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The National Herald - October 27-November 2, 2012

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America - 15 Years of Change

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By Theodore Kalmoukos
TNH Staff Writer

In its first 15 years, The National Herald has witnessed an array of ecclesiastical and administrative changes in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a mainstay of the Greek-American community in the United States.

STRUCTURAL CHANGES

Archbishop Iakovos’ retirement in 1996 after 37 years on the Archbishop’s throne of the Archdiocese of North and South America was, of course, a major event and change. It brought with it the dismantling of the Archdiocese into three ecclesiastical entities: The Archdiocese of America; the Metropolis of Toronto, Canada; and the Metropolis of Buenos Aires of South America. Thus the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of the U.S. assumed its new name and identity, known today as the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople initiated these structural changes to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, as it was then known, without any consultation or even notice of courtesy in advance to the faithful of the Archdiocese: its clergy or laity. The Ecumenical Patriarchate of course had the authority and the privilege to initiate those changes due to the fact that the Archdiocese is one of its ecclesiastical Eparchies abroad.
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The ecclesiastical structural change came simultaneously with the election of Metropolitan Spyridon of Italy as Archbishop of America. Spyridon was forced to resign after three years of Archbishopric ministry under difficult conditions that had arisen in the Archdiocese.

The current Archbishop Demetrios succeeded Archbishop Spyridon. Demetrios was, for almost 50 years, an auxiliary Bishop: first to the Archbishop of Athens Ieronymos, who ordained him and gave him the title “Bishop of Vresthena” during the period of anomaly in the State and the Church of Greece under to the dictatorship of 1967. He continued under the late Archbishop of Athens Seraphim and his successor, the late Archbishop Christodoulos. It was Christodoulos who granted his auxiliary Bishop Demetrios the official release from the Church of Greece in order to be elected by the Ecumenical Patriarchate as Archbishop of America in 1999. Demetrios had come to U.S. in the 1960s for advanced studies in Boston; he later became a professor at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and a lecturer at Harvard Divinity School, where he had done graduate studies.

As a result of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s structural changes, a new administrative charter was implemented in the Archdiocese, which provided for the elevation of the Dioceses to Metropolises. The Bishops assumed the title of the Metropolitan and, as a result, they are addressed as “Your Eminence” instead of “Your Grace.” We should clarify here that the Metropolises comprise the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America; they are not autonomous ecclesiastical entities as it is the case for the Metropolises of Europe. It is actually a strange ecclesiastical and administrative structure because the only ruling hierarch is the Archbishop of America. The Metropolitans are something between auxiliary Bishops and titular Metropolitans. When the Archbishop officiates at the Liturgy in any given Metropolis in the U.S. --Boston, New Jersey, or Atlanta, for example --he is commemorated as the shepherd (ruling bishop) of the Metropolis. Ecclesiastically speaking, a local Church -- in this case a Metropolis-- can only have one Bishop (shepherd). The way the system has been designed today, the Metropolitans appear to be ruling hierarchs from Monday to Saturday in their Metropolises, and when the Archbishop visits their Metropolis on Sundays, he is the real ruling hierarch (shepherd). It appears that today there have been created nine small Archdioceses with nine small Archbishops struggling for more and more power and authority.

During the last 15 years, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has visited the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America at least four times, most recently in 2009.

FINANCES

The last 15 years the Archdiocese has been confronted with many cases of clergy pedophilia and clergy sexual harassment, involving homosexual clergy as well. In the last 10 years alone, the Archdiocese has paid more than $20 million for settlements of pedophilia and homosexual cases.

At the same time the Archdiocese’s annual budget has doubled in the last 13 years under this present Archbishop from $13 million to $26 million, in the name of “ministries.” These include various departments, including Communications, ecumenical inter-Orthodox relations, GOTelecom, information technologies, religious education, outreach, stewardship & evangelism, and Greek education, among others.

A new collection system was adopted at the Clergy-Laity Congress in Nashville, Tennessee in 2006. Under this system, parishes became obligated to pay to the Archdiocese 15 percent of their expenses rather than 15 percent of their income, as was the case until 2006. The new system was adopted primarily because many parishes had two sets of financial books, attempting to hide some of their income in order pay a lesser amount of annual “taxation” to the Archdiocese. Today, the majority of parishes are struggling to make ends meet, due to the lofty salaries and benefits of some of their priests and the ever-increasing annual “taxation” paid to the Archdiocese in the name of stewardship and ministries. It seems that the most of the ministries do not reach or affect the local parishes at all. There is no communication between the Archdiocese and the local parishes. It may appear on the surface that ministries are being financed, but in actuality the money is perpetuating a bureaucracy within the Archdiocese.

MONASTERY CONCERNS

In the last 15 years a monastic cultish movement has been established throughout the Archdiocese by the creation of some 21 monasteries by the priest-monk Ephraim, former abbot of the Philotheou Monastery of Mount Athos. This movement actually amounts to an anti-Church, established with a lot of consequences in the local parishes and also in the Archdiocese and the entire Orthodox Christian world in the U.S. as a whole. Fr. Ephraim has managed to create a fundamentalist movement of “Ephraimites” of clergy and laity who view him as a holy man, and who disseminate many stories about his spiritual abilities and prophesy.

The Archdiocese has already been confronted with the suicide of a young man this past June. Former novice Scott (Ioannis) Nevins took his own life on June 11, 2012, according to police authorities, outside of St. Anthony’s Monastery in Arizona where Fr. Ephraim has established his headquarters.

The Archdiocesan Council has formed a committee that investigates the monasteries, including their finances. Of particular concern is the source of funds for the erection of the St. Anthony’s Monastery, which appears to be a resort in the desert.

FAITH: AN ENDOWMENT FOR ORTHODOXY AND HELLENISM

FAITH: An Endowment for Orthodoxy and Hellenism was established in 2004 by a group of ten Greek-American dedicated laymen in response to the invitation and calling of Archbishop Demetrios, to assist with scholarships and with funding people and programs that advance Orthodoxy and Hellenism in America. Each Founder has given or pledged a minimum of $1 million to support educational and cultural programs related to Hellenism and Orthodoxy across the United States through the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

EDUCATION

The Hellenic Paideia (an ancient Greek concept of education, referring to the rearing and education of an ideal member of society) and the school system of the Archdiocese have withered.

Under this present Archbishop, two day Greek-American schools have closed down in Corona and in Brooklyn (both in New York City) while other schools are on the edge of surviving. Hellenic College and Holy Cross continue the struggle of survival with their number of students remaining the same: about 180 to 200 students each.

[ The National Herald - Special Insert (TNH 15th Anniversary) - October 27-November 2, 2012 - p. 16 ]