An American-Born Archbishop, Old World Values

U.S.News & World Report - October 20, 1997

Author: Paul Glastris

Last year, members of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in the United States were relieved to learn that their new leader, Archbishop Spyridon, spoke English without a Greek accent. Spyridon's predecessor, Archbishop Iakovos, had drawn the ire of lay church members--the vast majority of whom are American born--with his authoritarian, Old World ways. They hoped that Spyridon, born in Warren, Ohio, would be more comfortable with American democratic values.

What they got, however, was a surprise. Though born in the United States, Spyridon spent most of his adult life serving the church in Europe, and his sympathy for the American way of doing things, as it turns out, is limited. In his first year as archbishop, Spyridon and his management style have sparked an open revolt among many Greek Orthodox faithful. The rebellion comes on the eve of a visit to the United States by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who appointed Spyridon. Bartholomew hopes to win crucial Greek-American support for the ancient, financially strapped Patriarchate of Constantinople in Istanbul, and for the tiny community of ethnic Greeks he protects there. But the furor over Spyridon could lead to a damaging split between the church in America and the Patriarchate.

Soon after assuming his post, Spyridon embarked on a series of controversial actions. Denouncing what he termed "an invasion of the so-called secular, democratic spirit into the church," he tried to strip parishes of the right to set salary levels for their priests. He disparaged customs that he said the Greek Orthodox Church in America had picked up from Protestantism: pews, stained glass, choirs with women, altars with electric lights, priests without beards. He also complained that an orphanage run by the archdiocese served too many children who were not ethnically Greek. Without consulting the trustees, the archbishop announced that the orphanage would be turned into a school for Greek language teachers.

Yet the event that has most outraged church members took place last July, when Spyridon summarily dismissed the president and three faculty members from their posts at Holy Cross/Hellenic College, a seminary and school affiliated with the archdiocese. Spyridon's critics charge that the dismissals violated the school's bylaws and were intended to cover up a case of sexual harassment. The faculty members had served on a disciplinary committee reviewing charges that a priest sexually harassed a young seminarian. The committee recommended the priest's expulsion (the recommendation was not carried out). The archbishop denies that he violated procedure and says the dismissals were not linked to the sexual harassment case. Rather, he says, they were intended to end "discord" at the school.

So unpopular have been the archbishop's actions that even many of his allies don't altogether defend them. "He's made some foolish mistakes," says Fr. George Papaioannou, a columnist with the Orthodox Observer newspaper. But Spyridon, Papaioannou says, is also "learning to adapt to American reality." Out in the parishes, many worshipers take a darker view: The archbishop's actions, they say, are part of a plot by the Patriarchate in Istanbul to take control of the financially rich Greek Orthodox Church in the United States. At a gathering in Chicago earlier this month, the reformist group Orthodox Christian Laity debated a resolution calling for parishes to withhold funds from the archdiocese and to consider independence from the Patriarchate. In the end, the resolution--the Orthodox version of the Boston Tea Party--was tabled as "premature."

[ U.S.News & World Report - October 20, 1997 - pp. 62-63 ]

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October 20, 1997 ]