By Walt Garlington, an Orthodox Christian living in Dixieland. His writings have appeared on several web sites, and he maintains a site of his own, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.
Archbishop Elpidophoros’ public appearances and remarks all too often resemble the horror of a slow-motion train wreck unfolding in real-time before our eyes. His appearance at the White House for the celebration of Greek Independence on 26 March 2026 regrettably did not deviate from that pattern. Things were said that are at variance with the Orthodox way (thanks to UOJ for the report and link).
First is his groveling praise for American democracy, ‘the world’s Greatest Democracy’:
Especially in this most significant year of 2026, when America observes its Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and Greece commemorates its Two Hundred and Fifth Year since its own assertion of Liberty and Justice for all – all Americans are rejoicing over this noble experiment in self-governance. Or, Mr. President, as your most esteemed predecessor Abraham Lincoln stated in his Gettysburg Address: government of the people, by the people, for the people– from the world’s First Democracy to the world’s Greatest Democracy.
Abp Elpidophoros likes to portray himself as a protector and benefactor of Hellenism, but he is selective in the parts of it that he emphasizes. Yes, there were some eras in Greece’s history in which democratic forms of government were present, but there were also others in which monarchy was prominent. And what should carry the most weight for the Archbishop, most of the years of Greek life in her Christian era were under the Orthodox Emperors of Constantinople. But he seems very eager to downplay and hide that aspect of Greek history in order to ingratiate himself with the Trump regime and other powerful figures in the governmental temples on the Potomac.
Unlike Abp Elpidophoros, leaders and saints throughout the Orthodox Church’s history have stated unequivocally the importance of Christian kings in the political and spiritual order. Patriarch Anthony of Constantinople wrote a letter to Grand Prince Basil I of Moscow circa 1395, admonishing him for not showing proper respect for the Orthodox emperor:
The holy emperor has a great place in the Church: he is not as other rulers and the governors of other regions are; and this is because the emperors, from the beginning, established and confirmed true religion . . . in all the inhabited world . . . .
. . . My son, you are wrong in saying, “We have a church, but not an emperor”. It is not possible for Christians to have a church . . . and not to have an empire . . . . Church and empire have a great unity . . . and community; nor is it possible for them to be separated from one another. The only emperors that Christians refuse to acknowledge are heretics who have attacked the Church and introduced doctrines that are corrupt and alien from the teaching of the Apostles and the Fathers. Our great and holy sovereign . . . , by the grace of God, is most orthodox and faithful: he is the champion, defender, and vindicator of the Church: and it is not possible that there should be a primate who does not make mention of his name (Sir Ernest Barker, Social and Political Thought in Byzantium, Oxford UP, London, 1957, Hassell Street Press reprint, pgs. 194-5).
Abp Elpidophoros opposes the sayings of the Patriarch. For he praises Americanism, which is a rejection of God’s governance of a people through his chosen and anointed kings and its replacement with the attempted divinization of man’s fallen, autonomous will to govern himself instead (which is what government of, by, and for the people amounts to. The Archbishop’s praise for ‘American democracy’ is also another historical error; many people in the US, prior to the victory of Lincoln in the War and his consolidation of the States into a centralized mass democracy, considered the United States to be a union of republics with governments that were intentionally a mix of monarchic, aristocratic, and democratic elements).
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The Holy Elder of Optina Monastery in Russia, St Barsanuphius (+1913), explores further the idea of the honor due to Christian kings and the dangers of abandoning this form of government for democratic forms:
“The devotion of the Orthodox Russian nation to its Tsars,” he wrote, “is utterly unlike the dedication of the Western nations to their sovereigns. According to the modern Western understanding, a sovereign is nothing but the representative of his people—and the Western nations love their representatives and willingly obey them when they faithfully fulfill this function, or when, by the power of their genius, they captivate the people and blind them with the brilliance of their glory and their sovereign might, as in the case of Napoleon in France and Friedrich in Prussia [and Trump in the United States—W.G.]. But this love is self-seeking and egotistical. In the West, that which the people love in their sovereigns is only their own selves. If a king, due to his own personal character, is not in a position to be a faithful reflection and representative of the will of the people and their dominant aspirations, ideas and passions, then they limit and constrict his will by means of a constitutional vise. But if the king does not yield to these forces and is not able to play up to the taste and disposition of his subjects, he is deprived not only of the love of the people, but of the throne, as happened with Karl X, Ludwig-Philip, and Albert, King of Sardinia.
“It is entirely different with us in Russia: our Tsar is the representative of the will of God, not of the people. His will is sacred for us, as the will of God’s Anointed; we love him because we love God. The Tsar bestows glory and well-being upon us, and we receive this from him as the mercy of God. If we are overtaken by disgrace and misfortune, we endure them with meekness and humility as a heavenly punishment for our lawlessness, and we never betray our love and devotion to the Tsar, in so far as they stem from our Orthodox religious convictions, from our love and devotion to God” (Victor Afanasiev, Elder Barsanuphius of Optina, St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, Cal., 2000, p. 226).
