“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, October 16, 2012

Questioning the "Christianity" of "THE MATH"?

Someone recently accused this site of " 'Mitt Romney style' accounting" when discussing "the math" surrounding the community’s recent elections, the makeup of the elected parish council, and the wishes reflected by the majority in this community.

We are not sure what the political reference infers, but another comment made was that "the Math" we referred in a previous blog article somehow reflected the feelings of the "non-Christians" in the community, as opposed to, what we are to assume to be the wishes of "Christians"?


We are not sure what this assertion implies either.

Is it that if one opposes the splitting of the community one is de facto "non-Christian"? Or is it that one cannot be "christian" and support the current GOP candidate? (That would be news to quite a few of our fellow citizens who would undoubtedly insist otherwise!)

We are unsure how or why these assertions might be relevant to the community's concerns in matters that are important to our church community. 

To date it has never occurred to anyone who has written on this blog to conflate the secular politics of this country with the insular problems of our community - or even with the larger concerns of Orthodoxy in this country and abroad. Many of this community's members have expressed opinions on this blog, undoubtedly reflecting diverse political points of view that are utterly irrelevant to the ongoing crisis in our Church - locally, nationally and globally.

For the record, this site is NOT politically partisan. Those who have written here are committed to the restoration of this community's vibrancy as a beacon of Orthodoxy, Hellenism and other Orthodox cultures, and, more importantly, to the greater glory of our Lord. Additionally, this blog has hoped to initiate a dialogue that will lead to a better balance between clergy and laity throughout this country.

Finally, we have said it before and we will say it again: Holy Trinity and Prophet Elias are part of this community's legacy and both belong to the Lord and to this community as a whole. If they are to split, it will be the MAJORITY that decides, based on the REAL MATH, no matter who counts it, or what some, ignoring the dictum, "judge not lest yet also be judged", choose to label as "Christian" or "non-Christian"!

- Barbara Billinis Colessides

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