A test of faith: Church splinters over pastor’s exit

[尼古拉前执事]

Posted on Sat, Jul. 09, 2005
Journal Gazette and wire service sources. http://www.fortwayne.com

A test of faith: Church splinters over pastor’s exit
By Rick Farrant, The Journal Gazette

The reassignment last month of the priest at St. John Chrysostom Orthodox Christian Church in Fort Wayne has led to the forced disbanding of the 10-member parish council and the voluntary resignation of 55 parishioners.

The actions against the Rev. Isaac Henke and the council were taken by Bishop Mark Maymon of the Toledo Diocese of the Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, former parishioner John Pappas said.

In response, 55 church members who supported Henke formally submitted their resignations Tuesday, and Pappas estimated 30 to 40 more of the church’s roughly 150 parishioners will also leave.

Henke, meanwhile, has refused his reassignment to a parish in La Crosse, Wis., and effective today will be placed on unpaid leave, Maymon said. Henke has also asked to be released from the archdiocese.

Parishioners who argued against the removal of Henke said a minority of church members had sought the action, the reasons for the removal were never clearly stated and the Orthodox hierarchy largely turned a deaf ear to opposing viewpoints.

Most importantly, the hierarchy ignored the unanimous support of Henke by the parish council, said Pappas, who was appointed spokesman for the former council.

Pappas said that historically the Orthodox Church has practiced what it calls conciliarity, which he said essentially means all people in the church should be equally involved in arriving at decisions.

“The basic frustration here is the lack of conciliarity, which is a hallmark of Christian orthodoxy,” Pappas said. “The Orthodox church is the hierarchs, clergy and laity working together. This has not happened.”

Henke did not return phone calls, but Maymon said in a telephone interview and in prepared remarks that simmering divisions within the church at 639 Putnam St. made it “necessary to give both the pastor and the parish a fresh start.”

He said he did listen to the concerns of parishioners, answered them and “they simply did not like the answers they received.”

Not so, Pappas said.

“It was lip service, and it was too late,” he said. “We had sent letters and e-mails for months and months to the archdiocese, as well as the bishop.”

Maymon did not specifically identify the objections to Henke’s six-year leadership but said a priest can be reassigned “at any time for any reason or no reason at all.”

“The idea of conciliarity referred to by the former council has been grossly misinterpreted,” Maymon said. “While it is true the church consists of the clergy and laity, it is the bishop who is the sole shepherd and teacher of the faithful.

“Conciliarity applies to relations between bishops and accountability for remaining faithful to our holy tradition.”

Maymon suggested that had it not been for a June 23 letter sent by the parish council to local parishioners, other Midwestern parishes and some bishops, the additional action of disbanding the council might not have occurred.

The one-page letter, obtained by The Journal Gazette, said people inside and outside the local parish had engaged in a campaign “to smear the reputation of our pious priest.”

The letter, which also wasn’t specific about allegations against Henke, concluded: “We want all to understand that there is no possible way your parish council could stand by and complacently ignore the unjustified attacks and suffering of our brother, an innocent priest and faithful servant of Jesus Christ.

“To do so, would be the height of hypocrisy for those who wish to truly live the faith.”

Maymon has moved quickly to name a new priest – the Rev. Anthony Michaels of Ironwood, Mich. – and said he will install Michaels on Sunday.

He has also appointed a four-member interim committee to help Michaels administer the parish.

Maymon said he hopes the parishioners who have left “will come to their senses and return to the church.”

Disgruntled parishioners, however, say that isn’t likely.

Dr. Ashraf Hanna, a member of the ousted council, said he will not be going back to St. John Chrysostom because he believes he was disrespected by the hierarchy.

“What happened doesn’t change my faith in God one way or another,” he said. “My feeling is it’s more an evil work, not God’s work, that brought all of this chaos to happen.”

Hanna said it’s too early for him to know where he’ll practice his faith now.

But Pappas predicted former parishioners will become a “traveling Orthodox parish,” worshipping at other churches until they find a home.

