Month: June 2010

Tampa Native Metropolitan Nikitas to become a Turkish citizen

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The question that needs to be answered is why are the Metropolitans of the GOA being asked to apply for Turkish citizenship? This is relevant given that the Greek government interferes in GOA affairs and that the GOA represents Greek government interests in USA. Turkish citizenship would extend that loyalty to Turkey and the GOA will end up representing Turkish interests alongside those of Greece. Theodore Kalmoukos, author of the article asked Met. Nikita that question in different words:

When asked what he would do if the Turkish ambassador in Washington, DC requested him to come down on March 25th and demonstrate against Greece, he replied that “I’ll tell him that I have other duties to attend to, and that I teach at the university and cannot make it.”

In response to the question of whether taking on Turkish citizenship creates any problems with his conscience, Metropolitan Nikitas answered that “on the one hand, yes; but then again, doesn’t the Patriarch have the same citizenship?”

Met Nikita does not answer Kalmoukos’ question in any convincing way (and subjugating conscience to Patriarchal dictate raises its own set of questions). Yet, we need a clear answer from every Metropolitan affiliated with Constantinople since Constantinople is working behind the scenes to draw the American Church under its authority (that was the reason Constantinople did not want the OCA invited to the Episcopal Assembly). We need to determine that if the American Church does indeed move into the Constantinopolitan orbit, can it really be American? Can it really be free?

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Theodore Kalmoukos | The National Herald

Metropolitan Nikitas

BOSTON — Metropolitan Nikitas of Dardanellia, the Director of the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute in Berkley, Calif. traveled to Istanbul to receive his Turkish citizenship. Metropolitan Nikitas (Lulias) is the first – and for the moment only – Orthodox bishop in the United States to have put in an application for Turkish citizenship. Speaking to The National Herald for Istanbul, Metropolitan Nikitas justified his decision to go ahead with process as follows. “If it’s about strengthening the Patriarchate, I’ll do anything.” He qualified his statement by adding “I left behind my home and my parents and went to serve our Patriarchate and Orthodoxy in Asia for ten years.” Metropolitan Nikitas was the inaugural Metropolitan of Hong Kong, before leaving his post in early 2007.

“I have not yet received my citizenship, but Turkish authorities requested that I come and fill out some paperwork,” he explained. He also noted that “they’re treating us wonderfully, and they visited the Patriarchate.”

When asked if any other Orthodox bishops in America will be receiving Turkish citizenship, he replied “I don’t know if any of the hierarchs from the Archdiocese have filed an application.” He also noted that “since I do not belong to the Archdiocese of America, but directly to the Patriarchate, I did not ask, because I don’t want to cause any problems or misunderstandings.” Metropolitan Nikitas continued by saying “and since the Patriarchate mailed me the paperwork, I thought it correct to respond. Since I’m with the Patriarchate, shouldn’t I help it? Shouldn’t I support it?”

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The Aremenian Genocide

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Caution, the pictures on this site are graphic and disturbing. Unknown to many, the Armenian Genocide is considered the first genocide (preceding Hitler and Stalin) of the modern age. The term “genocide” was created to describe this crime.

Mattingly: The Orthodox question for 2010

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By TERRY MATTINGLY – Scripps Howard News Service | tmatt.net

Terry Mattingly

The first Orthodox missionaries to reach Alaska traveled with the early Russian explorers and, in 1794, a party of monks established the Orthodox Christian Mission to America.

[…]

“Before the 1920s, there was only one jurisdiction in North America — that of the Russian Orthodox Church, which, as we know, was open to … the widest variety of ethnic communities,” said Archbishop Justinian of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, during last week’s Episcopal Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Hierarchs in North and Central America.

“Much has changed since that time. The tumultuous events of the 20th century forced many citizens of traditionally Orthodox countries to leave their native homes and seek refuge in other countries, which led to the rise of large ethnic Orthodox communities beyond the boundaries of corresponding local churches.”

But the key to conditions today, he stressed, is the fact that an “increasing number of our faithful belong to the Orthodox Church not as the result of their ethnic background, but of a conscious choice in favor of Orthodoxy’s truth.”

[…]

Read the complete article on the Terry Mattingly website.

Terry Mattingly blogs at Get Religion.

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The Times, They Are a-Changing

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Victor Davis Hanson’s brief synopsis below also affects Constantinople and may help explain why it is so anxious to direct the American Church.

The Corner

At the present rate, Turkey has about as much business in NATO as Greece does in the EU. Both countries seem out of place in their respective organizations; both envy and resent northern Europe and the United States, and seek their attention through petulance; and both seem to traffic daily in conspiracy theories about going to war against each other.

The problem with both the EU and NATO is that, while there is always much gala celebration about who gets in and under what particular conditions, there is almost no attention given to the circumstances under which a member gets out of either organization. That will change in the next few years, given southern European debt, growing Islamization, and the apparent planned financial and military regression of the West.

In the meantime, we should pay attention to a growing concern in the southeastern Mediterranean: A bankrupt Greece has alienated its patrons in northern Europe, has alienated the U.S. through years of anti-American rhetoric, has little or no financial resources, and will be facing cutbacks in its military — and a newly assertive Turkey is carving out a position of influence in the region as the real, and far more serious, representative of Islamic government, perhaps in the fashion of the old Ottomans.

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Current statistics on abortion

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