“Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them,

and they that are great exercise authority upon them.

But it shall not be so among you:

but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;

And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:

Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto,

but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:25-28, KJV)

The word the Athenians used for their Assembly was Ekklesia, the same word used in the New Testament for Church
(and it is the greatest philological irony in all of Western history that this word,
which connoted equal participation in all deliberation by all members,
came to designate a kind of self-perpetuating, self-protective Spartan gerousia -
which would have seemed patent nonsense to Greek-speaking Christians of New Testament times,
who believed themselves to be equal members of their Assembly.)

- Thomas Cahill, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter



ΦΙΛΟΤΙΜΟ: THE GREEK SECRET

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Voices from the Past

Moderator's Note: we have been requested to post the following by Mr. Con Skedros, Archon of our Church and Historian of our Community. (from notes in his own hand)

During the 4th Clergy-Laity Conference held in New York City, November 1931:

Meeting with the delegates on November 14, 1931, Archbishop Athenagoras assured the Assembly that he did not seek a parish administration dominated by the clergy.

Even if such authority was unanimously vested on the clergy by the Congress, I would not accept it because I believe such an authority is damaging to the prestige and the ministry of the priest, and such authority is contrary to the history of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Cited from The Odyssey of Hellenism in America, by Reverend Father George Papaioanou, (later Bishop of the Diocese of New Jersey), p. 272. The late Bishop George obtained his information from the Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies, Salonika, Greece, 1985.

Posted by TOCB Moderator at 5:42 PM

1 comment:

joseph kalodimos said...

Mr. Skedros:

Thank you for this posting. It is very enlightening and at the same time, truly sad that our hierarchs and some clergy need to have so much control over the assets of the Church. Based on the current situation in Dallas (with more to come), they will need to leverage these assets to pay for their crimes against the children of our Holy Faith. Why we are not allowed to run backgropund checks on these prospects that are going to be our "spiritual" leaders is unbeleivable. We do it as standard operating procedure in the real world but apparently, our hierarchs are clairvoyant and can judge character because of the
"gifts" God has bestowed on them. Frankly, I think they missed the boat. The only solution its seems to control them is by holding back the almight dollars which is all they seemingly want. I have NEVER been an advocate of withholding money from the Church but due to the circumstances, maybe I'll just give it to the homeless shelter. At least I know that those who are truly in dire straits will be the beneficiary of having their needs met. Isn't that the point of giving?

December 1, 2007 at 12:19 PM

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