“We’re going to be the congregation in exile,” former parishioner Kay Brown said. “It’s like Moses in the wilderness. We’re going to travel around the mountain, hopefully not too many times.

“All we want is to live quiet Christian lives of integrity. We’re not into power and money and who’s top dog.

“Leave us alone,” she said, “and let us practice our faith.”

[Justin Kissel]

Pappas said that historically the Orthodox Church has practiced what it calls conciliarity, which he said essentially means all people in the church should be equally involved in arriving at decisions.

“The basic frustration here is the lack of conciliarity, which is a hallmark of Christian orthodoxy,” Pappas said. “The Orthodox church is the hierarchs, clergy and laity working together. This has not happened.” ... yada yada yada

Obviously he is speaking of democracy (ie. mob/majority rule), not conciliarity. Conciliarity would be his bishops getting together to make a decision, and then him following that decision whether he agreed with it or not, if only because it was his bishops who had made the decision. I'm not taking either side in the whole affair, nor am I saying that people should be ignored. But in the end, what this guy proposes is no different than Protestantism. In fact, it is the very definition of Protestantism. If you don't agree with your bishop, claim that they aren't acting properly (or taking your own view into account) and bolt.

[spyridon]

Very sad Story,but it does sound Protestanty..so because this Priest refuses to listen to His Bishop(whom he signed agreement to obide accordingly upon ordination for life)and now he decides he doesnt have to abide,not only is he left without a parish to serve with sacraments,but his people are left without a place to accept the sacrament of Communion..The Priest can probally relocate,but what about all those poor people that will be left behind....You know Father Seraphim always talked about staying away from Church Politics and how being on the Church council was asking for trouble because you would hear all the gossip and made up rumors people start to deceive
and flatter one another.....................and forgive me if you are all in the right,find a place to lay your weary heads and ask the Holy Spirit for help and the Holy Spirit will guide you to the Real church (V-)

[尼古拉前执事]

At http://citypaper.net/articles/current/cb.shtml from July 14-20, 2005
city beat
Losing Faith

Steeple Case: A feud over who should lead the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint George has reached Common Pleas Court.

A Greek Orthodox congregation is split over its church's future.

by Mike Newall

For nearly 85 years, the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint George, at Eighth and Locust streets, has served as the spiritual and cultural center of Greek life in Philadelphia. Generations upon generations of Philly Greeks have been baptized, married and eulogized within its gilded walls. But now, it stands as a house divided.

A recent feud stemming from the removal of a beloved priest has torn the congregation in half. Scores of parishioners have departed, leaving empty pews and bitter feelings in their wake. Nearly all of Saint George's parish activities have suffered. The choir is gone. Sunday school is down to a trickle of students. There aren't even any altar boys left.

"Unless this is resolved quickly, the parish will not exist much longer," says parishioner Stephen McGrath, a convert who served as president of parish council until being removed by the metropolitan, or bishop, last January. "It's in a death spiral. It's losing its congregation, its youth, its future."

There seems little hope of the fractured church fully binding its wounds anytime soon. Nine parishioners removed from the parish council — the governing body of the cathedral's business affairs — have filed suit for reinstatement in Common Pleas Court. A judge is expected to issue a ruling sometime this summer, a decision that will most likely only sow further division within Saint George's. Moreover, the judge's ruling could have wide-ranging effects throughout the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a church grappling to find an agreeable balance of power between laity and hierarchy.

For outsiders, the exact origins of Saint George's feud can at times seem as murky as the depths as the Aegean Sea. This much is clear, however: Tempers erupted last summer when Metropolitan Evangelos Kourounis, head of the New Jersey Metropolis — which includes the cathedral — decided to replace Saint George's longtime and widely beloved parish priest, the Rev. Demetrios Katerlis.

A relatively small, but wealthy and influential, band of parishioners had complained to the metropolitan that "Father D" was growing old and out of touch. Like many religions, attendance in the Greek Orthodox Church is dropping off. A younger priest was needed, they argued, to attract younger parishioners and to turn more attention to fundraising. The Greek Orthodox Church is unlike other major religions in that it is a nonprofit entity, a business in which parishioners own the actual churches.

