His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America and exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, delivered the keynote address. His address is broken into 5 parts below.
Listen here:
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Address by Abp. Demetrios at SVS Orthodoxy & Hellenism Conference
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9 responses to “Address by Abp. Demetrios at SVS Orthodoxy & Hellenism Conference”
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If you haven’t heard the Chief Secretary’s speach yet, listen to His Eminence’s before (or better, instead of). All the Pride of the Greeks, but none of the arrogance. You can see why Met. Jonah trusts him.
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Isa, this just occurred to me, why was +Demetrios’ speech recorded and put out, but not Lambrianides’?
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Actually, I’ve seen the transcript of the Chief Secretary’s on line, but not the Archbishop’s.
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A true Christian gentleman. I regret having criticized him over the comments he made last year at the White House. I believe that he, like Iakovos, will be remembered as one of the founding fathers of American Orthodoxy.
Permit me to expand a little: +Iakovos will be remembered for being a proactive visionary, a man who for the first time in decades saw more clearly outside the ghetto walls –the second St Tikhon if you will. An American original. +Demetrios on the other hand will be remembered for taking more defensive measures. Even if he could not halt the GOA’s decline, he jumped into the breach and defended the canonicity and integrity of the native church when it was under unjust and withering assault by the Phanar. He most definately bought us time.
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I can only imagine what the EA would have been like if Demetrios did not have the Phanar breathing down his neck.
Can you imagine where we’d be today?
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Just think what it would have been if Arb. Spiridon was still around, of if Arch Stylianos or Met. Sotirios were in charge here?:0
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Well, for a start, there would be alot fewer people paying any attention to any of them.
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and probably a lot fewer people in the pews.
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Very good summary on Hellensim; don’t have any issues with Hellensim as it concerns a corpus of language, literature, philosophy, theology, ethics by which the fulness of God’s revelation of Himself to the Faith community was expressed and manifested and by which we may undergo the internal transformation to human wholeness; no issues here. What I have heartburn with is the thought that only Greeks or those in the Greek Church can plumb the depths of Helenism because they were born Greek (I think the fallacy here is readily obvious in that Greece today does not express or manifest the richness that is Hellenism; seems they as a country and people have imbibed too well the culture of material consumerism as opposed to ‘know thyself.’) or can be the only ones to safeguard and make present the treasure that is Hellensim. The Russians have done very well for themselves as have the Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians, etc. Seems to me the Greeks have their work cut out to resucitate hellenism within their own land and people before arrogantly presuming to be everyone’s teacher.
Thought the Q&A following the presentation was incredibly tame; no doubt folks seem to think that responding respectfully to a hierarch precludes them from asking truly penetrating questions germane to the life of Orthodox Christianity in this country. I mean for starters how does having a Greek festival further the pursuit of or actualize Hellensim in a way that my heart and soul are brought to repentance and the grace of the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of humility within me. I go, I see, I eat, I drink and maybe dance a little. God help us.
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