HIGH ROAD TO THE STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

Stockholm Syndrome: a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with the captors.

We have been waiting, along with the majority of this community, all too patiently, for now, more than one, elected Parish Council to implement sensible policies and requests:

1) to unite this community completely;  (that means ONE Philoptochos chapter, since this is where Father Kouremetis' plan to dismantle this community BEGAN. We do NOT care who is president of the Philoptochos.) 

We DO care that there is ONLY ONE Philoptochos.

2) to insist that our Archdiocese provide this community with dynamic clerical leadership that focuses on that united community; 

3) to invigorate our youth programs, our cultural programs and our outreach programs; 

4) to instigate efforts toward much-needed repairs, and toward a vision of future campuses of the Greek Orthodox Church of Greater Salt Lake.

All of these are, after nearly three years, still lacking, to varying degrees.

It has become clear that our current Parish Council, along with those previous, is either unable, or unwilling, to confront our hierarchs and insist that their ongoing promises to THIS COMMUNITY (the clearly UNFAVORED one) be fulfilled.

Instead, we keep hearing our erstwhile parish council leaders advise, “patience”. We keep hearing them say, “We have been advised by ‘those in the know’ - who work for the hierarchy and, as such, are NOT advising objectively - that we must not insist or demand.

WE must ALWAYS take the ‘high road’.

This constantly slighted community HAS been patient. We have continually taken the high road. In fact, too patient. We keep “taking the high road”, and our prelates are perfectly content to let us do so - indefinitely. In fact, such patience suits their purposes quite well.

That high road has led to an ongoing moribund clerical leadership, a continuing lack of any dynamic effort on behalf of our youth, a “progressive group” forming a what is now a highly favored mission church, visited by the Metropolitan several times, while our community is continually snubbed by said hierarch. This a so-called “mission church” – operating under “special” conditions, has NOW been assigned a dynamic younger priest. Further, this new “KOINONIA”, unlike the REST OF US, has not been asked to pay ANY Archdiocesan assessment!

This travesty is occurring while our community is being ignored and, worse, maligned, by the hierarchs. (Incidentally, that young priest grew up in this community – an action that our Metropolitan had told us, and other communities in his Metropolis, MORE THAN ONCE, was a non-starter and a bad practice.)

The high road, in our community’s situation, has simply allowed a new bunch of “yes” men, and now, disappointingly, women, to continue to counsel us to be "patient" to the bitter end, while allowing our neglectful hierarchs to let our community – and most significantly, our youth – languish.

Taking the “high road” constantly is not what these Parish Council members were elected to do! The community has made it clear, over and over again, that it wants a dynamic parish council that reflects unity and progress.

This community expects THESE leaders to rectify the mistakes of the past. This Parish Council was NOT elected to sit back and let this community sink into further mediocrity.

We have all worked way too hard to let the Parish Council succumb to the Stockholm Syndrome and to keep taking “the high road”.