IT'S TIME

It is now time for the blog, “Take our Church Back” to be discontinued. No question, it has served its purpose over the time it has operated and all of the articles posted in it were mostly accurate; however, now is time that our community must show some compassion and allow healing to occur. As was pointed out in the General Assembly on Sunday, November 17, it is now time for all of us, Clergy as well as parishioners, to bury the hatchet and forgive one another for the good of the community. It serves no purpose to allow negative comments to appear on the blog. We must strive for unity and the time to begin is now.

One of the primary reasons for the blog was and is to provide accurate information to all parishioners concerning events that are happening, both presently as well as in the past. The blog served a useful purpose in that regard and over 264,000 hits since its inception show that our parishioners, as well as others, reviewed it and made their comments.

At the General Assembly on Sunday the Parish Council did a good job of presenting the agenda and allowed parishioners to express themselves appropriately. Thanks must be given to President, Mr. Tsagaris and his Parish Council members for the work they are doing, but more work needs to be done as was pointed out by the auditing committee chairmen, Mr. McGrath and Mr. Kapos. The need for an Operations Manager for this parish is great and this position must be filled as soon as possible. As was pointed out in the meeting, we must get control of church finances and run our parish as a business.

Now I will discuss the two churches, Holy Trinity Cathedral and Prophet Elias. Whether we like to admit it or not, the two churches have been separated for years. There should be no hard feelings on this matter, but the two churches are separate. We have two Proestamenoi, as they are called, two Philoptochos Societies, two choirs, two Sunday Schools, etc. Both churches are presently governed by one Parish Council and for keeping the community as one, this should continue until such time as the need arises in the future for two Parish Councils. At the appropriate time, a committee could be established by the General Assembly to totally separate the two churches, but presently we must operate as one UNIFIED parish. There should no bickering from parishioners and we must show some love, compassion and unity toward one another. We have shown that we can unite as one by the beautiful work that has been done at our annual Greek Festival.

As to the Uniform Parish Regulations (UPRs), these should be examined carefully by the Parish Council and as changes are necessary, they should be brought up for discussion at the Clergy-Laity Conference which is held annually and attended by the appropriate people from the Clergy as well as the Parish Council. In my opinion and I served on many Parish Councils in the past as well as the President in 1968 when ground was broken for the Prophet Elias Church, changes are necessary in the UPRs but I will not go into details at the present time.

Regarding stewardship, Mr. George Pappas, Chairman, eloquently stated his position at the General Assembly and he is correct that we must increase our church members as well as each family should give an extra amount of money in order for the Parish Council to balance the parish budget for the year 2013.

With love and humility,

/s/

Nick P. Sefakis