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The National Herald - November 5, 2004

OCL Appeals NYS Supreme Court Ruling

By Theodore Kalmoukos

BOSTON - A group of 34 Greek Orthodox individuals, which initiated a lawsuit against the Greek Orthodox Church in America and its prelate His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America because of dissatisfaction with the new Church Charter, and whose law suit was dismissed on August 6 by the New York State Supreme Court, have filed another motion.

The group’s recent action is challenging the court’s decision, which the group calls "erroneous," and blaming the court for denying them civil rights "as members of a New York State Corporation," namely the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese.

Most of the plaintiffs are officials, members or sympathizers of the Orthodox Christian Laity, more commonly known as OCL.

Among them are President Peter Haikalis and its vice president Andrew Kartalis. The Metropolises of San Francisco and Pittsburgh did not allow the two above-mentioned individuals to represent their respective parishes of the Ascension Church in Oakland, CA and Sts. Constantine & Helen of Cleveland, OH at the 37th biennial Clergy-Laity Congress in New York this past July. Among other things, the OCL motion states that the order issued by the NYS Supreme Court in August fails to grasp their civil rights and completely misinterprets the issue. The plaintiffs also claim that the Court’s order fails to distinguish between the organizational structure of the Orthodox Church and the Archdiocese.
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Former members of the Archdiocesan Council and its executive committee during the era of Archbishop Iakovos, formerly of North & South America, as well as former members of various Archdiocesan committees who were not appointed to ecclesiastical and organizational posts and committees by the current Archdiocese administration.

Some of the plaintiffs are also members of the Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle - Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

In a written statement, Evan Chriss of Baltimore, one of the plaintiffs and a longtime member of the Archdiocesan Council, said that the action is justified "because the Court’s decision denied our civil rights as members of the Archdiocese, a New York Corporation."

In addition to the failure of the Court to abide by the Court’s own rules on filings made by litigants, Mr. Chriss explained, "by its reading and reliance upon the Defendant’s reply, the Court failed to consider the true issue in the case, which is the Archdiocese’s failure to follow the requisite procedure for revision of its 1977 Charter, misapplied to applicable law, and made erroneous findings of material facts."

It was announced at the Clergy-Laity Congress this past summer that this legal action taken against the Church and the Archbishop had already cost more than $300,000.

[ Orthodox Truth - www.orthodox-truth.bugs3.com/art_72.html - November 5, 2004 ]