The Bishop needs to removed for defending criminal priests in his jurisdiction (Fr. Dokos). Remove him period.
]]>Bravo John for the article.
Maybe you’ll win the IAKOVOS award this year.
]]>These are all excellent questions, Andrew. We’ve got enough together now for a follow-up podcast, don’t you think?
To your point on No. 11 …
I was having coffee with a faithful Orthodox friend yesterday, a convert with vast experience in the American Protestant culture, and in a discussion having nothing to do with the subject of this blog post, he said this: “When a church begins to get comfortable, it starts the process of dying.”
]]>1) Is there any moral, canonical, or spiritual reason why the proceedings of the assembly should not be broadcast, recorded and published for the laity?
2) Why are the approved by-laws of the assembly still unpublished?
3) Why is the budget of the assembly unpublished?
4) What are the major funding sources of the assembly? Does the assembly receive funding from any foreign government, organization or person that would represent a conflict of interest?
5) How does the assembly vote on questions placed before it? Simple Majority? 2/3 majority?or something else?
6) If Archbishop Demetrios disapproves of the result of an assembly vote can he veto it?
7) Is there any moral, canonical or spiritual reason not to have a rotating assembly presidency as the SCOBA constitution called for but the GOA never followed?
8) Why is the assembly incapable of tackling any serious moral issue in detail? Three years of work has generated only three brief one page statements.
9) How many members of the assembly maintain legal citizenship in a country outside of the one they minister in?
10) Would you welcome a 10% income tax placed on all members of the assembly to fund its operations?
11)The GOA presently spends less than one penny out of every dollar on evangelism (0.82% of its annual budget). What has the assembly budget allocated for evangelism?
12) Will the asembly be enlisting the help of the Archons to address issues of religious freedom in the USA?
13) Do the moral positions of the assembly represent the moral positions of the Greek Archdiocese?
]]>John, your piece was one of the best you’ve ever written. Back in Feb, you and Fr Peter Preble each wrote an essay taking the ACOB to task for not standing up for religious freedom. Within 36 hours you shamed them into coming out with a fairly strong (for them) statement supporting the Catholic bishops in their fight for religious freedom. I hope that your reproach this time bears fruit as well.
]]>Unfortunately, yes.
]]>No one here is disputing the unifying power of the Mysteries, “FatherGOA.” It’s the insulting remarks of Bishop Demetrios that are at issue.
Are we not led, pastored and taught by our bishops? Have they not told us that a Great and Holy Council is in the offing at which the Mother Church bishops will sort out the messy jurisdictional affairs of their colonies in America?
I’m a GOA “insider” too (now in my sixth decade on the inside). Sunday School teacher, Parish Council member, souvlaki roaster, check writer. My grandparents, who tired of wretched poverty and dim prospects in the Mother Land, boarded ship and left for good.
How’s things going today in lands of the Mother Churches? Are the Mother Land bishops like wizards who have solved all their own problems? Seems to me that in some places the Mother Church laity are beating it for the exits and the bishops there have their hands full.
According to Bishop Demetrios, I’m supposed to shut up about the Assembly and “prayerfully” write checks for the next, oh, 25 years or so, not sure how long but then it’s KTS (Kairos Time Zone) and the Mother Churches don’t want to be rushed. Do they have special wristwatches that tell time in both “chronos” and “kairos”?
It’s my Church, too. As an insider, I take exception to begin told to shut up.
I can’t escape the suspicion that the Assembly is just the latest retrograde set-up to firm up Mother Land control. And we locals will be permitted to manage the decline.
]]>Fr GOA–While I agree with you overall, I think calling the goal of American autocephaly a golden calf is a bit much. I agree with you on the centrality of the local parish, where the absence of the bishop does not take away from the fact that it is ontologically complete and in consonance with the Ignatian model. I believe this to be true because our parish rectors are indeed deputy bishops. If only we had more deacons in our churches!
]]>Fr. GOA, American Orthodox unity is not a golden calf. The GOA’s understanding of omogenia before Orthodoxy is the true golden calf.
]]>I have a brilliant idea for the funding the assembly, instead of asking the hard working faithful to cough up more money to fund these fancy junkets, why not have the Phanar levy a mandatory 10% annual income tax (aka “gift of love”) on each member bishop of the assembly to fund the annual operations of the assembly. I bet you could bring in close to $400,000-$500,000 a year. Think about it, even after the “love” gets spread around overseas you would have quite a healthy annual budget without placing any additional burden on the people in the pews.
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