— A new book claims that the “Greek mafia” controlled not only the drug trade in Tarpon Springs but the local Greek Orthodox Church, too. Some say the book is “a bunch of garbage.”<\/a><\/p>\n — Church of Greece bishops are anxious about the new Socialist government’s plan to tax church property<\/a>. Don’t forget about property owned by the Roman Catholics and the Ecumenical Patriarch, the bishops helpfully remind. Separately, there’s a question about those 1.2 million Euros<\/a>.<\/p>\n — Archons make their case<\/a> for the Ecumenical Patriarchate before the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).<\/p>\n — “Among the comments that received most attention was Metropolitan Geevarghese Coorilos’s suggestion to look at the reality of the church not only ‘from above’, but also ‘from below’, taking into account the daily experience of ‘being church’ in particular contexts, citing the example of his Dalit church in Kerala, India.” Is this what we mean by “practiced incoherence”<\/a>?<\/p>\n — While Moscow says that entry of part of the Ukrainian Orthodox into the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate will cause divisions, Bishop Makarii (Meletych), Archbishop of Lviv of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, isn’t too concerned<\/a>.<\/p>\n — Some anti-ecumenist clerics<\/a> in the Church of Greece say Patriarch Bartholomew’s management style, based on the “smear, slander, intimidate and silence” approach, leaves something to be desired: “This is the well-known tactic of excommunication and an en masse<\/em> condemnation that does not tolerate a contrary word, cannot even consider a second opinion and crushes anyone who dares to utter one. This is the familiar tactic, which relies on coercion, on marshalling forces, on having the absolute upper hand, on ecclesiastic servility.”<\/p>\n — The OCA’s Metropolitan Jonah is in Georgia<\/a> (the country) until Sunday.<\/p>\n