Day: February 19, 2014

Source: sltrib.com

The conflict between the parish council and clergy at the Salt Lake Valley’s two Greek Orthodox churches has reached that faith’s highest authority: Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.

The patriarch, who lives in Turkey, instructed Archbishop Demetrios, who oversees the American Greek church, “to solve the problem immediately,” according to a recent article in The National Herald, a weekly Greek-American publication in New York.

At issue in the four-year-long battle is the plan to divide the valley’s parish into two, a move that was pushed by the Denver-based Metropolitan Isaiah and two priests — the Rev. Michael Kouremetis at Holladay’s Prophet Elias Church and the Rev. Matthew Gilbert at Salt Lake City’s Holy Trinity — but which the majority of parishioners oppose.

In mid-December, the parish council voted not to fund Kouremetis’ salary. A month later, a scuffle broke out between the priest’s supporters and opponents during services at Prophet Elias.

On Feb. 5, Demetrios, “summoned Isaiah to the Archdiocesan headquarters in New York, telling him of the patriarch’s disappointment,” The Herald reported. “The message was clear that the Patriarchate will not tolerate the dissolvent of any parish in the United States.”

The next day, Demetrios Tsagaris, the head of Salt Lake Valley’s parish council, explained to the archbishop his perspective on the escalating tensions with the clergy.

“Although the day-to-day functions of our churches are being attended to by our office staff and director George Kournianos, we no longer have open communication with our clergy. … All priests are apparently under direction from Metropolitan Isaiah to not participate in matters concerning the administration of the parish,” Tsagaris wrote in a letter to parishioners as quoted in The Herald. “Despite multiple attempts, in person, via phone and email, to engage Father Matthew to participate in community matters and parish council meetings he has elected not to attend.”

The newspaper reported that Kouremetis was up for appointments to Greek Orthodox parishes in Florida and New Jersey, but “there was resistance from parishioners” in those states.

And though some Utah Greeks would like to see Gilbert move as well, The Herald said, his newly ordained son Chrysostomos, who works at church headquarters in New York, “has intervened and stopped his transfer, for now.”

Tsagaris believes that the impasse is now in good hands, he wrote to the parish.

“Your parish council is in weekly communication with the Archdiocese. Metropolitan Isaiah has removed himself as our spiritual leader and we now await further intervention from the Archdiocese.”

A whole century has passed since 1914, the year when Europe became embroiled in the Great War, a conflict that was essentially a civil war among nations if we look at it in retrospect. Greece more particularly sank into a period of turmoil known as the National Schism over differences of opinion regarding what role the country had to take in World War I.

In most ways 2014 is much different to 1914, but there are a few similarities, mostly regarding the crucial issues that arise from the historical circumstances.

Challenges that we stand before today much as we did back in 1914 include the ever-widening gap between rich and poor and growing inequality within society, the geopolitical upheaval on the fringes of Europe, an economic crisis that seems nowhere close to coming to an end and the emergence of new forces on a global level.

In this historical watershed, Greece needs to make some crucial decisions about its fate and about how it will manoeuvre itself into a more propitious position so that it can curb its losses and achieve an equilibrium in what is a radically new set of circumstances.

The European Union is no longer the safe haven it was in 1974 when Greece emerged from the dictatorship nor what it was in 1980, when the country signed the accession treaty to join the European Economic Union. Everything about Europe has changed, from its identity and its orientation to the internal balance of power at play.
The non-European part of the Mediterranean, meanwhile, is also changing drastically: the dramatic developments in war-torn Syria, embattled Egypt and fractured Libya most decidedly concern and have an effect on Greece. Even the crisis that has started to emerge in Ukraine will have consequences for Greece, not to mention, of course, the political turmoil in neighbouring Turkey.

Here in Greece, the deep economic crisis has revealed the magnitude of the political crisis, not just in the structures and institutions of the state but also in terms of national self-determination and long-term goal-setting. In this sense alone we can make parallels with 1914, and it is in this sense also that we should closely examine the consequences of the choices made 100 years ago on our geopolitical position and on our prospects in the 20th century.
We need to look at 2014 in the same way – without blinkers. Like then, we are at a historical threshold with new social formations and new geopolitical relations emerging to the fore.

The last thing we need is to expend our energies on internal divisions.