Category: Commentary

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has cancelled a scheduled meeting with Archbishop Elpidophoros at the Saint Nicholas National Shrine in New York. Reverberations are still being felt over the Archbishop’s attendance at a Turkish center which included representatives from the Turkish occupied territories of Cyprus. Previous to this, Cypriot President Anastasiades cancelled a meeting with the Archbishop.

This diplomatic debacle comes on top of years of scandals at the Archdiocese of New York. The “election” of Archbishop Elpidophoros has not fixed the problems that have plagued the Archdiocese. Most likely, his “election” was never intended to address the issues of the financial and moral bankruptcy of the Archdiocese, the financial crisis at Holy Cross theological school in Boston, the missing funds from the priest pension fund, and the Saint Nicholas Shrine. At the time of his selection, Archbishop Elpidophoros was well known for his support of Patriarch Bartholomew’s claims of universal authority over the whole of Eastern Orthodoxy.

When then Metropolitan Elpidophoros was announced as the new Archbishop of America the whole Orthodox world began paying attention. The Ecumenical Patriarchate had instigated a church crisis after trespassing on the territory of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Orthodox hierarchs from around the world had sent letters of warning and protest before and after the beginning of the crisis. Archbishop Elpidophoros was referred to (but not named) as his extreme views on the powers of the Ecumenical Patriarchate had already become notorious.

The election of the Archbishop by Constantinople could be seen as a slap toward the Orthodox world, especially in the context of the Ukrainian crisis. Now nearly two and a half years after his enthronement in New York, the Greeks have finally noticed that the Archbishop does not use good judgement. His appearance at the Turkish Center is an affirmation that his primary concern is focused on promoting the power and authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at the expense of everything else.

Greece and Cyprus face mounting dangers from Turkey. Athens and Nicosia do not need to be distracted by the shenanigans that occur at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. One of the dangerous consequences of the schism that Constantinople instigated as a result of its Ukrainian venture is that the Orthodox Church of Greece has gone silent.

The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece followed Constantinople’s direction and established communion with a group of Ukrainian schismatics. As Constantinople has established an unhealthy influence over the Church of Greece, it has been clear that the bishops are no longer as assertive as they once were. Gone are the days when Archbishop Christodoulos rallied over 100,000 into the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki to challenge the secularization of Greece and the European attack on Greek national identity.

Gone are the days when Archbishop Christodoulos resisted the encroachments on the Church of Greece by Patriarch Bartholomew. Gone are the days when various bishops in Greece would speak against Turkish aggression and in defense of Greece and Cyprus. Gone are the days when the Church of Greece protested gay marriage and the imposition of transgender ideology.

Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens is quiet and passive. He is a pushover and failed to demonstrate leadership when American officials blatantly intervened in Church affairs and asked him to follow Constantinople’s line on the Ukrainian issue. The two previous Archbishops of Athens Serapheim (1974-1998) and Christodoulos (1998-2008) would never have permitted any foreign government to interfere in Church matters especially as they pertain to the validity of holy orders and the matters of priestly ordinations and episcopal consecrations.

The Greek government can and should make use of the Byzantine concept of Symphonia (harmony). Symphonia is the concept that emerged under Saint-Emperor Justinian of Constantinople. Symphonia refers to the relationship between Church and State at the time and which has been the model for Church-state relations in Greece and Russia up to the present time.

Under the practice of Symphonia, Church and State are partners and work together for the common good. The Church attends to spiritual matters and the State rules the country. But they do so as friends and partners not as disinterested parties as is the case in secular countries.

The Greek government needs to ask the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese to stand down and to stop representing Greece in any sort of official capacity at the White House and other prominent settings. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese should be focusing on cleaning house and should be carefully pondering on whether there needs to be a new Archbishop for America. Greece needs to be represented by serious and experienced officials who can help make the case for Athens and Nicosia against the jihadist state of Turkey.

Greece needs to conduct its foreign relations very carefully. Relations with both America and Russia are of utmost importance. The Church schism that Patriarch Bartholomew has instigated with the support of the State Department has complicated Greek relations with both Washington and Moscow. Greece needs to use its leverage (financial, political, legal) to force the Ecumenical Patriarchate to cease and desist from complicating Greek relations with the greater Orthodox world.

Greece also needs to address the complex situation regarding the Church of Greece. Mount Athos, Crete, and the Dodecanese islands are part of the omophorion of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The parts of Greece that gained independence after the war of independence are governed by the holy synod of Athens. The Metropolises of Macedonia and Thrace are administered by Athens but are under the spiritual jurisdiction of Constantinople.

This means that Patriarch Bartholomew is commemorated in the liturgy in northern Greece instead of the Archbishop of Athens. The late Archbishop Christodoulos attempted to address this issue and to rectify it. The spiritual jurisdiction of Constantinople over northern Greece has destabilized the Church of Greece.

It has been speculated upon that a major reason for why the Holy Synod of Athens followed Constantinople’s direction and recognized the schismatic entity in Ukraine is because Patriarch Bartholomew threatened to seize and takeover northern Greece. If Patriarch Bartholomew could invade the territory of the largest and most powerful of Orthodox Churches, what could he do to the Church of Greece?

Political and ecclesiastical matters have become very blurred at the present time. This is because the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese have involved themselves in international diplomacy and intrigue. The presence of Archbishop Elpidophoros at the Turkish center has demonstrated the extent to which the leadership of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese has lost sight of what its proper role really is.

Both the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese have eagerly and enthusiastically embraced the anti Russian policies being pursued by the American foreign policy establishment. The politicization of these ecclesiastical institutions is unmistakable. We should ask ourselves a question? Would Archbishop Elpidophoros have attended a ceremony hosted by the Russians?

We all know that the answer to that question is no. It is good that the leaders of Greece and Cyprus are refusing to meet with Archbishop Elpidophoros. Now that Greek and Cypriot officials are paying attention, they will have to address the problems that have been created by the Archdiocese and the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Archbishop Elpidophoros of America has angered the governments of Greece and Cyprus by meeting with Turkish President Erdogan at the “Turkevi Center” which is where the Turkish mission to the United Nations will soon be located. Both the governments of Greece and Cyprus are rightfully angry over this meeting. There are several things to be said about this new development within the greater contexts of what has transpired over the past three years.

1) It has always been a mistake for the Greek government to view the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese as a lobby for Hellenic issues. The Church has a spiritual mission and should be focused on that. Greece should have followed the examples of other governments who have established successful lobbies in Washington by leaving these matters to secular organizations. It has been a horrendous mistake to believe that the Greek Archdiocese which has proven to be so ineffective in spiritual matters, could possibly be of any use on matters pertaining to Greece and Cyprus.

2) The Greek government should have noticed that the present Archbishop is a Turkish citizen which creates a conflict of interest. A Turkish citizen can not possibly be entrusted with supporting Greece and Cyprus.

3) The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese has been mired in one scandal after another over the past several years. The influence of the Archdiocese (and by extension, the Ecumenical Patriarchate) should not have been permitted to expand its influence over the formerly free Church of Greece. I say formerly free Church of Greece because since 2019, the holy synod of Athens has come under the influence of the State Department with the approval of Patriarch Bartholomew and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

It is well known that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travelled to Athens in the fall of 2019 to persuade Archbishop Ieronymos and his synod to recognize the false “church” of Ukraine and its pseudo bishops. When the synod of Athens established communion with a group of laymen dressing as bishops who have been either anathematized or who have never been legitimately ordained or consecrated, the freedom of the Orthodox Church of Greece came to an end.

American “Ambassador” to Greece Geoffrey Pyatt has openly intervened in the affairs of the Church of Greece and in the affairs of the Holy Mountain of Athos. The Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese have long since been compromised but the Church of Greece’s failure to defend the sacred canons and Orthodox ecclesiology in the face of American secular interference in Church affairs is a tragedy that deprived the Greek speaking Orthodox world of freedom. The Greek government should have been aware of and should prevented American officials from interfering in Church affairs since such interference was likewise a violation of the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic.

4) The Ecumenical Patriarchate plunged the whole of the Eastern Orthodox Church into a major crisis that could result in a full blown schism as a result of both its invasion of the territory of Ukraine (itself the canonical territory of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church which enjoys an autonomous status under the mother Church of Russia) and the distortion of Orthodox ecclesiology that has been formulated by Archbishop Elphidophoros with the approval of Patriarch Bartholomew. As noted above, secular political interests of the United States have contributed to the schism because Washington views the Orthodox Church as a weapon in the new Cold War being directed against Russia. The Greek speaking Churches of Constantinople and Greece have come under the unnatural and unwanted influence of secular political interests.

5) The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria has evidently succumbed to pressure from Constantinople to establish communion with the false “church” of Ukraine. Patriarch Theodore of Alexandria was once a supporter of the canonical Church of Ukraine but dramatically reversed his stance. Likewise, Archbishop Chrysostom of Cyprus who previously organized the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem in an effort to end the schism ended up recognizing the false “church” in Ukraine

Will the Greek and Cypriot governments take notice of what has been happening in the affairs of their “autocephalous” Churches? Most recently, the destructive interference of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the affairs of the Greek Church has resulted in division and possible schism within the Church of Cyprus. Archbishop Chrysostom of Cyprus recognized the false “church” of Ukraine without discussing the matter with the synod of the Church of Cyprus. This enraged at least four Metropolitans who reacted harshly.

As with the Church of Cyprus, Patriarch Bartholomew’s support for the fake “church” in Ukraine has led to division in the Church of Greece as pious Metropolitans, priests, and theologians have expressed bitter opposition to the actions of both the synods of Constantinople and Athens. The entire Ukrainian affair has brought nothing but destruction and misery to Orthodoxy and threatens to bring about a permanent and irreversible schism.

Archbishop Elpidophoros is the author of the infamous assertion that the Ecumenical Patriarch is “first without equals”. All the local Orthodox Churches consider the Ecumenical Patriarch to be “first among equals”. All the Orthodox Churches have carefully asserted since the beginning of the Church crisis that Constantinople ranks first in the dyptychs of the Church and maintains a “primacy of honor”.

The supporters of Patriarch Bartholomew are partisans and are colluding in the anti Russian hysteria that has engulfed the western world. In actual fact, the Russians have done nothing to take the first place of honor from Constantinople. The issue at hand has to do with Constantinople’s desire to overthrow the conciliar process and to grab complete and unlimited authority much like the Pope has in the Roman Catholic Church.

Both Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Elpidophoros have dishonored the Greek flag by committing their ecclesiastical crimes in the name of Hellenism. Patriarch Bartholomew who in his thirty years as Patriarch has never condemned the Turkish occupation of Cyprus or the destruction of over five hundred Churches and Monasteries by the Turkish army has suddenly become the spokesman of Greeks everywhere. Patriarch Bartholomew fancies himself as the Greek “ethnarch” but compared to Greek bishops such as the late Archbishop Christodoulos of blessed memory he falls short.

The governments of Greece and Cyprus (along with Greeks everywhere) have failed to be cognizant of how truly obscene the alliance between the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese with the State Department truly is. After the 1955 pogroms in Constantinople which ushered in the final phase of the destruction of Greek Orthodoxy in Constantinople and Asia Minor, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles refused to condemn the Turkish government for the violence directed at the community that made up the flock of the Church of Constantinople and their Monasteries and Churches.

The American government was completely indifferent to the destruction of Greek Orthodoxy in Constantinople. In the subsequent decades, American foreign policy has

1) Assisted the Turkish invasions of Cyprus in 1974 where 200,000 Orthodox Greeks were ethnically cleansed and where Churches and Monasteries were converted into Mosques or destroyed,

2) Bombed Orthodox Serbia over a three month period and gave Kosovo to the Muslims which led to the ethnic cleansing of Orthodox Serbs and the destruction of countless Churches and Monasteries,

3) Invaded Iraq and attempted to overthrow the government of Syria. The Christians of Iraq were decimated in a genocide that occurred after the overthrow of the old regime in Iraq (terrible as that was). The Christians of Syria were nearly destroyed in a genocidal campaign waged by jihadists that American policy unleashed. It was the intervention of Orthodox Russia that saved the Christians of Syria from extermination and saved Syria from being either a failed state, or a jihadist state.

4) The United States (with the exception of the Trump administration) has been provoking Orthodox Russia by overthrowing a government in Ukraine that was friendly to the Russians and replacing it with an anti Russian government.

In conclusion, the Greek and Cypriot governments should recognize that Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Elpidophoros do not act as if they are in service to the holy traditions and teachings of the Orthodox Church. They are espousing an ecclesiology foreign to Orthodoxy and have destabilized the universal Orthodox Church. They have also been making the Greek speaking Churches accomplices in the persecution of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians who are the targets of violence and persecution by persons unbaptized who masquerade as Orthodox Christians and receive the support of the synod of the Church of Constantinople.

At the present time, Cyprus faces an existential threat from Turkey. Turkey has also claimed islands that belong to Greece through international treaties as belonging to Ankara. Hopefully, Athens and Nicosia will recognize that Patriarch Bartholomew and Archbishop Elpidophoros are working against both Orthodoxy and the interests of Greece and Cyprus.