"It wasn't a case of the church leader in Greece sending over a billion dollars to establish all these churches," says parishioner John Manos. "Immigrants strained and sweated to build these churches with no money from Greece."

A patriarch in Istanbul, Turkey appoints metropolitans (which usually means affirming the results of a vote by the Council of Bishops) who provide spiritual leadership to the flock. In recent years, the church hierarchy has taken steps to strengthen its power. According to former parish council members involved in the lawsuit, parishioners struck an agreement with the metropolitan allowing Father D to stay on as assistant priest of Saint George's. (Father D, a 74-year-old who has served at Saint George's for nearly 50 years, is vacationing in Greece and unavailable for comment.)

A week before the new priest was to arrive, Father D was summoned to the metropolitan's office in Kenilworth. N.J., and told that he would be retired immediately, say the former council members.

"Word of this got out and there was a big uproar," says parishioner Andrew Pogas. "We were in shock."

When the new priest arrived to serve his first Sunday mass, dozens of parishioners were waiting outside the Cathedral in protest.

"People were upset and yelled at the new priest," says Pogas. "They told him they wanted Father D and that he should go home."

When the metropolitan heard of the incident, he suspected Father D had organized the protest and, as punishment, stripped him of his prayer shawl, a symbolic gesture prohibiting Father D from serving or worshiping in any Greek Orthodox Church in the area. (Both rights were restored this February.) The protesters deny Father D played any role. The office of the metropolitan did not return phone calls for this story. Saint George's new priest, Rev. Nektarios Cottros, also did not return calls.

Father D's suspension further stoked the coals of anger at Saint George's. Parishioners began to flock in droves. (Forty-five worshippers attended last Sunday's service at Saint George. Parishioners estimated that to be about a third of last summer's average Sunday attendance.) Parents removed their children from the Sunday school and Greek culture school when the teachers of both were fired for vocally supporting Father D. The Christmas pageant fell apart. The Greek Orthodox Youth of America Organization disbanded. The "Friends of the Poor" ladies' society all but disbanded.

"It's heartbreaking," says parishioner Barbara Kay Tarnoff, who resigned from her role as a parish youth advisor after Father D's removal. "The community is like an old Greek village, so many are related either through blood or marriage. Families are being torn apart over this."

The situation further deteriorated when Parish Council elections were held last December, in which representatives of both sides squared off. When supporters of Father D won in a landslide, the metropolitan refused to acknowledge the results, saying the nominations were made at an illegal general assembly meeting, and appointed his own supporters to the council, which controls the $364,000 parish budget as well as two valuable Center City senior centers owned by the cathedral.

The nine displaced council members sued, claiming that the metropolitan overstepped his boundaries as spiritual leader. They also contend that the metropolitan hijacked the elections after his supporters promised to build him a Center City residence and office with parish funds.

Attorneys representing the metropolitan argue that constitutional separation of church and state prohibits civil courts from intervening. The former council members, and supporters of Father D, contend that the metropolitan violated the church's bylaws and nonprofit status, and argue that they should be reinstated to their governing positions on the council.

"This parish has always been run democratically," says Manos, who was legal counsel for the cathedral until the new board members removed him. "They appoint the priests and tell us what to do religiously. Now they are trying to take over our bank accounts and throw out our elected officials."

Many parishioners worry that the rift has caused irreparable damage to the parish community.

"I'd be sinning if I went to church there," says former parishioner Pogas. "Because of the anger in my heart I would feel when I walked through the doors."

[LoveToChant]

I'm personally acquainted with this turn of events. A vital point that the article left out was that the priest involved was being sent to a parish that would not be able to support him financially and where there was no major hospital. He has health needs that would not be met where the bishop wanted to send him. Life and death health needs. Hence the "refusal" (as the article states) to accept that particular parish.

Now I lay my weary head down and ask the Holy Spirit to guide me from here. Pray for me a sinner.

