The Greek Orthodox Church Strives for Unity – Archbishop @Elpidophoros to @kouvie pic.twitter.com/Jtxt08tkdw
— GOARCH Press Office (@GOARCH_Press) January 4, 2022
I really want to give the Archbishop the benefit of the doubt, but let’s be brutally honest, this country is anything but united. We’re so divided that even people on the Left are warning about an impending civil war.
Don’t believe me? Right after the last presidential election, John Podesta, who’s a bigwig in the Democrat Party (and Greek-American), told the states of California, Oregon and Washington to secede from the Union should President Trump pull out a victory. He actually said that. Now, according to the accepted Yankee mythology, that’s treason. We’ll argue the finer points of that another time. For now, we’ll go with that: treason or at the very least, sedition. (Those are crimes punishable by death in case you didn’t know.)
Did anybody on the Left say anything condemnatory about such seditious talk? How about anybody at GOARCH? Anybody? Hellooooo... Yeah, that’s what I thought: crickets.
Now, I really want to be charitable to His Eminence. After all, he’s not an American and he has no American roots. He doesn’t understand that between the Hudson River and the Sierra Nevadas, there’s a whole country out there. He, like most denizens of the East Coast, lives in a bubble. His “people” are the New York/Boston/DC axis. Nothing wrong with that. It’s just that there’s a whole lot of “other” people out there. I mean, I guess he’s got a Green Card and all that, but he has as much understanding of America as I do of Kazakhstan.
On the other hand, I could say that he’s a Marxist; after all, he did march with BLMers during the Summer of Floyd Festivities but then again, most people on the East and West Coasts saw nothing wrong with that in principle. As for BLM and Antifa destroying American cities and killing innocent people, I didn’t hear anybody on the Left condemning that violence as well. Mind you, they’re not Marxists per se, they’ve just imbibed the emancipatory politics of the Mainstream Media. It’s just what they do. Because you know, those “other” people in the Red States, they’re all wrong thinkers. You know, bigots/racists/sexists/homo+transphobes.
They just are. No need to think long and hard about it, Rachel Maddow said it on MSNBC. So it’s got to be true.
So, I’m going to cut him some slack there as well. He’s not a Marxist either, thinking like this comes with the territory. Sort of a “cost of doing business” thing.
Where I will draw the line however is his assessment of our “unity,” and how GOARCH “maintains this unity.” How it “brought Democrats and Republicans together” now that Resident Biden is in power. To believe this is fanciful. It’s more than that –it’s insane. Even Leftists don’t believe that (as I’ve already said). Even the Archons, cynical businessmen that they are, don’t believe that. But the Archbishop and his advisors do. Nonsense like this is what comes out of the mouths of Fordhamites and other East Coast academics.
I imagine that the journalist in the video he spoke with is from Greece and that this fellow is not all that aware of the great expanse that is America or its ever-widening fissures. And as I already said, living as he does in the bubble that is NYC, we can’t really blame His Eminence. Then again, he came from another bubble, didn’t he? The Ecumenical Patriarch and his minions continually talk about “the New Rome,” a city of 15,000,000 Muslims and (maybe) 3,000 Christians. This is a fantasy at best and a delusion at worst.
So, is it going to get any better? Is he going to try and find out how the other half lives? I’d like to think so. I’m always willing to give him a chance though. The problem however is that it won’t get any better for a variety of reasons.
First, GOARCH is hemorrhaging people left, right, and center. When something like this happens, institutions almost always retrench. It’s like what Aristotle said about the hedgehog. Every now and then an exceptional man can rise and reverse the downward trend but that’s a rarity. An extreme rarity.
Second, the nature of the American leadership bubble is irredeemably leftist. You can tell that by the march he participated in last year. If he had had an advisor or two from the Great American Heartland, he wouldn’t have done it. Or at least he’d think twice about doing so.
Third, as far as the culture wars are concerned, he has signaled that he’s on the side of the alphabet people as well. His liturgical experimentation with multiple spoons during the COVID hysteria likewise puts him on the left side of the liturgical continuum. And if it’s one thing about pretty girls playing with snakes tells us is that the average Greek Orthodox parish is really concerned about the environment.
Fourth, there’s the startling mandate which he issued from on high that no priest in GOARCH can give a vaccine exemption to any of their parishioners. For no reason at all. Period. Even if there’s a valid medical reason for said exemption. Now I’m not a canonist, but that strikes me as being uncanonical.