While this post centers on wisdom from the East, let us not overlook our own tradition of Christian Kingship in the West. This is an icon of St. Edmund, King of East Anglia who became a revered English saint after being tortured and killed by Danish Viking invaders for refusing to renounce his Christian faith. Icon available from Uncut Mountain Supply.
St Barsanuphius makes a key observation: Democratic forms of government unleash and magnify the passions of the people. The reason for this is understandable: Just as the Christians in the Church need guidance and restraint from their spiritual aristocracy (saints, bishops, priests, monks, angels, etc.), the people of a nation also need the same from their political and cultural aristocracy (kings, nobles, warriors, teachers, etc.). Without the good example and guiding hand of an aristocracy, the broader population begins to go astray and become disorderly.
St Barsanuphius’s remark has been verified by others. Alexis de Tocqueville, the French political philosopher, analyzed the effects of democratic beliefs, institutions, etc., on the peoples of the young United States of the first half of the 19th century in his sprawling work Democracy in America. A longing so strong for material things that it imperils him is amongst the passions he ascribes to Democratic Man in that book:
Give democratic nations education and freedom, and leave them alone. They will soon learn to draw from this world all the benefits which it can afford; they will improve each of the useful arts, and will day by day render life more comfortable, more convenient, and more easy. Their social condition naturally urges them in this direction; I do not fear that they will slacken their course.
But whilst man takes delight in this honest and lawful pursuit of his wellbeing, it is to be apprehended that he may in the end lose the use of his sublimest faculties; and that whilst he is busied in improving all around him, he may at length degrade himself. Here, and here only, does the peril lie (Volume II, Section 2, Chapter XV).
Irving Babbitt, a native Ohioan who spent most of his later life teaching at Harvard in Massachusetts (he reposed in 1933; a praiseworthy Yankee indeed), also directs some stinging criticism at the degrading effects of democracy on countries:
It is an error (as Mirabeau said) to suppose that democracy and imperialism are inimical; they will hunt together in our time, as they did in Periclean Athens and Revolutionary France. . . .
“Commercialism is laying its great greasy paw upon everything (including the irresponsible quest of thrills); so that, whatever democracy may be theoretically, one is sometimes tempted to define it practically as standardized and commercialized melodrama (Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind, 7th ed., Regnery, Washington, D.C., 2001, pgs. 426, 428).
This inclination of democracies to inflame the passions is dangerous not only politically – creating turbulence and instability in society – but also, and most significantly, spiritually, for the goal of the Orthodox way of life is to calm and heal the passions for the sake of union with God.
In a reflection on fasting and Lent, Fr Tarasiy Borozonets uses imagery of Egypt that is relevant to modern American life:
And here the Church gives us an amazing prototype from the sacred history of the Old Testament. With every Lent we, like the new Israel, come out of the Egypt of passions. Egypt is an image of carnal slavery, the land where, like the Hebrews, we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full (Exod. 16:3), but paid bitter price for this satiety—the loss of freedom, forgetfulness of God, and the hard labor of sin. Let us recall the murmurings of the Israelites in the desert—they pined for the fleshpots of Egypt, even though those were fleshpots of slavery. Likewise, our fallen nature is sometimes nostalgic for the old life without fasting, without prayer, and without restrictions—for the life where we were full, but not free. Fasting calls on us to abandon these memories and trust in our Shepherd and Head, Christ, Who leads us through the wilderness of Lent.
Democratic America is the recapitulation of Egypt, with its slavery to carnal desires. Enjoyment of those desires is presented as liberty, freedom, and rights, but it is not: It is captivity.
Fr John Romanides goes into further detail of the differences between the ideals of un-Christian Americanism and a true Orthodox polity, what he calls Romanity – truths, though drawn from Constantinople, are thoroughly ignored by Abp Elpidophoros:
The Christianized Roman citizens of Constantinople New Rome, having adopted the Orthodox perception of the freedom of man through baptism, did not have any static view concerning human nature, and therefore no doctrine of the natural rights of classes, nor even an idealistic view about the equal rights of men, which to this day still do not exist.
In contrast to the Franks, the Romans of Constantinople New Rome believed in the principle of duties and obligations, yet subordinated not to individual interests, selfishness, and self-love, but rather to the freedom of the friends of God.
