EDITOR’S NOTE (Nick Stamatakis): I do not agree with Sotiris Tzoumas’ of exapsalmos.gr general perspective. What we need in America is NOT a new Archbishop. What we need is autonomy from the corrupt Patriarchate, who is depending on the “Sultans of Ankara”. But I am publishing this article because it shows the actual situation in our Church and Community…
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Your All Holiness, the time has come for you to make brave decisions for the Archdiocese of America
As a good doctor, he must take the scalpel in his hand and clean the wound, however deep it needs to go
By Sotiris Tzoumas – exapsalmos.gr
It is a shame when Christians, whether in metropolitan Greece or in the diaspora, face hundreds of problems, social, family, work and survival but also personal, and existential, it is a shame that they want to run to their church to get strength and comfort, to be relieved, to calm down, renew and get spiritual strength to continue the struggle of life and its uninterrupted course, and instead of this happening they are confronted with egoism, with a show of power and other indolences which degrade the meaning of faith and the presence of the Church abroad, at the levels of a secular club of shareholders who want to increase their influence and earn points for the next day. Only they count without counting God. He knows, sees and directs everything.
The Church of America is a boiling cauldron. We have written it over and over again. Behind the bright lights and resounding offerings there are issues that create an unregulated situation that if the result manifests will be painful for the Church there but also for the Lantern who has the ultimate responsibility.
The problems are many and varied and are further exacerbated by the mishandling of the current leadership, which is obviously suffering from insatiable philanthropy and projection.
A major problem and unique concern for Archbishop Elpidophoros is to change the current statute of the Archdiocese (which the Ecumenical Patriarchate reached after a thorough three-year study of the Exarchate he had sent) to become a monocrator and to commemorate his name throughout America !
Apparently he has not understood that the communities are emptying and our expatriates disgustedly turn to other Orthodox Churches active in the USA, to calm down mentally.
And this is happening for the first time in New York. Not even in the years that the Orthodox Christians of the old calendar were measuring in Astoria did this happen.
But, Saint America, what should concern you and interest you is whether your name will be written in the book of Heaven, in the Kingdom of God! You should also be interested in doing the work for which the Patriarchate sent you there, to warm the relations of the wider community (and not only the Lords) with the Fanari and not to satisfy your personal ambitions and concerns and the network your needs.
What example of humiliation does a Hierarch who holds in his hands the responsibility of the first Province of the Ecumenical Throne give to the faithful? This means…Fanari, our expatriates will think and not unjustly.
Everything that is done is the personification of vanity and is a bad example to avoid!
We have forgotten the words of the Great High Priest Christ:
“The rulers of the nations rule over them, and the great rule over them. No, it is not so among you, but whoever wants to be great among you, let him be your minister, and whoever wants to be first among you, let him be your servant; until the Son of Man came not to be ministered to, but minister and give his soul a ransom instead of many” (Matthew 25-28).
Only in your sermons do you know how to preach the truths of the Gospel?
In practice, are you acting selfishly and therefore profitably? You want authority and power because you have never felt complete and self-sufficient in your life. You entered the Church with half a shoe and want to become a shoe store owner with foreign money! But in judgment eye!
Rev. Elder Chalcedon Emmanuel, who unfortunately has no knowledge of the special circumstances of the Archdiocese of America and as it turns out is also irrelevant to genuine Orthodox Ecclesiology. Apparently he has fallen out with the Archbishop of America and they are trying to force the Provincial Synod of America to commemorate Elpidophoros throughout America and then present it as a fait accompli to the Committee dealing with the change of the Statutes! In other words, the Holy Metropolises and the elected Metropolitans should be abolished and the one should be omnipresent and dominant! Why this please? Are so many High Priests with so much experience and knowledge in America useless and in fact all elders in the High Priesthood than Elpidophoros and he knows everything, being High Priest only since 2011? Or did his doctorate and professorship make him all-wise? Mercy!
What more will the commemoration of Elpidophoros bring to the Holy Metropolises? To satisfy human selfishness and selfishness? Since when does the Church make a la carte decisions?
