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Published by TGA News.com,
May 3, 2004
When the Mother
Church is Ungrateful to her Daughter
Commentary by
JUSTINE FRANGOULI-ARGYRIS
Journalist and Writer
TGA News.com, May
3, 2004 - The arrogant stance assumed by the
Patriarchate with regard to the initiative taken
by the Church of Greece to elect new metropolitans
for three vacant diocesan sees in the so-called
“New Territories” in Northern Greece has caused
believers and churchmen alike immense
disappointment and given rise to a multitude of
questions.
Recently, the Ecumenical Father has often
demonstrated an inappropriately combative behavior
by threatening to use “quivers and arrows” against
the Church of
Greece.
Having exhausted his insatiable appetite for power
with loud statements and warnings and having
transformed the Church into an arena of
controversies, he is now threatening the
Church of
Greece
with divisive actions whose aims are to undermine
the very unity of Hellenism itself.
Bartholomew, according to experts, in his quest
for the Throne’s legitimate privileges as these
derive from the Patriarchal Act of 1928, is
releasing all winds in matters of extreme national
importance. In claiming, through extreme means,
the right to interfere in the internal matters of
the Church
of Greece,
he is attacking the faithfuls’ souls. His ultimate
aim is to control the composition of the Sacred
Synod of the
Church of
Greece
by imposing hierarchs under his influence in order
to implement his own arrogant policies at the
expense of Hellenic national unity.
While church and political figures from both sides
continue to insult our logic and morals with their
sophisticated arguments, Bartholomew should be
told of the whispers of the crowd that expect the
Patriarch’s position to be inspired by the
generosity of a holy father. It is the peoples’
insistence that the Ecumenical Patriarch should
have never claimed his ecclesiastical privileges
over the “New
Territories.”
Rather, as was his paternal duty, he should have
brought the issue to closure by definitively and
irrevocably conceding these territories to the
Church of
Greece
where they belong geographically and ethnically.
As is his supreme duty, he should be aware that
the Phanar has cost
Greece immensely.
For, in order to maintain its tiny flame a flicker
in Constantinople, the local Greek minority has
been totally abandoned, Greek institutions have
been closed down and the Hellenic presence there
has all but disappeared.
As concerns the diaspora, a capital of utmost
importance for Orthodoxy and the Greek Nation,
here, too Bartholomew chose to implement an
overall eristic policy. In America, he ousted
Archbishops Iakovos and Spyridon using unorthodox
methods and thus fomented turmoil in the Church
and the Greek American community. The people’s
faith in the institution of the Church is being
sorely tried after the Archdiocese of America was
fragmented into metropolises and many are troubled
by the complete dissolution of the Greek American
lobby. The Greek-American community is being
shaken by the increasing deficit of the
Archdiocese and its leader’s inability to steer
the vessel called The Holy Cross School of
Theology. The Church of
America
is deeply traumatized by the legal case pursued by
OCL in its effort to persuade the Archdiocese to
abide by its own rules and cease violating
provisions of its existing charter. And, Greek
Orthodox believers are further scandalized by the
arrogance of Father Alex Karloutsos, a simple
priest who managed to appoint himself the
Archdiocese’s administration “overseer of the
activities of His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios”
as proclaimed in the official publications of
Leadership 100.
In
Australia, too, Bartholomew followed the road of
escalating crises in his relations with Archbishop
Stylianos. Instead of supporting his hierarch in
overcoming a multitude of local pastoral
challenges, Bartholomew named a bishop currently
under investigation as metropolitan of New Zealand
in a totally arbitrary and anticanonical fashion.
In England, the Greek Orthodox have not yet
recovered to this day from the wound of Archbishop
Methodios’ anticanonical overnight ousting. In
France, our Church’s believers cannot overcome the
fact of having their popular metropolitan,
Jeremiah, transferred to Switzerland. And, in
Switzerland, the believers refuse to forgive the
Patriarchate for ousting Damaskinos who for
decades had been Orthodoxy’s pillar in the heart
of Europe.
As such, The Phanar’s policies have opened deep
wounds across the entire globe. Even in Rhodes,
where her aged metropolitan’s resignation was
obtained by trickery only to see the Patriarchal
Synod--whose member he ironically happened to
be--accept it the next day, the uproar of public
opinion is deafening.
Bartholomew has now convened the entire Hierarchy
of the Throne to endorse his policies and impose a
divisive and unorthodox penalty on the Church of
Greece and her leader. He is desperately seeking
accomplices in his attempt to disrupt the unity of
Hellenism.
The Phanar should once and for all finally
overcome its egotistic and counter-productive
policy of confrontation with anyone and everyone.
And, now that its entire Hierarchy is gathered in
Constantinople, the Mother Church has the
opportunity to act as is fit towards a daughter
from whom she has so graciously benefited all
these years and abolish the Patriarchal Act of
1928 and grant the “New Territories” dioceses to
the Church of Greece without any further
controversies. In spite of all wishful thinking,
it seems that such a development is not visible,
not even in the distant horizon.
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