[尼古拉前执事]

Fort Wayne Judge Denies Motion to Dismiss Counterclaim
http://mysite.verizon.net/concernedorth ... enied.html
2/9/06

"And tell me, Mr. Connor, why St. John Chrysostom Antiochian Church doesn't want Fr. Isaac to have this money (a severance package unanimously passed by the former parish council)?"

Judge Stanley A. Levine looked quizzically at Timothy Connor, Esq. representing the "Interim Committee" appointed by Bishop Mark of Toledo of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese.

Connor's argument basically was that the former parish council (dismissed by Mark in July) might have standing, and might have had the right to pass the severance package, but couldn't argue the cause on behalf of a priest who wasn't present and had been defaulted from the civil action for his absence and silence.

The priest in question, Fr. Isaac Henke, was suspended by the Archdiocese in July after serving 6 years at St. John's in Fort Wayne. He has not appeared in court since the inception of the case in September. Henke has allegedly been threatened by church hierarchy with laicizing (defrocking) if he were to accept the severance package. He remains unemployed, and has been seeking work for 6 months.

The former parish council had placed the severance funds in escrow with local attorney Karl Veracco of Carson Boxberger, LLP after they learned of a conspiracy by a few wealthy laity and Antiochian hierarchs to exile the priest to a tiny parish in Northern Wisconsin at a fraction of his previous compensation in 2005. Their respectful attempts to dissuade the Antiochian hierarchy from unjustly punishing the priest were completely ignored, so the former council took steps to provide for the health insurance and immediate needs of the priest once he was removed.

On the advice of his bishop, Henke asked for a canonical release from the archdiocese and was denied, suspended and put on penance. Bishop Mark disbanded the parish council over a letter they had published nationally describing the events.

That council was replaced with a hand-picked committee who called attorney Veracco demanding the severance funds back. The attorney then filed an interpleader asking the Allen County Superior court to accept the funds and decide their disposition.

"Most of the pious Orthodox Christians inside and outside the AOA are shocked when they hear of this callous treatment of ordained clergy. For years, every June Metropolitan Philip shuffles priests around the country like they are so many chess pieces, with little regard for their families, parishes or communities" said John Pappas, Chairman of Concerned Orthodox Christian Alliance, an Orthodox priest benevolence society.

"In this situation, the only reason this matter is in the courts is because the Antiochian Archdiocese will not allow the local lay leadership to fairly compensate its priest for his years of hard work. Moreover, the net effect of their refusal to canonically release the priest so that he might serve God elsewhere coupled with their actions on the severance package can only mean one thing: they wish to starve the priest and his family for some unknown, warped reason."

Evidently, publicity of these actions are having a deleterious effect on Metropolitan Philip's "teflon" reputation. The past three issues of the monthly archdiocesan magazine "Word" had featured cover photos of Philip, and flattering articles about his treatment of priests, "which are so gratuitous they make even Philip's apologists blush."

"Philip's had two biographies written about him already; I think a third is on the way" says Pappas. "I hope the biographer will interview all of the priests Met. Philip has suspended, laicized, put on loan for eternity or refused to release during the past 20 years. And I hope, as he sits in his Florida mansion once again this winter, that he thinks about all those priests who have suffered under his dominion in America and the faith of some of the flock who are aghast at the inhumanity they have witnessed. It's a shame that this will be his legacy, but actions speak louder than words."

Back in the courtroom, Judge Levine heard the extensive rebuttal from COCA attorney Alan VerPlanck of Eilbacher Fletcher, LLP, followed by the closing argument from the Antiochians, and ruled, "Motion to dismiss.............DENIED."

So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men,
and especially to those who are of the household of faith. Gal. 6:10

Depositions will take place in April and the trial will be in June.

[尼古拉前执事]

Posted on Sat, Jul. 09, 2005
Journal Gazette and wire service sources. http://www.fortwayne.com

A test of faith: Church splinters over pastor’s exit
By Rick Farrant, The Journal Gazette

The reassignment last month of the priest at St. John Chrysostom Orthodox Christian Church in Fort Wayne has led to the forced disbanding of the 10-member parish council and the voluntary resignation of 55 parishioners.

