His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros

Archdiocesan District Clergy-Laity Assembly

Invocation, Address, & Close

April 2, 2022

Archangel Michael Greek Orthodox Church

Port Washington, New York

 

            INVOCATION:

 

            Almighty Lord, You have created all things in wisdom. In Your inexpressible providence and great goodness, You have brought us to these saving days of the Holy Fast, for the purification of our souls and bodies, for control of our passions, and in the hope of the Resurrection. After forty days, You delivered into the hands of Your servant Moses the tablets of the law in characters divinely traced. Enable us also, O Good One, to fight the good fight, to complete the course of the Fast, to keep the Faith inviolate, to crush underfoot the heads of unseen tempters, to emerge victors over sin, and to come, without reproach, to worship Your Holy Resurrection.

For blessed and glorified is Your most honorable and majestic name, of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and forever and to the ages of ages. Amen.

           

ADDRESS:

Your Grace Bishop Andonios of Phasiane,

Your Grace Bishop Athenagoras of Nazianzos,

Very Reverend Archdiocesan Chancellor, Archimandrite of the Ecumenical Throne  Nektarios Papazafiropulos,

Reverend Chancellor of the Archdiocesan District, Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne Elias Villis,

District Vice Chairman, Mr. Larry Hotzoglou,

District Philoptochos President, Mrs. Jennifer Constantin,

Reverend Fathers and Presvyteres,

Delegates to this Clergy-Laity Assembly,

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

We find ourselves today under the patronage and protection of the Great Archangel Michael, as we enjoy the Abrahamic hospitality and fraternal welcome of our host parish here in Port Washington. I want to thank the Clergy and Lay Leadership of the Archangel Michael parish for their warm and generous reception of us all, here at our Archdiocesan District Clergy-Laity Assembly.

Our work today is vitally important, because in the One Hundredth Year of our Sacred Archdiocese — as the premier Eparchy of our Mother Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate — we are readying a historic Clergy-Laity Congress in New York City this coming July. The implications of our observances for that moment begin now. They begin here, with the ingenuity and thoughtfulness of our labors today, because we are the hosts to the rest of our sisters and brothers from around the country.

And as we are the hosts for this year’s historic Clergy-Laity Congress, we will be counting on the support of each and every community in the District to assist in making this event a successful, fruitful, and spiritually prosperous Congress.

As I approach this, my third Holy Week and Pascha — and indeed, my third year as your Archbishop — I marvel at what we have been able to accomplish together. The renewed vigor that I found upon my arrival in this Nation has been a constant source of encouragement. And I thank God for it! For we have been in the midst of the worst global pandemic in over a century, which has engulfed our entire world and altered our way of life.

I want to especially thank our clergy, who worked so diligently and creatively to safeguard the spiritual welfare of the flocks entrusted to them. We are not one hundred percent out of the woods yet, as they say, and the pandemic may be with us in a milder version for the foreseeable future. But one thing is certain: the work of the Church goes on, regardless of the challenges, and the clergy are prepared to face those challenges.

In the midst of the pandemic, on August 3, 2020, to be exact, we recommenced work on the Saint Nicholas National Shrine after a nearly three-year hiatus. This was an extraordinary step. But even more unprecedented was the behind the scenes fund-raising that has made the completion of the Shrine a reality. I want to recognize the amazing work of the Rev. Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne Alexander Karloutsos – who is celebrating a birthday in a few days. Father Alex— together with the Friends of Saint Nicholas — undertook a truly remarkable whirlwind campaign, which raised sixty-five million dollars in less than twelve months. This transformational fundraising cleared away all the obstacles of the past, and has paved the way to the successful completion of the Shrine.

The Rev. Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne Andreas Vithoulkas, who is the Proïstamenos and Archiepiscopal Vicar of the Shrine, is with us today and will be presenting to you a report on the progress. Of course, we were hoping to hold the first Holy Week and Pascha since the horrible tragedy of 9/11, but I can tell you – the exigencies of completing a monumental construction project, such as this, are not so simple, especially in a pandemic and global supply chain crisis. Yes, it is a small structure, but it truly is a jewel-box, like a Fabergé egg. Nevertheless, I have been assured that we are on schedule for a Fourth of July Consecration, and I know that it will make a tremendous impression upon the Clergy-Laity Delegates from around the country.

* * *

Our Centennial as an Archdiocese is a cause for rejoicing and for celebration of our past and present. But even more so, this Centennial is a reason to reflect deeply and soberly on our future – both on our institutional mission, and our presence of Christ’s Holy Orthodox Church here in these United States of America.