Seriously, can anybody tell me if a hierarch can yank pastoral privileges from a priest for any reason other than a priest being suspended? That sounds awful high-handed to me.
Finally–the Archbishop (who is in many ways an admirable man) was not sent here to become an American prelate. He was sent here to make sure that GOARCH never slips from the hands of the Phanar like it almost did during the tenure of the late Archbishop Iakovos. And if push comes to shove, to make sure that if there ever was an “autocephalous” American Orthodox Church it would be “autocephalous” in the way that the new Ukrainian sect is “autocephalous” (i.e. ukrocephalous). In other words, not very.
I’d like to end on this note: I’ve known dozens of priests and a few hierarchs. I’ve never heard one of them mention which side of the political divide they were on, or even who we should vote for. The timidity of your average Greek-American Orthodox priest to participate in an annual March for Life is legendary; that’s how reticent they are to get involved in anything socio-political. In retrospect, that’s probably not a bad thing all things being equal. On the other hand, as you can see from countless photos from the previous years, the Archbishop has cast all prudence to the winds when it comes to inserting himself into the political debate –and always on the Left side of the spectrum.
Contrast this however with the insouciance displayed in the Twitter above. He might as well be saying “it’s all good.” There’s no reflection here about all the BLM propaganda that he bought into last year. For the life of me, I can’t find it possible to believe that he thinks things are better now that Biden is in the Oval Office; even Democrats don’t believe that. You can tell by the number of Democrats who are abandoning ship left and right in anticipation of the electoral blowout that’s awaiting them in 10 months. Even Obama famously said “never underestimate the ability of Joe to f*@& things up.” (I used to make fun of Obama by calling him “St Hussein,” he may not be a saint but he’s certainly a prophet. )
Then there’s the fact that he’s the principle author of the novel and most unfortunate doctrine of primus sine paribus. That novelty portends ill tidings for the future, whether we unite in America or (worse) if he replaces his mentor on the Constantinopolitan throne.
I guess I’ll stop here. As I said, I think His Eminence in many ways is an admirable man. I can agree to disagree with him. I certainly don’t want to be disagreeable. But it’s his judgment that I question. Time and again, he hasn’t given us any reason to change our opinion. And speaking for myself, I’d really like to change my opinion.
I like what the Archbishop said in his talk, and it’s true about the Christian Church being a unifying organization, bringing people of different POVs together, eg. Democrats and Republicans. I live in the Heartland and like it that he marched with BLM.
The problem in terms of Unity is that Abp. Elpidophoros is advocating the divisive First Without Equals doctrine and recognition of the divisive/Schismatic OCU. The division now in Africa is just the latest reverberation of this disaster.
RCs say that we need a Pope over all Christians to unite them. However, in reality that place belongs to Christ. EO churches are supposed to be actually “autocephalous” – “self headed”, not CP-cephalous. Rather than creating Unity, Primatial vertical Supremacy creates division because poses his own synod’s decisions onto against other equal fraternal Churches and synods, eg. JP, MP, Poland. The victim of bad arbitrary unilateral decision is naturally going to react against those bad decisions and misplaced Authority in order to defend himself, the victim, thus leading to more conflicts and divisions.
The CP says that it is unilaterally bringing the OCU into Orthodoxy. Is the Orthodox world now more united or divided? Due to CP’s disastrous supremacist ecclesiology and the CP’s attempted imposition of it onto the Russian Church, the Greek and Russian Orthodox worlds are more divided as they have ever been since Constantinople temporarily went into Unia over 5 centuries ago.
Thank you for speaking out, Monomakhos – George and Gail, about the CP’s destructive actions.
Wishing you a Happy New Year and many good years ahead. God bless.
Thanks, Hal! You, too, and thank you for your participation.
Hal, I have absolutely no –nada, nil, zip, zilch–problems with “unity” and having a Christian jurisdiction preach that. But they’ve got to walk that walk, and you ain’t walking that walk when you walk with BLM.
It’s that simple.
As for the byzantine intrigues which underlie all byz-talk about “unity,” we’ll leave that alone for now.
Well, in an extremely surprising turn of events, guess who will be one of the speakers (sort of) at the March for Life this year…our very own Archbishop Elpidophoros. He will be giving the opening and closing prayers. Hopefully he can keep from saying something cringy.
