Sophia Cathedral on March 27, 2022, for the celebration of the Veneration of the Cross, quite a big holiday… Here it is again:

How many people are attending? About 60 or so in an area where many thousands of Greek Orthodox people live, while several other Greek Orthodox Churches are within driving distance from Saint Sophia.  Former Archbishop Dimitrios would have no trouble filling the pews and the standing areas… Archbishop Iakovos of blessed memory would fill two or three churches of that size thirty years ago… We all know that in a hierarch’s visit priests and faithful from neighboring parishes will make every possible effort to attend the services.  Not for AB Elpidophoros…

This may explain the “sympathy visit” to the hospital, where the doctors suggested rest for a day or so… A similar situation happened last fall during Pat. Bartholomew’s visit to Washington DC, where there were empty seats in the pews – unheard of…  During a Patriarch’s visit to the nation’s capital, with an Orthodox population of tens of thousands in a 30-mile distance, they were empty seats…

In Los Angeles, I am sure there were other events planned for his Eminence, where the Archbishop did not want to be seen – and photographed – among such a small audience… Such is the dislike for AB Elpidophoros among clergy and laity that only a few people were attracted to his presence… And they are very much justified: Why should the faithful respect and celebrate an archbishop who, first watered down the Orthodox faith and, second, on every possible occasion shows his respects to the Sultan and the Pashas of Turkey, his “effendis”, instead of strengthening the Greek community’s ties to Greece and protecting and defending Greek interests against the eternal enemies of Hellenism who still today illegally occupy Cyprus and violate Greek sovereignty on a daily basis. While he, in every one of his speeches, cares more about “Ukraine”… And even there, he and the Patriarch, do not show serious support for the Greek community of Eastern Ukraine because they are … Russian-speaking and under the Moscow Patriarchate…

As I have said many times, the Archbishop’s position and presence in America is untenable… There is a TOTAL disconnect between the faithful’s loyalties and the leaderships’… And there is no Church – and no Archbishop – without followers…

For the younger people among us, I would like to bring up the other side of the story of the Saint Sophia Cathedral – and it has to do with his founder, the one and only Spiro Skouras, the late founder and CEO of 20th Century Fox.  If I recall the story correctly, Spiro Skouras insisted that this beautiful Church, sitting on very valuable property, would be operating as part of the foundation established by the Skouras family. Several times AB Iakovos tried to convince him to turn the property over to the parish, so GOARCH have some control over it, to no avail.  Skouras was too smart to let the always greedy (for money and for power/control) hierarchy to let them have this jewel of a church…

PS. This main photo is not our own photo – we took the photo from GOARCH.com (link here).

April 7, 2022, n.stamatakis@aol.com   www.helleniscope.com

DISCLAIMER: The views and statements expressed in this article constitute constitutionally protected opinions of this author.