The Parish Council Discusses Current Matters - Part 1 of 2

October 30, 2012

Part 1 of 2

Fellow Parishioners,

The Parish Council felt it was necessary to respond to the letter dated October 24, 2012 that was received by each of you per the instructions of the Metropolitan Isaiah of Denver.

It is important that you know that this was an internal communication between Mr. Dimitrios Tsagaris and the Metropolitan. It was written to confirm the face to face conversation they had on September 27, 2012 at which time Mr. Tsagaris discussed many concerns about what was transpiring in our community.

At the time of the original meeting, the Metropolitan requested that the information discussed not be shared with the entire Parish Council as "he was planning to handle the situation himself." The letter you received yesterday, was simply our President reaching out to the Metropolitan for assistance in determining what our Parish Council should be doing and discussing at our regularly scheduled board meeting. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to contact the Metropolitan prior to our board meeting to seek direction. Mr. Tsagaris continued to believe that the Metropolitan was planning to help the community and would give us direction we needed to help heal this community.

Rather than contacting us, the Metropolitan contacted the Holy Trinity office and directed that Mr. Tsagaris’ letter be sent to the whole community. Several things discussed in that letter were of a sensitive nature and we were trying to deal with the situation delicately and respectfully. We as an Executive Committee would never have released that information without confirmation and direction from the Metropolitan. The letter was shared with the rest of the Parish Council just hours before you received the letter.

Last evening [October 29th] we moved forward with our regularly scheduled Parish Council meeting, where non-Parish Council members of our parish were also in attendance. However, notably absent from this Parish Council meeting were any of the clergy assigned to our parish. During that meeting we addressed many items of concern and importance to this community ranging from finances, budgetary, to the La France apartments maintenance issues to just name few.

We as a Parish Council are of the opinion that we are faced with many important and pressing issues and these issues transcend beyond the circumstances surrounding the Icon at Prophet Elias. It was disheartening to a great number of the Parish Council that the clergy were absent during our meeting and during your community’s time of need. Great men and women chose to lead in the face of adversity instead of wilting to obscurity and irrelevance. We believe, like with the annual Greek Festival, that the clergy should be present during the joyous times facing our community. However, we also believe the clergy should be present during the hard times, offering assistance and guidance to members of our community, including your duly elected Parish Council. Sadly this was not the case yesterday as no clergy were present because of personal refusal to attend, or as per our Metropolitan’s directive, either as a Priest or as a concerned member of our beloved community.

Today, a second e-mail blast was initiated from the Prophet Elias office stating that His Eminence did not endorse the prior letter. This was equally confusing. Remember that the letter was a confirmation of a private conversation between His Eminence and our Parish Council President. It is unclear what the Metropolitan hoped to convey with sending the second e-mail blast.

The parish council is saddened that after reaching out to His Eminence for help and guidance and also going through the appropriate channels described in the UPR’s article 30, Section 4, the Metropolitan responded in a manner that can only be described as purposely divisive and an attempt to discredit the hard working members of your Parish Council and it is consistent, in spirit, with previous communications to our community since the first day we took the office of affirmation.

Please be aware that we have written a letter to his Eminence which is also being sent as an attachment to this e-blast for you to read. If we are provided with additional communications we will forward them on to you in a timely manner.

As always, we are trying to be transparent with all of our parish members. We are staying focused and are trying to meet the needs of our community in a way that will allow all of the community to grow and prosper. We have listened to many parishioners that believe many drastic changes must occur to turn our community around and restore the faith of our parishioners in their church and its elected officials. We are committed to do so and will be by your side to serve our Church and community.

We hope this information will help answer many of the questions you have and as always, we are available through telephone or email to address your questions and concerns.

Part 2 of 2 of this communication will be separately transmitted shortly after this one, due to technical issues of attaching two documents on the same communication.

The attachment to the 2^nd communication is a summary report given by our President Dimitri Tsagaris, about his meeting with His Eminence on Sep 27^th 2012 in Denver, Colorado and is also an attachment to the official Parish Council minutes of October 1, 2012.

In His Name and Service,

Your Parish Council