I saw it on Instagram and was legitimately shocked. Thanks be to God though, give credit where credit is due.
Who ever is doing his PR work must have finally caught wind that many in the archdiocese are miffed with him.
Petro, I agree with you. Rather than assigning some ulterior motives on his (or his advisors’) parts, I’ll take him at his word.
Perhaps we are seeing repentance here. Whether this will seep down into the lower reaches of the GOA (including the secularist Archon class) is an open question.
Still, as Christians we must always hope. And so in this regard, I will laud His Eminence (unless of course he says something cringy).
The Phanar/GOA is a minor agency of the American State Department. They take their orders and cues from the Uniparty Establishment headed by the DNC and defended by the Deep State intelligence services. Thus they are no less atheistic socialists than the Soviets who ran the MP during the Cold War. Same difference. That explains all of their activities and stances including the aversion to evangelism.
They do not deserve the slightest modicum of respect or deference. That is why the Russians excommunicated them.
I like the assumption that urban Yankees don’t count as people.
Lol wut? Elpi isn’t a Marxist? Is that your final answer?
One of the great naiveties of your garden variety American is the denial that true malice exists. People think that evil is just a scared, lost puppy. They cannot fathom that someone would want to hurt you for the sake of harm itself.
Elpi and his crew are children of Satan. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they do their father’s work, who was a murderer from the beginning and the father of lies.
I recently watched Lord of the Rings again. Frodo and Sam meet Smeagol. Frodo wants to give him a chance and sees a glimmer of good in him. Sam correctly asserts that Smeagol is beyond hope and should be tied up and left for dead.
Elpi has made it very clear what kind of person he is. He was chosen for the role of archbishop for that very reason. His massive unpopularity is irrelevant.
No, he would have done it anyway. He was sending a message. The message was not “black lives matter” or “I’m a good person”. The message was “The GOA is going in a secular progressive direction, and you don’t have a choice to resist.” Since then they have blazoned that picture all over the website. People were upset, but that’s the very point. Ridiculing people’s powerlessness was the purpose of taking the picture.
And people criticized him for being out during a quarantine time and not social distancing. Yes, that’s the point. He was bragging about being a hypocrite. He was communicating that the rules do not apply to him.
One of the great things about the COVID hoax is that it has made us think about ecclesiology. We didn’t give it much thought beforehand. Most people assumed that the priest is the bishop’s employee. If the bishop wants to cancel all liturgy for two months, the priest is obligated to obey, so we thought, because that’s how simple it was.
For example, banning someone from communion is not merely pastoral or procedural. It’s excommunicating them from Christ himself. The church comes together as a body and communes. Archbishop Benjamin banning people who don’t wear masks is not a choice he can make as a bishop. But we didn’t think about that before COVID.
Did your neocon handler tell you to say that? Is this George Michaelopoulos, or did aliens snatch and replace him?
Elpidophoros is a communist and a […]. Call the demon by its name and cast it out of your midst.
I promise you that he does. No matter how bad Biden is, he isn’t Trump, and that’s all that matters.
Why do you assume that Elpi is trying to be rational? Why do you assume that he even wants things to be good? Clearly the leftwing loves chaos and badness.
Nor is the leftwing merely wrong about some ideology things. They have taken on the nature of demons. It’s a spiritual issue, not a political issue.
(By criticizing the secular left I am not necessarily endorsing the religious right.)
Yes, and it’s going to be discussing. I really thought the Republicans had committed eternal political suicide by allowing the election steal. But idiot suburban whites will vote in droves for the Republican Party regardless, like a battered wife coming home from the shelter.
Don’t vote. If you vote, you give your consent to the system. A vote for the Republican Party is a vote for the system to continue.
Now that we are three years into the schism, it seems like people are starting to edge away from the EP. The OCA made many gestures toward Moscow and ROCOR last year. You can have Orthodoxy with Kirill and Hilarion, or you can have gay pride with Elpidophoros.
And the OCA is nothing without the laity. There is no “Orthodox Church OF America” without Americans. This isn’t as true for the other jurisdictions.
Elpidophoros will not be chosen as the next EP, because he’s too hated and can’t do diplomacy. Even the most loyal EP-believers do not want a mafioso on the throne. He’s not a person you have fun around. They will pick someone like Emmanuel of Gaul.
He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?
