Costas Bej/TNH Bishop Vikentios of Apameia and his attorney George Razis make a statement to the police outside of the offices of the St. Irene Chrysovalantou Monastery in Astoria.
Source: National Herald | Theodore Kalmoukos
ASTORIA, N.Y. – After a tumultuous beginning in which Bishop Vikentios of Apameia refused to attend a meeting of the Corporation of the St. Irene Chrysovalantou Patriarchal and Stavropegial Monastery because his attorney was barred, the board officially removed him and the scandal-scarred Metropolitan Paisios as officers and replace them with five new trustees. The episodic meeting took place on Jan. 21 at the monastery’s offices in Astoria and resulted in Vikentios’ attorney, George Razis, calling police when he was not admitted because the monastery’s legal counselors would not allow it. Police took reports from both sides and Vikentios, who had served there as Secretary, then declined to appear at the meeting while Paisios, who has been allegedly accused with a series of sexual abuse involving men and women of various ages said to have taken place at the monastery, was represented by the acting Abbot, Bishop Elias of Philomelion.
Metropolitan Nikitas of the Dardanelles chaired the meeting, representing by proxy the corporate President, Metropolitan Theoliptos of Iconium of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople. Five attorneys for the monastery were present. There was reportedly great disappointment in the community of the many members and supporters of the St. Irene Monastery who said they have been completely ignored during this entire process.
The names of those elected members of the St. Irene Corporation are: Metropolitan Nikitas of Dardanelles; Dr. Anthony Limberakis, Commander of the Order of the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate; attorney Nick Matthews, son of Rev. Constantine Matthews from the Annunciation parish in Stamford Connecticut, whose mother comes from the island of Imvros, hometown of Patriarch Bartholomew; and Presbyetera Anthi Katsoulis, whose husband was killed in a car crash a few years ago in Cyprus.
Bishop Vikentios refused to make any comment to TNH and referred questions to his attorney George Razis who said “all our options are open to us, we are going to proceed.”
Razis told TNH that “everything they (corporation) did is illegal” and he said that, “You cannot vote by proxy, you cannot transfer responsibility. The only one who was there was Bishop Vikentios and he was not allowed in.” Razis said that, “The secretary of the Corporation must verify the members who are going to vote, and that was not done.” Sources in the corporate meeting, who spoke to TNH under the condition of anonymity, said: “Our attorneys told us that we had a quorum and that everything we did was legal.” TNH has learned that Razis has already sent a letter to the monastery’s attorneys requesting a copy of the minutes of the special meeting, along with the decisions taken, the names who participated in the meeting and their positions and capacities. Bishop Vikentios seems to be determined to carry on a legal battle. He had told TNH in an interview in December of 2010 that Metropolitan Paisios sexually molested the Bishop’s brother at the age of 17.
Immediately following the meeting, all the monastery officials who attended, except Metropolitan Nikitas, visited the First Central Savings Bank in Astoria where the accounts of the monastery are kept and frozen. They presented the bank with the names of the new corporate members of the Monastery, but were told by bank officials the matter was being referred to its legal department. Also replaced was the Chairman of the Corporation, Metropolitan Theoliptos of Iconium of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. After Theoliptos learned the news of the removal of his name he sent a letter dated to Bishop Elias telling him that he has not resigned. Metropolitan Theoliptos wrote: “I state to you categorically that I have not resigned as President of the Corporation at least up to now. Metropolitan Nikitas of Dardanelles presides at the meetings on my behalf.” Metropolitan Theoliptos requested that Bishop Elias make the corrections “in order new troubles are avoided against our Patriarchate and the Monastery.”
George,
There is an old soap opera called As The World Turns. The idea here is that the world circles around and the scandals never stop in the world. What is being witnessed in NY is the continuing circular of As The Orthodox Church Turns. This soap opera is full of worldly turning.
