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The Greek Australian VEMA - August 6, 2003
Pastoral report and denouncement by Archbishop Stylianos to the Sacred Centre of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate
His All Holiness Ecumenical
Patriarch Bartholomew and Members of the Holy
Synod PHANAR, CONSTANTINOPLE
Your All Holiness and Your Eminences, Brothers in Christ,
“You know that the rulers of
the Gentiles lord it over them, and those who are great
exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among
you; but whoever desires to become great among you, let him
be your servant.” (The Lord, Mat.
20:25)
Therefore, in the Name of the Holy and
Consubstantial and Life-giving and Undivided Trinity, I affirm
the following on the basis of my Episcopal honour and
conscience, having as my only motive the esteem and stability
of the all-venerable Ecumenical Throne, yet no less the peace
and unity of its faithful in every place.
Thus I state
and at the same time denounce with fear of God
that:
Through the isolated secretiveness of the sudden
‘election’ (on July 21, 2003) of the now lamentable former
Assistant Bishop of mine Joseph of Arianzos as Metropolitan of
New Zealand, you have of course knowingly committed a multiple
injustice, both in relation to my inviolable rights within my
Eparchy, and in relation to the peace and unity of the Clergy
and Lay people who struggle fervently here.
And
although I feel yet again terribly mistreated and betrayed, I
still allowed, out of cordial and brotherly sentiment, a
sufficient amount of time to pass since that which was dared
on July 21, 2003, so as not to respond ‘in the heat of the
moment’, thereby perhaps causing injustice of any kind to
persons involved in any way or extent in this truly
unprecedented ‘tragedy’. Through such a prudent, I believe,
delay, there has arisen, apart from the necessary sobriety,
the added moral gain in that the Extraordinary Meeting of the
Archdiocesan Council, especially called for this purpose, has
already taken place (4-8-2003). With the participation of its
many members from all parts of Australia, the Council has used
official evidence to give a clear picture of the criminal
conduct over recent months of the fugitive and accused former
Assistant Bishop of mine, now also theologically laughable as
we shall see below.
It is highly indicative of his
manifold guilt that, although canonically summoned (by my
Pastoral Order of 21 July, 2003, as Chairman of the Council
but also as the Archbishop to the mentioned Assistant Bishop),
he did not give us any reply, not even a negative one! In what
authority was all of this done?
With the profane
audacity of his now fully revealed conspiratorial and foolish
conduct, and moreover with the vain assurance that, through
the apparently ‘unconditional’ yet unfortunate promise of
‘protection’ by the venerable Centre at the Patriarchate, he,
miserable that he is (!), believed he could have secured his
‘impervious’ and steadfast position.
However, despite
the unexpected and totally sudden occurrences in our affairs,
I firmly believe that the ‘drama’ that was dared on July 21,
2003, was probably allowed as a concession of God(!)…so that
we may all realize how ‘mutually destructive’ the course might
be for the sacred Ship of the Church as navigated by the
Phanar (Constantinople) mainly since 1995, so that by humbling
ourselves we can open our eyes, even at the last
minute.
To ‘open our eyes’ can only mean repentance
that is expressed through actions:
To ‘reconstruct
into more canonical order’ – as I had respectfully ‘suggested’
in writing and with forbearance from the very beginning – the
inviolable Synodical structures and functions of the Great
Church of Christ which are truly valid throughout the Orthodox
world, for the benefit of our Church as a whole, as well as
its constantly humbled and scandalized Clergy and Lay people,
as we are already in the 21st century, when even in Turkey(!),
the ‘arbitrary government of the Sultan’ is now unacceptably
anachronistic and a punishable practice of the
past.
How else could one explain this inconceivable and
totally unprovoked ‘tempest’ from the venerable Phanar against
the author, if not as a concession of God? What have each of
you individually, or collectively, to accuse him of?
Have you considered, Your All Holiness, what we shall
hand over to the younger Church ‘leaders’ of the People of God
everywhere, as a God-pleasing example of the First- Throne
Mother Church, even for its own stability in God amidst
‘wolves’, if we continue to permit the well-known intrigues of
the few already rejected individuals within the unhesitating
oligarchy surrounding you?