The actions against the Rev. Isaac Henke and the council were taken by Bishop Mark Maymon of the Toledo Diocese of the Self-Ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, former parishioner John Pappas said.

In response, 55 church members who supported Henke formally submitted their resignations Tuesday, and Pappas estimated 30 to 40 more of the church’s roughly 150 parishioners will also leave.

Henke, meanwhile, has refused his reassignment to a parish in La Crosse, Wis., and effective today will be placed on unpaid leave, Maymon said. Henke has also asked to be released from the archdiocese.

Parishioners who argued against the removal of Henke said a minority of church members had sought the action, the reasons for the removal were never clearly stated and the Orthodox hierarchy largely turned a deaf ear to opposing viewpoints.

Most importantly, the hierarchy ignored the unanimous support of Henke by the parish council, said Pappas, who was appointed spokesman for the former council.

Pappas said that historically the Orthodox Church has practiced what it calls conciliarity, which he said essentially means all people in the church should be equally involved in arriving at decisions.

“The basic frustration here is the lack of conciliarity, which is a hallmark of Christian orthodoxy,” Pappas said. “The Orthodox church is the hierarchs, clergy and laity working together. This has not happened.”

Henke did not return phone calls, but Maymon said in a telephone interview and in prepared remarks that simmering divisions within the church at 639 Putnam St. made it “necessary to give both the pastor and the parish a fresh start.”

He said he did listen to the concerns of parishioners, answered them and “they simply did not like the answers they received.”

Not so, Pappas said.

“It was lip service, and it was too late,” he said. “We had sent letters and e-mails for months and months to the archdiocese, as well as the bishop.”

Maymon did not specifically identify the objections to Henke’s six-year leadership but said a priest can be reassigned “at any time for any reason or no reason at all.”

“The idea of conciliarity referred to by the former council has been grossly misinterpreted,” Maymon said. “While it is true the church consists of the clergy and laity, it is the bishop who is the sole shepherd and teacher of the faithful.

“Conciliarity applies to relations between bishops and accountability for remaining faithful to our holy tradition.”

Maymon suggested that had it not been for a June 23 letter sent by the parish council to local parishioners, other Midwestern parishes and some bishops, the additional action of disbanding the council might not have occurred.

The one-page letter, obtained by The Journal Gazette, said people inside and outside the local parish had engaged in a campaign “to smear the reputation of our pious priest.”

The letter, which also wasn’t specific about allegations against Henke, concluded: “We want all to understand that there is no possible way your parish council could stand by and complacently ignore the unjustified attacks and suffering of our brother, an innocent priest and faithful servant of Jesus Christ.

“To do so, would be the height of hypocrisy for those who wish to truly live the faith.”

Maymon has moved quickly to name a new priest – the Rev. Anthony Michaels of Ironwood, Mich. – and said he will install Michaels on Sunday.

He has also appointed a four-member interim committee to help Michaels administer the parish.

Maymon said he hopes the parishioners who have left “will come to their senses and return to the church.”

Disgruntled parishioners, however, say that isn’t likely.

Dr. Ashraf Hanna, a member of the ousted council, said he will not be going back to St. John Chrysostom because he believes he was disrespected by the hierarchy.

“What happened doesn’t change my faith in God one way or another,” he said. “My feeling is it’s more an evil work, not God’s work, that brought all of this chaos to happen.”

Hanna said it’s too early for him to know where he’ll practice his faith now.

But Pappas predicted former parishioners will become a “traveling Orthodox parish,” worshipping at other churches until they find a home.

“We’re going to be the congregation in exile,” former parishioner Kay Brown said. “It’s like Moses in the wilderness. We’re going to travel around the mountain, hopefully not too many times.

“All we want is to live quiet Christian lives of integrity. We’re not into power and money and who’s top dog.

“Leave us alone,” she said, “and let us practice our faith.”

Good news, this parish has found a home now: http://roac-nftu.blogspot.com/2006/08/t ... ssian.html