The Greek Orthodox Church In Latin America Is Not Very Greek

Huffington Post ^ | 04-15-2015 | Carol Kuruvilla

[NRx]

...Metropolitan Athenagoras, a Chicago native, had no intention of seeking to spread the Orthodox faith to local communities. Still, they came, and the church began to grow.

Of its 550,000 members, only 5,000 are Greek, according to Maxwell Dotson, executive director of One World One Community, a non-profit co-founded by Metropolitan Athenagoras. The vast majority are natives of that region who are seeking a spiritual identity within the transplanted Greek church.

The Greek Orthodox Church in the archdiocese now has only three clergy members of Greek descent, of the 52 who are serving.

Metropolitan Athenagoras said the local communities were attracted to Orthodox Christianity -- its liturgy and way of worship.

[Kolokotronis]

“And had the opinions of Arius or any of the other notorious heresiarchs been merely privately held doubts of the Orthodox Faith, they too would have been a matter between himself and his spiritual father.”

You know better than that! When heresy is preached by a hierarch, or hierarchs, the Laos tou Theou are obliged to speak out. We have throughout the history of The Church. It is because of the Laos tou Theou that we are not today subject to the Bishop of Rome. It is because of the Laos tou Theou that the unlamented Archbishop Spyridin is no longer the GOARCH Archbishop.

When the hierarchs start to preach abortion or gay marriage or any other heresy, then we have an obligation to speak out, to rise up. When it is individuals choosing abortion, or for that matter when Sotiri and Taki run off to get “married” at city hall, running off that, TRD, is a matter for spirtual fathers, not us. Your attitude is thoroughly Western, very Latin!

[The_Reader_David]

Arius was a presbyter not a hierarch, as was Eutyches. Although the role of the Faithful as defenders of the Faith is most pronounced when hierarchs fall into error, you seem to be suggesting it is absent when those in the communion of the Orthodox Church who publicly advocate positions contrary to the Faith are not bishops.

You also don’t seem to have absorbed the force of my contrafactual — privately held doubts are not preached, but, well, privately held.

[Kolokotronis]

And it was the hierarchs and God Ordained emperors who to a greater or lesser extent, dealt with him, not the Laos you Theou. Arius’ bishop, his sf, tried to deal with him through a priests’ council and then through other bishops and the Great Council and more. We both know the delicious end Arius came to, but the Laos tou Theou had nothing to do with it.

You of course are entitled to your personal opinions. I suggest, however, that prayer and dying to the self, however minimally and slowly, is preferable to judgmental politics, but that is the way in the West, sadly.

[Cronos]

well, quite frankly — if you moved to a non-English speaking land, let’s say Germany, would you look for an English speaking congregation or look for a local one?

[The_Reader_David]

I think I put a more generous construction on the words of the Eastern Patriarchs in their Encyclical of 1848 “...the protector of religion is the very body of the Church, even the people themselves,...” than you are willing to allow, particularly in these latter days when there is no God Ordained Emperor.

Still, I thank you for calling me to repentance. I suppose my initial post about the handmaiden of God, Arianna, was lacking in charity, and that the doublemindedness needed to publicly advocate positions at variance with the Faith isn’t really any different from the doublemindedness found in any of us who persist in sins when we know (or should know) better.