Matthew:16:2-3
It’s not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing. It’s about right versus wrong. The secular left revels in wrongness for its own sake, because they are children of Satan. Most people go along with them because they are cowards (John 12:42).
(It’s also a bit pretentious to claim to not be disagreeable when your blog title says that you are a fighter.)
He doesn’t have bad judgment. He has a foundationally different values set. That not a single metropolitan bishop the world over has stood up to him or Bart shows that the GOA is apostate. I hate admitting that, because for years I was part of the GOA, and the convert freaks in ROCOR and the OCA would ridicule it, but on this one aspect of this one issue, they were right. The hierarchy of the EP is wholesale apostate.
RE: “(It’s also a bit pretentious to claim to not be disagreeable when your blog title says that you are a fighter.)
And to whom was this comment directed?
Austin, you raise many fine points. In fact, I agree with many of them in the main.
If I may address one of your criticisms: Christian charity demands that I “cut the Arb some slack.” His tenure is not over here in America (whether it should have even begun is another question.) I’ve actually heard from a GOA priest or two that he is fair and reflective in ways that surprised them.
Never discount the possibility of repentance. Which means ” changing of the mind/nous“.
As for Bart’s replacement, it will be whomever the Turkish Deep State + the Globalists want to sit on that throne. Both could be in agreement as to the candidate, then again, don’t discount the ability of the Turks to win the argument if they and the Globalists can’t agree on their preferred candidate.
For the time being, Emma is Bart’s preferred candidate. However Bart won’t be around to make that choice. Although both Emma and Elpi speak excellent English, the Globalists have an entrenched interest in the “first without equals” doctrine becoming Orthodox dogma. So my money is on Elpi.
“Neocon handlers”? Seriously?
Okay, that was kind of too far.
In what sense is he an admirable man?
It seems that the Turks are distancing from the Atlanticists. Certainly they are moving away from Attaturk’s vision.
Supposedly there aren’t many candidates who can qualify. There are certain citizenship requirements.
Maybe you’re right, but I’m at the point of cynicism where the hope of these antichrist figures repenting is one in a million.
But to quote Lloyd Christmas, “So you’re saying there’s a chance?”
Maybe Pope Francis will repent and become an Orthodox Christian. Maybe Pope Benedict will admit that he was wrong to abandon the papacy. Maybe Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton will confess their sins and publicly repent. It’s possible.
The Archbishop stumbles on at least three fronts. First, he should stay out of politics. Only preach the Gospel. Second is his creation of the first without equals nonsense about Patriarch Bartholomew. The third, and perhaps the most immediately serious mistake affecting the GOA is his defense of all things Greek, as in there can never be enough Greek/Greekness in the GOA. The number of so-called “mixed” marriages in the GOA for well over a generation is about 75%. Think about that for a moment and you realize what a catastrophic mistake he is making. (In the spirit of transparency, I’m the proud, fluent in Greek, son of parents who came to this country as children with their respective families in 1920). There is no doubt that his haughty, autocratic style, hidden behind a nice smile, has created a rising tide of dislike for him in NY, Boston and other areas of the country. On another particularly interesting note, there is a rumor that “Metropolitan” Epiphany of Ukraine recently concelebrated with a hierarch of a very minor old calendar group in Greece (not the GOC). One has to wonder what will happen when/if this becomes public.
For those who celebrate according to the patristic calendar, Christ is Born, Glorify Him. Merry Christmas.
So, what I don’t get, as an ex-Episcopalian, who has watched her cradle church go down the drain over the last several years after espousing the homosexual agenda, is that the GOA is dead set to follow the same path. Is this lifestyle so ingrained in the Greek culture that it is a nothing burger? To me it seems so.
From everything I have learned, God does not like sin and came here to help us overcome the sin in our lives.
Actually, sometimes it seems to me that the hierarchy of Orthodoxy is the real god.
Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles. Fyodor Dostoevsky Prophetic???
(Gail & George, I don’t know if my original comment registered. In any case, please use this one. Thanks, Chip)
Lina writes, “So, what I don’t get, as an ex-Episcopalian, who has watched her cradle church go down the drain over the last several years after espousing the homosexual agenda, is that the GOA is dead set to follow the same path.
You don’t know how much that sentiment resonates with this very disturbed ex-Episcopalian. I’m speaking for myself. My own frame of reference with the Episcopal Church started in 1954. I was confirmed when national membership peaked in 1967 at 3.6 million members, and then observed the decline over the years that followed.