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Could it be that the tragic
words should come true of Metropolitan Meliton of Philadelphia
(from a young age diabolical in dexterity and wickedness)
which he had repeatedly mentioned to me in moments of supposed
sincerity, when I had still naively believed him and had
contributed in all possible ways for the benefit of the
Throne? His ‘confession’ still rings in my ears as a macabre
and completely abominable cynicism: “I know, Geronta, that we
are unfortunately the grave-diggers of the
Institution!”▼
Yet regardless of all these dreadful
things:
Have we still not realized, Your All Holiness,
that my humble person in the first instance, having faced
grave danger recently on account of my health, as well as
Metropolitan John of Pergamon who unrepentantly and out of
self-interest always advises improperly from the sidelines, as
well as you personally no less, all find ourselves, after many
hardships, beyond 60 years of age, and are now in the final
straight of our passing “from the more sorrowful to that which
is more joyful”?
In what state will we present our soul
to God, Your All Holiness, if we do not overturn in time the
certain disaster that is now before us due to recent
provocations, which have exposed us in the eyes of all Greeks
and all Orthodox?
‘Let us stand well’, Your All
Holiness! Let us stand honourably, Brothers! Let us all
stand with fear of God!
On many occasions I had
respectfully reminded you with forbearance that ‘God cannot be
mocked’! But in vain!
In order to assist unselfishly
and honourably in the present, as I have always done until
now, the Holy and Great Church of Christ which has reared me
since I was a child – as it has each of you more so – I shall
recommend herewith what urgently needs to be
done:
Without the slightest delay, we are all obliged
not only to formally save face, but also to safeguard the
essence and the peace and the unity of the Church, especially
that of our unacceptably tormented community here – due to old
schisms and continual charlatanism – before which you in the
Phanar today unfortunately so easily close your eyes and
ears!
I hope and trust that this responsible Pastoral
Report of mine, which is offered with complete sincerity and
unwavering dedication to the Ecumenical Throne and to the
People of God, will be appreciated properly and accepted
appropriately.
In any event, I shall never commit
‘Matricide’!
At the same time, however, under no
circumstances will I leave unprotected from ‘violation’ and
gradual ‘destruction’ (AS YOU HAVE DONE IN THE UNITED STATES
SINCE 1995!) this exemplary, by the grace of God, Eparchy of
the Patriarchate which we have organized with enormous
efforts, as everybody knows, together with the heroic people
of God here in Australia.
For these reasons:
I.
Do not think even for a moment, I ask you, that I, together
with my trustworthy Clergy and Lay co-workers, do not know
precisely ‘who’ it is and ‘for what reasons’ a particular
individual ‘pulls the strings’ from the sidelines in the
audacious conspiratorial actions between the Deputy Minister
of Foreign Affairs Mr Magriotis and the grandiose ‘leaders’ of
the Schismatic groups – now completely diminished and
extremely politically aligned to the Pan-Hellenic Socialist
Movement (PASOK) and the Communist Party of Greece (KKE),
while bearing the known historic ‘seals’ – who are of course
not even accepted from afar by the majority of the people of
God here.
At any rate, they have triumphantly proven,
both in theory and in practice, that they no longer have
anything in common with the ‘faithful’, and especially with
the ‘Orthodox’!
In other words, it is not only their
outrageous and ungodly ‘Constitutions’, which you had referred
to us some time ago. It is also their continual displays of
atheism and public debauchery during the most sacred days of
Holy Lent, under the ‘noble’ (!) co-ordination of Mr
Magriotis’ Council for Hellenes Abroad (SAE) and the General
Secretariat for Greeks Abroad.
Consequently, it would
be more desirable for Your All Holiness to try instead,
together with Mr Magriotis who is so eager to serve the Church
(!), to reclaim the historical Churches of Galatas within your
own Archdiocese, which were grabbed by Papa-Efthim, rather
than the former garages supposedly turned into Church
buildings by those from Lakemba, Sydney, who buy and sell
Christ.
It is therefore clear, most clear, that
following the successful visit of the President of the
Hellenic Republic Mr Stefanopoulos to Australia, Mr Magriotis
and Mr Dollis and the mentioned ‘leaders’ of the Schism in
Sydney, literally used every effort to sabotage the Greek
Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia, in order to impose through
all possible means the famous SAE (Oceania region) which you
had originally described as a “disastrous plan” (please make
the effort to read your Patriarchal letter of 12-7-1994
addressed to me!).
