Deleted. Peter, I am not interested in pontifications (“finger-wagging”). If you don’t want to engage the ideas, find another blog. If you want to engage the ideas, which means if you want to do more than register your disapproval and then rationalize that disapproval with generalized condemnations, you are welcome to stay. Also, you don’t need to apologize for “intruding” since this is an open forum.

It’s fundamentally a weak principle of self-organization since any claim to a widening authority necessarily requires a greater emphasis on a purer ethnicity — at least on the hierarchical level and perhaps parish priests as well. This runs counter to some very basic principles of American culture and self-identity. Further, the attempt to employ the universality of Hellenism (which helped shape America) alongside ethnic supremacy won’t make up for the flaw either, since Hellenism, in the Archbishop’s functional (as opposed to academic) definition of the term, operates the same way.

It might be time to let, well, the Omogenia be for the Omogenians. If they don’t really want to engage cultures other than their own, the focus should be on preventing any attempt to dominate those outside of it.

++++

One more point. If the country goes socialist, a claim to titular leadership might emerge, much like the EP’s putative claim to ecclesiastical leadership of the European global warming movement (global warming is cover for economic central planning). The Green Patriarch public relations blitz late last year was purely a political play, an obvious point once you read the theological rationales for support of global warming which are neither compelling or coherent (you have to look beyond the moral exhortations and sentimentality to see there is not much there besides these two elements), and the socialists he played to. Further, his rationalizations about abortion makes him acceptable to the socialist crowd despite their abhorrence of most things religious. It may have worked had not Climategate intervened. The GOA has no moral impediments from the socialist point of view either (silence on abortion takes care of that) and could emerge as their amen corner. The politicians could return political favors for the accolades — and thus the appearance of moral credibility — heaped on them by the hierarchs.

This parallels the Catholic Church and the Boston Globe. Homosexuality in the Catholic Church led to the abuse crisis (the crisis is not technically pedophilia since almost all victims were adolescent boys). The Church hid behind a firewall and it took an outside organization to pry the facts loose and start the much need exposure (and hopefully) reform.

In Greece the Church is hampered by its own corruption, some of it extensive in places. (Some really good priests in Greece, I worked under one when I lived there.) It has lost a considerable amount of moral credibility making the government cash grab all the easier. The Church of Greece is very wealthy (largest landowner in Greece), a condition that contributed to the corruption and public scandals that resulted.

So yes, the Church is under siege, but some of this trouble is of its own making.

The Omogeneia is invited to partake in this dual feast and commemoration of Orthodoxy and Hellenism in the presence of the Consular and Diplomatic representatives of Greece and Cyprus and the representatives of the Greek-American organizations, associations and federations.

So much for welcoming everyone in the spirit of trans-ethnic identity. Only people of the omogeneia (same race) should feel welcome.

Greece Targets Church in Massive Tax Grab
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/business/breaking-news/greece-targets-church-in-massive-tax-grab/story-e6freuyr-1225843117048

They were actually proto-Romanians, Vlachs if you will.

“In any case, does seeming to parrot GOP/hard-right talking points best serve the cause of “a research and educational organization that engages the cultural issues of the day within the Orthodox Christian moral tradition.” ISTM the case has yet to be made here that the American hard right and Republican Party are somehow mystically “within the Orthodox Christian moral tradition.” ”

I could go on many points, but, to stay on point, I’ll stick to one: compare the Republican party plank on abortion, and compare the Democrateic party plank on abortion. One is within the Orthodox Christian moral tradition, and one is not. On the day of Our Lord’s conception, rather than deal with the abortion issue in this country, instead +Eemetrios praises, with a comparison to a Greek hero, the president who embodies the pro-death plank of the Democratic party plank, and has done so his entire public career.

To state the same thing when you are in agreement is not to parrot, it is to add your voice to the chorus. The sound carries better that way.

Removed the post. Criticism is allowed, but finger wagging isn’t. Support the criticism with reasoned argument and you will be fine.

What we did see recently is OCA meetings in DC pushing multi-ethnic foreign-policy concerns, including C’ople in Turkey, with the US Gov’t. I don’t think when the mandate prior to the Great Council is to come up with an integration plan, that anybody’s gonna roll over for anybody else’s ethnic/homeland concerns/lobbying. There’ll be competing for “importance.” But an inclusive Orthodox Catholic Church … in North America … is gonna need to try to speak for all of us and our concerns, not just where one or another bishop (or lobbyist or lawyer or rich layman) happens to come from. We all will have to come to stand up for each other: “United we stand, divided we fall.”

Yeah, the Feast of the Conception of the Lord, er, Greek Indepdendence Day, can’t talk about the sanctity of life in the womb.

No Greg, Isa is right, as are you. If the Macedonians have the high moral ground (I’m not saying that they do) then you are right, the arbp. would still take the Greek gov’t position. This leads us to an interesting dilemma however: seeing that the EP is becoming ever more a water-carrier for the Turkish gov’t, on which side will the GOA come down on when the crisis between Greece and Turkey comes to a head?