“Fighting From Within”: The End Result

Spread the love

Concerning the news below about Jerusalem, we at NFTU saw the futility of this course of action years ago with the reception, reordination, and absorption of two Bishops of the Greek Old Calendar Church (Paisos and Vikentios in Astoria) and their subject parishes. Since then, those parishes were placed under the direct administration of the Greek Archdiocese, and have of course been changed over to the New Calendar.

But that did not stop some allegedly “anti-ecumenical” wing– many of whom came from the “Evangelical Orthodox Church”, joined Antioch, left Antioch, and left the rest of us to wonder how deep those conversions were– from pretending to join the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and claim that they were “fighting from within”, operating independently and freely for True Orthodoxy within the official Church. Sure, it sounded great. The results, however, were of no surprise to us at all.

Decisions on Some Palestinian and Jordanian Communities in the USA

(goarch.org) New York, NY – After a long process that began in 1993 related to the ecclesiastical status of a portion of the Palestinian and Jordanian communities in the USA, the portion connected to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, there has been a final agreed decision by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem concerning these communities. The Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Jerusalem Patriarchate have agreed that the canonical and pastoral supervision of these communities and their clergy should belong to the canonically established jurisdiction in the United States which is the Eparchy of the Ecumenical Throne in America, that is, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Henceforth, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem no longer asserts any jurisdiction in the Western Hemisphere.

On Tuesday, April 1, 2008, His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew received His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem, together with the senior member of the Holy Synod of the Jerusalem Patriarchate, Metropolitan Vasilios of Caesaria (Palestine) and other clergy. Final details for the implementation of the agreements were completed, with a mutual decision that these communities come under the canonical jurisdiction of the Archdiocese of America. Following the meeting at the Phanar, His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America was directed to proceed with the implementation of the agreements by the creation of a Vicariate for the inclusion of the clergy and communities within the Archdiocese of America. The official name of the Vicariate is: “Vicariate for Palestinian/Jordanian Communities in the USA.”

The clergy and communities of the Vicariate will be directly under the Archbishop of America and will report to the Archdiocese through the Vicar. Through the Archdiocese, all of these clergy and communities will be able to participate in the programs and agencies of SCOBA.

Share/Bookmark
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x