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Although we had stopped (through the
magnificent 9th Clergy-Laity Congress) the ‘operatic’ attempts
of Mr Magriotis – in systematic and secretive co-operation
with the ‘bad demon of the Church’, Met. Meliton of
Philadelphia – to lead the Ecumenical Patriarchate into making
an unheard of and peculiar ‘intervention’ in the Apostolically
established rights of the Archbishop in this furthest Eparchy
of the Patriarchate, we know very well that these matters will
not easily come to an end.▼
Following that notorious
‘Synodical’(?) four-page letter, concerning the
Parish-Community of Oakleigh(!) by which you hastily tried to
‘teach’ your Hierarch, now grey-haired through long struggles
related to his pastoral responsibilities, together with other
similarly unacceptable provocations, we have unfortunately
reached the point beyond which we can go no further in this
manner:
The ‘election’ of the fugitive and accused
former Assistant Bishop of mine as Metropolitan of New Zealand
without my knowledge or permission, whose Nomocanonical Report
to the 9th Clergy-Laity Congress it appears that neither you
within the Patriarchate have read, nor he himself remembers
any longer, essentially constitutes my ‘assassination’, which
I did not cause, and shall not tolerate. I demand restoration
through proper repentance and related ‘catharsis’ of those who
are mainly responsible, something which I am entitled to in
many ways and which I will strive for through every means of
divine and secular law.
II. To make it even clearer
just how exposed you have become ‘Synodically’ on account of
this unprecedented injustice, I am compelled to present
several simple questions. In particular:
a) What is the
difference between the case of my former Assistant Bishop,
Serafim Mentzelopoulos of Christianopolis, who also deceived
us while staying here briefly, and that of the greater
deception, ingratitude and betrayal of Assistant Bishop Joseph
Harkiolakis of Arianzos?
Why did you advise the
mentioned Mentzelopoulos – and rightly so – to submit his
request for permission to leave our Archdiocese in writing,
and hierarchically through his Archbishop? To his credit, he
did so, formally at least humbling himself and personally
bringing his request for resignation to my office in Sydney,
where I exercised the strictest critique towards him in the
presence also of my other Assistant Bishop, Vicar-General
Seraphim of Apollonias.
In stating this, we are of
course overlooking – for the time being(!) - the unacceptable
neglect shown by you on this occasion also to my fully
substantiated Report/Proposal concerning Assistant Bishop
Serafim of Christianopolis who was under my jurisdiction, and
for whom I proposed a suspension of at least one year, because
he had deceptively gained the most sacred Episcopal office
here! To what benefit, then, was the Report/Proposal of the
responsible Archbishop?
Curiously, you did not even
try to reprimand or impose a simple censure upon him! Instead
there were only big promises and a rewarding ‘flattering’
letter, which he has shamelessly shown.
b) Is it
possible under any circumstances for the Guardian Church,
which is first in honour, to pardon, encourage or (even
worse!) reward Assistant Bishops who are swindlers and
deserters, thus gravely scandalizing the faithful who believed
in them, causing the greatest disappointment and unjust
ridicule for their Archbishop who treated them magnanimously
and with Christian forbearance?
Please tell me,
Brothers, how our faithful will trust such ‘Assistants’ in the
future who, having evolved with hypocrisy into exploiters and
rebels, are then rewarded by the venerable Phanar, instead of
being disciplined? Is this how the Ecumenical Patriarchate
wants its ‘Assistants’ to be?
c) Have you honestly
questioned, even for a moment, what could have possibly
intervened, in order for my Assistant Bishop Joseph, who for
an entire 16 years, apart from being from my own birthplace,
presented himself as the most dedicated of all – to the point
of using his gift for speaking to include servile praises on
festive occasions – to then suddenly turn around as a
demonized apostate and become ungratefully hostile?
The
‘key’ to his complete ‘transfiguration’ is unfortunately his
boundless and hasty Ambition, like that of Lucifer, expressed
unhealthily even since 1994, but in a particularly unbearable
way during his last two years in Melbourne.
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Precisely
this obvious and diabolical weakness was exploited by the
ruthlessly cunning Meliton of Philadelphia, conspiring with
who knows how many others besides Mr Magriotis, in order to
supposedly offer you his ‘good services’, as if catching in a
net the now foolish, but previously very crafty, Assistant
Bishop Joseph of Arianzos.▼
And it is without doubt
that, if you had cared to read even fleetingly the two letters
of exhortation of 17-4-2003 and 26-5-2003 (each only two pages
long!) to my then Assistant, written with clear leniency and
fatherly concern, which we hurriedly sent you via the G.
