Kalmoukos

Published by The National Herald, February 4, 2005

In Support of Mr. Kalmoukos

Now that the holidays are over and we have resumed our usual preoccupations, I have had the opportunity to reflect on a very timely article written by Theodore Kalmoukos, "Church Leadership Should Modify its Policies," which was published in your December 11, 2004 issue. I commend Mr. Kalmoukos for sensitizing the readers about very critical issues in the life of the Church in the United States.

In regard to small parishes, there are at least 38 of them out the 48 in my Metropolis. There is no question that they have difficulty in supporting a full-time priest, especially if he is married with children. Thanks to Leadership 100, some of our priests receive a monthly stipend to augment their small salaries.

If we were Protestants, we would have no problem supporting a pastor in a small parish. The reason for this is that the per capita giving of Protestants is at least $2,000 per year individually, if not more. Unfortunately, we Orthodox have not learned to be generous toward our parishes.

The first immigrants, who were totally sacrificial, and who built some of our most beautiful churches before the 1940’s, did not pass the spirit of sacrifice onto their children, the rationale being that they did not want their children to suffer as they did. They gave to their children what they did not have, but failed to give to them what they did have, such as love of God and the Church, and concern for the less fortunate in society and the world.

The fact that many of our smaller parishes have chronic financial needs can also be attributed to the fact that our people came from countries with state-supported churches. The people there were never expected to give sacrificially to the Church. This is probably a basic reason why stipends to the clergy became quite generous in those countries at times.

Mr. Kalmoukos is correct in saying that the plight of our smaller parishes has never been an agenda item at the Eparchial Synod meetings. If the remuneration of the clergy were to be handled by the Archdiocese instead of the parishes, according to the seniority of ordination, we would have more priests in financially liquid parishes preferring to stay there because the smaller parishes cannot support them on a seniority-level basis. Thanks to Leadership 100, a stopgap effort is being made, but it is not enough.

Although there are priests who consider the their salary level to be a very high priority item, we must also state that parish councils in large parishes contribute to this problem in believing that no one can replace their priest.

In regard to priests, whether "cradle" Orthodox or converts, the money factor becomes most important when they leave the Seminary and have to pay back student loans amounting to $60-80,000. One of my priests, who has been ordained at least ten years, just finished paying off his student loan; again, thanks to Leadership 100.

With respect to our theological school, it is my understanding that most professors’ salaries are low. Some, however, are high. A more balanced way of having a kind of equity among the faculty, probably, is to get rid of tenure. Large universities, with hundreds of faculty, have eliminated tenure from their institutions for valid reasons. We have brilliant graduates of our School who teach in schools such as Harvard and Fordham who have no chance to teach at their own alma mater. Should such inequity continue?

Many of the problems chronically facing our Archdiocese stem from the fact that our people do not consider the Church as the most important priority in their lives.

Is it not embarrassing for an archdiocese with 500 parishes to have an annual budget of $11-12 million to have an annual deficit of at least $6 million? This means that our annual financial resources are only $6-7 million.

And then we demand to be recognized as a major faith. A popular Protestant evangelist raises this amount in one night.

To make matters worse regarding our worldly image, whenever our Patriarch comes to America, we wine and dine him and his entourage on a level of opulence, and then trick them into believing that our Archdiocese is financially solvent, when it is not.

How do we turn this anomaly around and give it the proper priority? It is simple:

We must first accept the fact that the Church is not ours. The Church does not belong to us. We must acknowledge that the Church belongs to our Lord Jesus Christ. Once we understand this, then we can consider ourselves blessed in that God has accepted us into His Church for our eternal salvation. In gratitude, we will express our love and devotion to Him by being sacrificial toward His Church; and we will offer to His Church an honorable portion of our material blessings, which He has allowed us to have and to enjoy.

Our Lord established His Church through His death on the Cross and His glorious Resurrection. On the basis of this truth, who has the audacity to say that a local parish, and the Church in general, does not belong to Christ the Lord, or that it is under any kind of human control? It is long overdue for Greek Orthodox Christians to demonstrate that the Church of Christ is much higher on their priority list than secular institutions which will one day not exist.



Volume 7 Number 6 - Tuesday, February 8th, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY