Hellenic

Submitted February 22, 2005

Hellenic College

There was a story in the New York Times this past week that the Roman Catholic Church in New York is considering turning the management of its schools over to professionals, instead of keeping them under the control of priests and nuns, like they always have.

Why? Well… because priests and the nuns are typically not trained to run schools, let alone an entire educational system.

The result is that, in today’s very competitive educational environment, the crisis facing Catholic schools is so severe, the Catholic Archdiocese of New York announced it would shut down nine of its schools in the New York City area.

The Roman Catholic decision seems to us to be the appropriate course of action for Hellenic College/Holy Cross, too.

Some of the professors at Hellenic College are complaining of interference in running the school by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Someone complained of episcopal meddling.

This is a longstanding problem which only makes things worse by the year. If the College finds valid reasons to justify its continued existence – and this is a big if – and if all parties agree upon its mission, then it should be left to professionals, rather than ecclesiastics, to run it. Then, and only then, it might stand a chance of long-term survival.

To an extent, the same applies to Holy Cross. The Theological School ’s core purpose is to train seminarians who wish to enter the priesthood. As such, there is no question that the Church should be involved with the seminary’s mission.

But why don’t the Archbishop and the Eparchial Synod exert greater influence and seek to bring some professors from the universities of Athens and Greece to Holy Cross on an exchange basis, for example, or invite them to be visiting professors?

The school has serious financial problems, of course, so such action seems to be prohibitive, but perhaps new initiatives are needed in order to help lift the school out of its current mess.

In any case, most observers agree that, based on the way the School is functioning today, it is not measuring up to its intended purpose, and it ought to be restructured.



Volume 7 Number 9 - Tuesday, March 1st, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY