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.