Vicar-General Theoliptos of Ikonium and the Undersecretary
Elpidoforos, Your All Holiness would not have dared to do the
unthinkable.
Furthermore, if you had also read, even in
passing, the supposed response of my Assistant Bishop Joseph
to my frightful grievances, which he expressed in 17 pages of
verbosity, you would have easily noted three issues, which
today expose you before your enormous responsibilities within
the entire Church:
Firstly: That the Bishop of
Arianzos, by diabolically and deliberately misinterpreting the
Holy Canons (Canon VIII of the 1st Ecumenical Synod and XII of
the 4th Ecumenical Synod), identifies today’s Assistant
Bishops with the Ruling Bishops of the first centuries (!) in
an attempt to portray me as a deficient theologian, as a
falsifier, and as one who is inconsistent and irreverent,
because I dared “appoint two Bishops in the same city”!
Hypocritically, he writes that all the problems have
no relation with my other Assistant Bishop in Melbourne, about
whom he declares unashamedly, despite all the facts that have
been absolutely substantiated: “I state to you once again with
an entirely clear conscience that I deeply respect the holy
Brother, both publicly and in private. He has shown me much
love since my arrival in Australia and for this I am deeply
grateful to him. He, too, laid his right hand on my head
during the hour of my ordination to the Episcopate and I do
not forget this”. He then inserts the climax of his Luciferous
disposition in order to avoid any collaboration with the
Bishop of Dervis: “Not only that I might not appear as the
“Assistant of your Assistant” but that we might not also
contravene the Holy Canons which prohibit the co-existence of
two Bishops in one city (VIII of the 1st and XII of the 4th
Ecumenical Synod)”. (Surely you would have reminded him that,
in London, the Ecumenical Throne avails itself of an Assistant
Bishop in almost every central Church!).
Secondly:
Demonstrating a Luciferous arrogance towards my humble person,
not only does he slander me as unjust, recanting,
inconsistent, and as erring in theology, but he also accuses
me of envying him because he has twice attained a Doctorate!
However, he makes absolutely no mention of his attempt,
together with non-Orthodox who proselytize our youth in the
populous Greek-Australian community of Melbourne, to establish
an “INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE FOR ORTHODOX STUDIES” so that, quite
effortlessly, he might be able to be called a Professor,
because I did not accept to permit him to teach our students
at St. Andrew’s Theological College in Sydney, thereby running
the risk of converting them to hypocritical adherents of the
mentality expounded by Metropolitan Kantiotis of Florina in
Greece.
Thirdly: He was found to have committed ungodly
perjury associated with lowly and secretive requests both on
Professor M. Orfanos as well as on the only staff member of
our Adelaide office who, without my knowledge and permission,
‘should have’ followed him to Melbourne. And this impiously,
without showing any consideration for his future successor in
Adelaide - which he struggled through all means to leave. The
subsequent Bishop would have been deprived of the mentioned
invaluable and truly singular staff member, who permanently
resides in Adelaide with his Australian wife and their
children, born in the same city.
Were I to enumerate
further deceitful and contemptible acts of the Assistant
Bishop in question, who greatly deceived the piety and
kindness of our faithful, as well as my own long-suffering, I
would have to write an entire volume.
I restrict
myself to the above so that, at last, you might have a
complete picture of what a ‘gem’ you took from here with such
totally unnecessary commotion! For, do not doubt for a moment
that I would have released him without another word, had you
even rudimentarily respected my canonical rights here with
regard to the said Assistant Bishop who bolted from Australia,
swept away fatefully by the pathos of his
ambition.
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Now, because I know that you have already
mostly destroyed whatever Ecclesiological Essays or other
bothersome Reports I have sent you regarding the prevailing
attitude (in Constantinople) concerning administration, so
that they might be considered non-existent – as I was informed
in due course by a signed letter of that most sly Meliton –▲ I
am, as a result, compelled to unequivocally declare the
following:
Do not doubt that all my Ecclesiological and
absolutely substantiated and signed Reports to the venerable
Centre – in the form of Memoranda, Submissions, Essays,
Protesting Reports or other vital Questionings, all exist in a
Special File in the Archives of our Archdiocese and will be
published in due course (the timing will depend entirely upon
you).