In the Greek church scandal you see:
1. Sex
2. Money
3. Corruption
4. Cover up
5. Legal problems
6. Disunity
7. Incompetency
8. Circular/chaos
9. News media
10. Orthodoxy
As the WORLD TURNS looks no different than how the GOA TURNS. The Greeks can turn over every hierarch and the end result will still be the same. All the bishops have been trained to be leaders in a closed, isolated and subjective top down church structure and system of theological totalism. They operate just like the end result of what their theology trains them to be and the Orthodox don’t like that outcome and at the same time they LOVE their corrupt bishops. When ever one shows up at a parish the laity all line up to get their blessing from that bishop. They know the bishop is corrupt, but their salvation demands they bow to that corruption to get their blessing from God who works through corrupt bishops to BLESS the church with corruption.
Is this a Christian cult?: Incompetent EP + Sexually Corrupt Bishops + Powerless Priests + Cultic Monastics + Apathetic/Indifferent laity = What kind of a church?
What would the laity of the GOA call another not Orthodox church whose character is this addition forumula?
What does Christ tells us in the Gospels about what it means to be corrupt and circular without solution in corrruption?
The Orthodox rule of DON”T LOOK is being exposed in this NY scandal: They don’t look because something is THINKING for them and it tells them what to look at as the cause of the church never ending scandals. Those who don’t look don’t notice details that are important to notice.
Orthodox, have you NOTICED that in everyone of your serious scandals the bishops are involved?
Orthodox, have you NOTICED that in everyone of your serious scandals the bishops are looked too as the solution?
Orthodox, have you NOTICED that in everyone of your serious scandals the bishops are circular without solution?
The bishops are the problem and the solution. The bishops are the outcome of the theology that creates the structure and system of their top down power and control. The bishops power and control render the laity powerless to corruption. The more the idol bishops and their structure of authority is raised up the more that top down authority crushes the life out of the laity who idol worship what is killing the church and to the point they are made an apathetic and indifferent laity of powerless carnal spiritual immaturity. It’s all, God have mercy on us, when the scandal comes circular right back in their faces. It’s not God tell us, what is the cause of all of this failure and so we can repent over the right sins and in the right ways of repentance to solution. Instead, its shame as the outcome and shame discourages the church by rendering it powerless to shame. The cycle is shame to powerlessness to shame to discouragement to shame to apathy and indifference. Powerlessness is apathy and indifference and that is a carnal dead church found in a shamed state. Period.
Is it just me or is there something seriously wrong with this thelogical picture? Now I understand I am not looking at this from the Gods only alone right and one true church center looking out. So, I don’t have the Gods only alone right and one true truth OBJECTIVE viewpoint of this. My viewpoint of this from the outside looking in is most likely warped by my heresy salvation that is not Orthodox salvation. We all know that the Orthodox salvation is the Orthodox objective solution to their corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying church by it being Gods only right and true salvation solution. In fact, I am telling all of my church growth expert friends and those who specialize in spiritual abuse to look to the GOA as the future relevancy of Christianity among us and duplicate their structure and system for the most dynamic church relevancy end result of a safe and healthy church. I told them they are LOONEY TOON not to follow this outstanding example of what God intends His salvation to be among us.
In other words, I probably have the read on this all wrong since I don’t have Gods only one true truth in objective Orthodox salvation to discern what the cause of the problem is and what its solution is. In the Orthodox Mind that is always, Orthodox alone right correct, the Orthodox salvation is their only solution to the corrupt failure state of their church. Any other spiritual solution outside of them being their solution is heresy as a solution and heresy will lead the Orthdodox into becoming a corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying church. Such heresy must be avoided at all costs or the purity and the holiness of Orthodox truth that is their salvation solution will be corrupted. A corrupt salvation has the potential of corrupting Gods only alone right and one true truth church and therefore causing anyone who looks at it to QUESTION its salvation as its solution. Since Orthodox salvation is the only true salvation from God it is not the cause of the problem. The problem can’t be the theology and its resulting structure and system of salvation. No, the problem is anything other than those things. The theology that creates the very problem it cannot solve is the solution to the problem the theology creates.
The Orthodox either hold my salvation highly suspect or outright say it is not salvation. In the Orthodox Mind of always being, Orthodox salvation correct, their salvation is not suspect. In their minds their salvation is no more failed than than their church is failed. It is their solution to a corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying church that their salvation created. The Orthodox do not question their salvation, but they love to question the salvation of Christians who are not Orthodox. The Orthodox measure their salvation to their Gods only alone right truth in Orthodox salvation and they come up seriously lacking in the objective Orthodox comparison. Orthodox alone right truth makes them the most objective of all Christians in comparing the rightness of anothers salvation to their correct salvation. The Orthodox compare the hetrodox salvation to the state of their alone right church in its salvation and the heretics to Orthodox salvation are exposed and the Orthodox prove themselves right to themselves again by their alone right salvation.
