NEW YORK, NY July 31, 2004 — Impassioned religious debates can often hinge on seemingly small matters of doctrine and authority. This week, members of the Greek Orthodox Church converged on New York from throughout the country for a bi-annual 'congress.' WNYC's Fred Mogul looks at one reform group that has been making waves by taking their national leadership to court.

FM: At the Times Square Marriott, hundreds of Greek Orthodox priests and lay members are doing a little shopping. The exhibit hall of the Fifty-Seventh Annual Clergy-Laity Congress is filled with embroidered vestments, carved altar screens and lots and lots of icons. Ann Palagianos came in from Brooklyn.

AP: The artwork here is so inspiring. It brings out my creative streak.

FM: Like most people in this crowd, Palagianos is an active church member and one who's pretty satisfied with her church. But she thinks it's getting a little gray.'

AP: It's an older community. Seniors have a little more say in the community. I think it needs a little updating.

FM: Improving parish life is this year's convention theme. Some, however, are concerned about decisions being made at higher national and international levels that affect them locally. A lay group says a recent re-structuring by the church's supreme leadership has shrunk the power of lay members. Peter Haikalis, president of the Orthodox Christian Laity, says in the past

PH: Clergy and laity in assemblies made all the decisions that affect administration and finance. That system has broken down, and it has changed.

FM: Haikalis says the laity now has less control over the budgets -- and the appointments of bishops and legislative delegates. He and 30 fellow dissidents have taken the archdiocese to court. The suit alleges leaders didn't follow institutional by-laws and improperly changed the charter. They say this violates non-profit laws in New York, where the Archdiocese of America is officially incorporated. The archdiocese says laity power is as vibrant as ever, but leaders in Istanbul don't have to follow American recommendations. D. Moschos, a lay member of the archbishop's advisory council, says the court should dismiss the case.

It would seem under the American constitutional [principle of] separation of separation of church and state, that it would not be appropriate for the courts to determine the rules relative to charters.

FM: But religious organizations often are non-profits - just like museums, hospitals or daycare centers, says Hofstra University Law Professor Norman Silber.

NS: Courts often get involved in resolving disputes over what the charters and the by-laws and the governing instruments mean. But the question really becomes whether or not the court is going to have to resolve a theological dispute, rather than a secular legal issue.

FM: The Queens neighborhood of Astoria is more Asian and Latino, and less Hellenic than it used to be. Still, Greek flags and little Orthodox stickers adorn many businesses. Although the court case has played prominently in Greek-language newspapers, even active church members, like Demetrios Timitriades, don't know about it. He says he'd like to see the archbishop - who's also named Demetrios -- protect American autonomy and keep his distance from Orthodoxy's central patriarch in Turkey.

DT: I like Demetrios, but I don't like the Patriarch from Constantinoplis -- I don't like to say Istanbul -- because he's very close with the Pope. I don't like that.

FM: Back in Manhattan, convention days conclude with an 11pm service called Compline. They take place in a conference room transformed by incense and candles into a chapel. Afterwards, Father Mark Arey, from midtown's St. George Church, said he doesn't think lay members have any less power than before.

MA: There's always gonna be people who have differences of opinions. There's always going to be some tension in the bowstring. That's how the arrow flies. You're never gonna get everyone satisfied .We strike a balance, so there is an involvement of the laity, to a degree that's proper and normal, without sacrificing a 2,000-year-old liturgical tradition.

The reformers in Orthodox Christian Laity so far have persuaded only a small fraction of the million or so Greek Orthodox Americans that they've been disenfranchised and that administrative issues really matter. But as a journalist named Apostolos Zoupaniotis puts it, there is much underlying discontent that the group could tap into. Sure, people don't care much about charters, but they do feel passionately about how their leaders are chosen, how their money is spent and how the church in America relates to authority from Istanbul.

Links:

Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

Orthodox Christian Laity

Basic Information and Discussionson Eastern Orthodoxy

Greek Immigrant News