And because they are not libels concerning ‘the
sexual idiosyncrasies of person A or B’ but are instead
documents that are clearly full of anguish which seek only the
true interests of the Mother Church, they have already been
given the title ‘Documents of Pain’.
As a result, in
order to resolve the unacceptable problem created with my
former Assistant Bishop who has committed manifold offences
here in Australia and has been unacceptably covered by the
venerable Centre, I suggest the following as the only solution
to this drama:
On the pretext that you were not aware
of such corrosive and damaging actions perpetrated up until
the final moment of his departure by night in order to venture
to the Phanar unsuspectedly, you will order him to return
immediately and be tried here by a body of Fellow-Bishops,
thus recognizing, albeit belatedly, my just postulate.
And this, in the – certainly dubious - event that his
responsible and immediate Shepherd might somehow not be
considered entitled to impose upon him any penalty!
The suggested Body of Fellow-Bishops may indeed
convene as a Spiritual Court comprised not only of my other
Assistant Bishops here, but also of Orthodox Bishops of other
jurisdictions belonging to the Standing Conference of
Canonical Orthodox Churches of Australia (SCCOCA) who are
Sovereign Hierarchs, and even with the dispatch of two
Synodical Hierarchs from the venerable Centre who will act as
his ‘Advocates’, given that you elected him
unanimously!
I am prepared for the Spiritual Court in
question to be conducted not only in the presence of Lecturers
in the relevant subjects of our Theological College, but even,
should you so wish, in a public Meeting so that all may know
through irrefutable and relevant local witnesses, precisely
who my former Assistant Bishop of Arianzos is and what his
actions were here.
Your All Holiness, if within three
days from the receipt of this present letter I do not receive
an official Patriarchal Letter, accepting or rejecting my most
justified postulate, I will be obliged to publicize this
letter, not only to all Hierarchs of the Throne around the
world, but also generally to the public domain. And in such a
situation, do not think that there will be a repetition of
what occurred with Archbishop Methodios of Thyateira!
The well-paid counsels of Metropolitan John of
Pergamon and of Vlasios Feidas, or of anyone else, are not
able, even in the slightest, to judge the character and
eternal validity of the Holy Canons through which all manner
of conspiracy or human arrogance was countered, thus
sustaining our Martyric Orthodoxy, and especially the sacred
Ecumenical Throne.
Unfortunately, all that was
published by the ‘decapitated’ former Archbishop Methodios of
Thyateira in his recent book exposes us irreversibly,
especially during the present tragic hour of the most acute
confrontation with Archbishop Christodoulos of
Greece.
And I say that the official documents published
by the mistreated Methodios in photocopy irreversibly expose
us, because we are all informed and aware now that the
individuals who are creating such problems in the Church
today, were the very same instigators back then, despite the
fact that the Holy Synod had much material, based on the
audacity of Methodios’ conduct, to indict and try him.
As a final observation, I state from now that I will
not accept the excuse that the Synod will not be meeting until
August 15, so as to answer responsibly and straightforwardly
in a confidential Patriarchal letter. I know how the Synod
functions from some years ago, for which reason I ask you to
consider, with fear of God, how critical this moment
is.
We are in a period of prayer and fasting from the
Transfiguration of our Lord up until the Dormition of the
Theotokos. I fervently hope that both these sacred boundaries
strengthen you accordingly to rise to these responsibilities.
I will unceasingly commemorate your name, as I have a totally
different understanding than you concerning the sacredness of
such commemoration (cf. ‘A Two-Way Pathogeny’ in THE VEMA of
the Church, August 2002), for which reason ‘I shall not repay
in the same way’. However, I shall also not cease to denounce
the captivity of the Hierarchs of the Throne abroad, who alone
can give true life and glory to the greatly oppressed
venerable Centre at Phanar.
Submitting all the above
with much sorrow, following the Resolutions of the
Extraordinary Archdiocesan Council meeting called for this
purpose and which are soon to be published, I await a
responsible reply as mentioned, and remain
In Sydney
6th August 2003 Feast of the Holy
Transfiguration
[ The Greek Australian VEMA - September 2003 - pp. 13/29 - 15/31 ]
[ TGA News | www.tganews.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2042 - 30-Sep-2003 ]
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