So, it only makes Orthodox rational sense that the Orthodox theology is their salvation and solution to the corrupt, failed, irrelevant and dying state of their church. It only makes Orthodox rational sense that the bishops are the solution and like they are the salvation of the church by being its solution to the problem they create. In the Orthodox Mind there is nothing wrong with this picture. It is the picture of Christ come to us as our Orthodox alone right and only true salvation. It is the ONLY true salvation solution to how sin corrupts us without Christ at the center of our lives as our alive and transforming salvation.
Welcome EOC to rational Christian reasoning in the Mind of Christ that is the Lordship of Christ mind that is to be the mind of the church that holds all in the church transparent and accountable to the MIND OF CHRIST. Your salvation is what holds your church transparent and accountable by the degree that salvation is true salvation from Christ. Yes, I know, the Orthodox disagree with me. They know what their solution is and the state of their church proves that they do. The state of their church is the state of their salvation as the solution to the state of their church.
60 victims in NY is the spiritually sexual incest of the church family spiritually and sexually abusing itself and all the enablers of that church sexual incest and spiritual abuse now wonder how they got in this place and what to do about it. Group sex with minors, traffic in children, pedophilia, adultry and homosexuality is the morality of the church. Has anyone thought to look at the computers of the corrupt to find out what kind of PORN they are addicted too? What, it is too horrific to face? You are leaving it up to the EP and his appointed ‘yes men’ bishop minions to communicate the truth of the findings to you? Yes, GOA laity leave it up to your bishops to take responsibility for the church and you all stay all warn and snug in your religious codependent enabling of corruption parishes clueless as to what is really going on in your church. Let the bishops think for you and do not think for yourselves and then act all shocked and embarassed when the corruption is exposed. Ask yourselves, how can this happen? And, then don’t answer the question for yourselves with truth.
BTW, answering the QUESTIONS breaks the Don’t Question Rule. I call it, thinking for yourself to solution. My salvation asks thinking for itself questions that lead to solution. The thinking for himself Christian is scary and troubling to an Orthodox and especially if that Christian speaks into the corruption failure of the EOC by pointing directly to the CAUSE. In the Orthodox correct mind no one outside of them can see the cause of their corrupt church failure as well as they in their alone right truth can. Pointing directly to the cause reveals how well the Orthodox can think for themselves and the Orthodox do not appreicate that being pointed out to them for their believing their thinking is Gods only alone right and one true thinking that cannot be found wrong no matter what the state of their church points too as the cause of the state of their corrupt failure as a church that is wrong.
The Orthodox become offended, defensive and angry when you point out the cause. Their reaction is their solution to the cause. They don’t like being told that either making the reaction CIRCULAR without solution. I mean, it is very troubling to an Orthodox to have someone not Orthodox tell them what the cause of their problem denied is and when they know their salvation is not the cause and is their solution. They just can’t stand how that makes them look by my breaking the Orthodox don’t look rule.
Ashley Nevins
I seldom leave comments on blog, but I have been to this post which was recommend by my friend, lots of valuable details, thanks again.
Irene Chrysovalantou Patriarchal and Stavropegial Monastery because his attorney was barred the board officially removed him and the scandal-scarred Metropolitan Paisios as officers and replace them with five new trustees…The episodic meeting took place on Jan. 21 at the monasterys offices in Astoria and resulted in Vikentios attorney George Razis calling police when he was not admitted because the monasterys legal counselors would not allow it. Police took reports from both sides and Vikentios who had served there as Secretary then declined to appear at the meeting while Paisios who has been allegedly accused with a series of sexual abuse involving men and women of various ages said to have taken place at the monastery was represented by the acting Abbot Bishop Elias of Philomelion. ..The newspaper reported that five attorneys for the monastery were present while there was great disappointment in the community by many members and supporters of the St.