If you examine the sacramental statistics of the Archdiocese over the past two decades, you see a decline in every category except one: funerals. And we are not alone. The Orthodox presence in America has been in membership decline for some time now, as are most traditional Western Church communities. We are not exempt from cultural trends, but we do have a cultural advantage – if we are willing to use it!

I want to share with you something I shared at the most recent Leadership One Hundred Conference just six weeks ago:

[T]here is tremendous pride in Greek ancestry and inheritance, but this is something that is shared by all who claim Western Civilization as their intellectual and spiritual home. Therefore, without the cultivation of a new generation of Philhellenes, the grand legacies of the past will find it harder and harder to be passed on. Today, as we strive to make Greek, Classical, and Orthodox education relevant to our children and supported in our communities, we need the Philhellenes of our country who love Greece – both ancient and modern. For through the love of culture will also come the love of our faith. Or it may happen the other way around. But the truth is, that for our Church to grow and thrive in the next century of its life, we need those good people who will adopt our faith and traditions – and perhaps even our language.[*]

If we are going to make the next hundred years as glorious as the last one hundred, then we must be committed to bringing our Faithful into the full meaning, understanding, and appreciation of what it means to be a Greek Orthodox Christian. We must neither boast of ourselves while looking down on others, nor to discriminate and use our faith and heritage as a weapon. We must be honest about who we are: Greek Orthodox Christians, agents of God’s love – the descendants of the greatest tradition of Christianity that the world has ever known. And this Tradition is alive and relevant not only to us, but to the entirety of society around us, which is looking for the very anchors of faith and the philosophy of life that our faith offers.

Beloved Friends:

Our Orthodox Tradition “is the living faith of the dead,” not the “dead faith of the living,” as the late, great historian Jaroslav Pelikan so eloquently put it. [†]

We have so much to offer to our own people and to the society in which we live. People are looking for depth, for purpose, and for meaning that breathes life into their hearts and minds.

We have so much to offer as a Church, but we have to know our own tradition and what it truly means. Our roots are planted deep in the past, but we do not indulge in some form of ancestor worship. As another wise man said:

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” [‡]

We can and we must move forward with intention and with resolve: intention to be clear about our priorities, and resolve to make them come to pass – with God’s help and by His Grace.

And this goes not only for our Archdiocesan District, but for the entirety of our Archdiocese. That is why, with Father Andreas Vithoulkas moving on to care for and lead the Saint Nicholas National Shrine, I have appointed the V. Rev. Archimandrite of the Ecumenical Throne Nektarios Papazafiropoulos to assume a more nationwide ministry as Chancellor of our Archdiocese. I relieved him of the responsibilities tied directly to the Archdiocesan District by appointing the Rev. Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne Elias Villis as District Chancellor. Both of these clergymen are competent and skilled leaders, who will help all of you facilitate your goals in your individual parishes.

This Centennial Year of our Sacred Archdiocese of America is truly an inflection point for us all. And here, as an aside, I want to make special mention of the financial contributions of the District for the Centennial, and express my gratitude to you all.

In this Centennial year, then, let us redouble our efforts and magnify our energies as a united Archdiocese to bring about God’s Kingdom in our midst.

Let us commit to the heritage of our past and turn our Parishes into true Houses of worship and knowledge, not allowing them to be consigned to become museums of an ossified religion that is nearly incomprehensible to our own faithful.

Let us share the glories – spiritual and cultural – of our Christocentric Faith with our neighbors, and cultivate both “Phil-orthodox” and Philhellenes in our wider society. Our future is dependent upon it.

And finally, let us be proud of who we are – proud in gratitude to God – not arrogant or pretentious.

Proud that we have been graced to be the carriers of the most precious inheritance of original Christianity and the Hellenic Mind (in which Christianity was modeled for its preaching to the world).

Thus, we will make the next hundred years brighter and more fruitful than the first hundred – which, when we look around our Nation, reveal a Church of extreme vitality and prosperity.

The challenge before us is great, but one positive consequence of the pandemic was that it showed us that we are up for any challenge.

May God grant us the wisdom and the strength to fulfill our high calling in Christ – to the glory of His Holy Name.

 

In closing today, I again wish to thank our host parish of Archangel Michael, and all of you, the delegates and participants of this Clergy-Laity Assembly of our Archdiocesan District.

We have much to accomplish before the Biennial Clergy-Laity Congress, so I commend all of you to the work at hand.

I pray that God will bless you and your families throughout the remainder of this Great and Holy Lent, keeping you safe and healthy, and grant that you attain His Holy Resurrection on the sacred night of the Holy Pascha!

May the Good Lord bless us all! Amen.