The contra-canonical ordination of the Philadelphia Eleven women in 1974, the newfangled Book of Common Prayer in 1979, the new Hymnal in 1980 were the basis for a revised view of the sacraments. Then came the shocking suffragan consecration of Barbara Harris in 1989 and the even-more shocking diocesan consecration of Vicky Imogen Robinson (a gay man) in 2003.
These are the most noteworthy of the last half century’s greatest hits (i.e. assaults) on the TEC, perhaps best spelled out as Today’s Episcopal Clique. The mindset that made this possible was the suicidal apostasy of Bp. James Pike, the preaching of the social gospel in the ’60s, the Situation Ethics (1966) by ex-priest Joseph Fletcher, the infiltration of homosexual doctrine into General Theological Seminary in New York via Prof. Norman Pittenger in the same godforsaken decade. These were just some of the men who planted the seeds of Satan into Episcopal Church soil at the apogee of its growth and influence in this great nation. The later abominations like the proliferation of the homosexual agenda were the fruit of the poisoned tree. Memberships has fallen by more than half since 1967 to 1.6 million today. Of the two million lost over that era, 314,000 were lost in the “twenty teens” alone (2010 – 2019). Chalk half of that up to the general vacating of Christians churches. And, chalk the other half up to the abject abandonment of Tradition which may be described as the “revolution within the form” and the disgust of the laity with the leadership.
Now, to your question. Having watched TEC “go down the drain”, will the GOA be “dead set to follow the same path.”? Indeed, that is the $64,000 question. I would venture a “Yes”, if you asked me. Why? This is just conjecture, but I doubt whether the GOA has done serious research into the demographic decline of TEC. Even if they have, they will probably scoff at the precipitous drop in TEC numbers. They may blame that phenomenon on the ignorance of the unenlightened masses, or on the simple fact that the TEC has never been Orthodox. I wouldn’t be surprised if the decline of the TEC even registered on the GOA radar. Why else would Elpidophoros make nice with that heretic Dean Wolfe at St. Bart’s in Manhattan? What is certain, though, is that their ideology will trump all concerns to the contrary. The celebration of the Divine Liturgy at St. Bart’s and the return visit to get chummy with Wolfe are indirect indications that Elpi. feels a need to get cozy with the heterodox. Witness his many days spent last year with the Mormons in Utah.
Bartholomew and Elpidophoros are dead set on their affirmation of ecumenism, of environmentalism, and of Covidism. Just like the arrogant Episcopalians, they will not …and that auxiliary verb must be read with emphasis… i.e. they willfully will not reject this trendy agenda. They will not cease and desist their hegemonic grasping at global ecclesiastical power, so help them God. The Phanar is like a rat backed into a corner and the little thing will strike out with terrifying force to maintain its viability. All they need to keep going is the laughable contention that Imperial Constantinople is first without equal, and the ability to squeeze megabucks out of the rich Archons and downtrodden parishes who still cling to the GOA. Damn anyone who has an opinion to the contrary.
Wow. Just Wow.
Laurence, I am taken aback by this writing.
It is calm, composed, deadly accurate. And furious.
I appreciated it very much. Misha achieves something like this from time to time. You rather come to expect it after awhile.
But this was stunning. It did me good.
I also needed the long walk afterward.
Not to detract from his writing AT ALL, but anytime someone puts their name on something and speaks from the heart, it’s powerful. This definitely applies to Lawrence.
This is a really good summation of why GOARCH will continue to march into oblivion. I would suspect a similar situation will occur where more faithful GOA parishes, and the monasteries, will leave. There really isn’t any other way,
Boston Goarch has recently received an endowment from the Lilly Foundation- Thriving Congregations program. I would be very wary of this if I were GOARCH. Grants like this have strings attached that will force a “woke” element into the initiative. It became very apparent at the first district seminar when one of GOARCH’s keynote speaker was Dr. Barbara Lucas. Although her theological title was not shared (I believe intentionally so) at the program, she is the bishop of a Brookline NY. With all the great Orthodox minds available to speak, why in the world would they pick this person? I think I know why.
https://boston.goarch.org/assets/files/TCI%20District%20Seminar%20-%20December%204%2C%202021%20(7).pdf
Pushing wokeness– pushing alphabet soupers— is not going to fill the GOARCH pews on Sundays—-
They don’t get that. They are listening to the wrong people. Very sad.