Did he solve all the problems of the Archdiocese, Homogenia, Education in the province that the Church ordered him to do, and he was left with this? Or does he want to start from this in order to impose himself and sweep them all?
I humbly testify: our Patriarch certainly sees and knows all this. But he has not yet realized that all that is being conceived is a torpedo in the Archdiocese that if it explodes then God save his Church.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate a few years ago, for a commemoration – which he was entitled to as the Primate of an Autocephalous Church – almost declared the Archbishop of Athens and all Greece Christodoulos deposed! And they punished him in the most disgraceful manner, of which even his instigators must be ashamed. We all remember that fiasco. How does he now allow Elpidophoros to arbitrarily and plan his monopoly on… lies and an unacceptable and distorted ecclesiology?
If the evil is not stopped immediately, the situation will be irreversible in the already bleeding Archdiocese of America.
Once, during the reign of Demetrius, they terrorized the Patriarch and falsely told him that the Archdiocese would go bankrupt in order to convince him to excommunicate Demetrius. And they succeeded. Now that bankruptcy, material and spiritual is a fact, no one dares to tell him the truth. In fact, not even Father Alex Karloutsos – a real friend of the Patriarchate and devoted to our Patriarch – who knows things in America better than anyone, does not interfere anymore and does not tell the Patriarch what is happening because he sees that the Patriarch supports the Hopeful but also because he is afraid of being accused of defaming him. He has stayed out and does not interfere in the administration of the Archdiocese and he is doing well! And the gap is visible! The Archbishopric has remained with Basil and the other imports from the City and Athens, clergy and laity. And with the newly minted Bishop of Athenagoras – thanks to his thesis he became a professor in Thessaloniki! Or am I wrong? Let them disprove me!
The Hierarchs all over America are disappointed. They are afraid that the Hope Bearer, with the fora- deforum he has taken, will do harm to the Church and especially to the Archdiocese of America. They no longer keep their mouths shut like they did before. They talk to him and tell him to his face his mistakes and the lies that certain circles craft to lead the High Priests to their verdict.
The eminent Theologian and Eccllesiastical analyst Theodoros Kalmoukos, who knows as much as anyone the ecclesiastical front and backstage in America and in Fanari, revealed the day before yesterday in the “National Herald” – and we republished here in “Exapsalmos” – what was checked in the Provincial Synod of the Archdiocese of America and the lies that Elpidophoros told in order to get the Synod on his side, such as for example that New Jersey – now Sardeon – Evangelos did not accept Archbishop Demetrius and himself in his Metropolis. And the High Priests nailed him to the wall for his lies with facts and documents.
Let’s hope that the Patriarch – even though the Hopeful One is his personal choice – will see that everything the Archdiocese of America is going through is not worth it and is only causing damage to the flock.
He must make the brave decision to remove him. His removal will redeem this important province of the Throne and this will be credited to the Patriarch as an act of justice. The leader who recognizes his mistake and corrects it is a real leader. But when he pretends not to see it then it will grow and expand and then the ultimate error of the hands of the first.
His remaining in this position will create many more problems that unfortunately the Patriarch will be personally responsible for.
As a good physician he must take the scalpel in his hand and clean the wound, however deep it may need to go.
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Παναγιώτατε ήλθε η ώρα να πάρετε γενναίες αποφάσεις για την Αρχιεπισκοπή Αμερικής
Ως καλός ιατρός οφείλει να λάβει το νυστέρι ανά χείρας και να καθαρίσει την πληγή,όσο βαθειά κι αν χρειαστεί να φτάσει.
Remember last Summer Bartholomew cried
“we can’t be replacing a new Archbishop every three years”?
Regarding AB Elpidoktonos & his
disastrous & embarrassing gay baby baptism in Greece? What hubris!
Yes !! We need Elpi to go —
If AB Spyridon was kicked out why not Elps?
I realize this is a translation and translations can often be awkward and imprecise, but this article is not worth printing. Both the rambling and insipid message are useless and meaningless pablum.