The society of the Romans is an aristocracy of the spirit and not a deceptive laocracy of merely theoretical rights. From one perspective, it resembles the American idea of the right of equal opportunities for progress, but with the fundamental difference of the purpose of this progress. While the Americans are followers of the Frankish idea that progress consists in attaining happiness (eudaimonia) through the satisfaction of what are considered natural self-loving desires of man, the Romans understood progress as the transformation of self-love and selfishness into the heroic freedom of self-sacrifice for one’s religion, fatherland and family, which all together are called Romanity.
Heroes of the spirit are those who reach love through asceticism, a love which “seeketh not her own.” The saints are the prototype of this heroic spirit, who reached such heights in the uprooting of self-love, with the help of God, that they are willing to sacrifice even their salvation and endure the torments of hell themselves in order to save and help their brothers. Since these are friends of God, they have the boldness of a friend and even argue with God in order to save their brothers from God’s intention to abandon traitors of His will to their fate.
From this tradition of the boldness of the saints developed the tradition that allowed and even demanded as a duty of the Roman to speak with boldness even before the Emperor himself.
. . . The duty and obligation of all Romans is to struggle to ascend through the stages of perfection and become members of the spiritual aristocracy of Romanity. The Roman does not believe in any static idea about classes or laocratic rights of man. The so-called rights of man, of the Europeans and the Americans, are for Romanity lower but not static stages which are secured for individuals by the much higher stage of the duties and obligations of Romanity.
. . . Yet just as Romanity as a whole is an aristocracy of the spirit, so also the leadership of Romanity is drawn from the higher part of this aristocracy. This fact appears clearly from the title “friend of God.” The title θεοφιλέστατος (“most beloved of God”) was the highest title in the Church hierarchy, but it also belonged to the emperor of the Romans.
For this reason, some natural right of man is not sufficient to choose rulers. God assigns to His friends the leadership of His nation, but the people of God must know those criteria which will reveal to them who is that charismatic hero and brave-hearted[2] friend of God, whom they will choose as their ruler.
The Roman knows the criteria and will elect his leadership from Romanity. The neo-Greek does not know these criteria and is therefore a zealous supporter of the enslavement of Romanity to an ideology and leadership external to itself, and thus he accepts leadership that does not come from his Romanity.
There we encounter again that inescapable truth, that the non-Christian religion of Americanism is not freedom (as it claims to be) but rather enslavement. True freedom is what the Orthodox Church offers to mankind in her teachings and her practices. This is especially true of the time of Lent, as Fr Tarasiy points out:
The desert is not a place of death, although at first it frightens with its scarcity. The desert is a place of meeting with God, a place of purification and the gaining of true freedom. Israel wandered for forty years before entering the Promised Land; the Church fasts for forty days before meeting the Radiant Resurrection of Christ. And just as the ancient Jordan parted before the people of God, so the tomb of Christ opens to us on Paschal night. The path of fasting is that of escape from all bondage—from the Egypt of sin, from the captivity of passions, and from years of captivity by vanity. We walk, limiting ourselves in “Egyptian fleshpots” in order to taste of another food—the one about which the Lord said: My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work (Jn. 4:34). And the more zealously we walk this path, the less we look back at the abandoned Egypt, and the more clearly the light of the Promised Land glimmers ahead—the joy of Pascha—where there is no longer fasting, but eternal rejoicing; where there is no longer abstinence, but fullness of unity with the Risen Christ.
This is not what Abp Elpidophoros seems to be saying to the peoples of the United States. His message is more idolatrous Americanism, more phony freedom, more Trumpism:
Moreover, you have personally been the global champion for the cause of Freedom of Religion, the first Freedom enshrined in the First Amendment of our Nation’s Bill of Rights, and for this we are ever-grateful.
. . . We pray that God will always bless you, Mr. President, for in every parish, during every service, we pray “For our Country, the President, all those in public service, and our armed forces everywhere.”
. . . And God bless America!
Not every statement made by the Archbishop is damaging. Some actually do promote healthy Orthodox living. But the latter seem to be the exception rather than the rule. May the Lord help him, and all of us.
And may the Lord grant him and all the clergy and people of the Orthodox Church the spirit of meekness and humility expressed by Metropolitan Saba in his recent meditation, which reads like the tender and heart-felt spiritual reflections of saints like Ephraim the Syrian. If the Archbishop and so many others today (including this writer) exult in public popularity and praise, we must repent of that if we are to have Christ as our portion:
But we often act contrary to you.
We love display and self-exaltation. We prefer that people see us as leaders rather than as servants and fathers.
We want followers, even if we lead them to destruction.
Because we are small within, we seek to become great—not through You, but through them—so that we may feel effective, influential, and important.
If Your children, out of love for us, see only our outward appearance, what excuse do we have, when we ourselves know who we are and are aware of the baseness, weakness, and impurity that dwell within us?
Teach us, Lord, how to descend so that You may raise us up.
Guide us to understand the true exaltation that befits Your people and Your servants.
Is it not enough for us to remain at Your feet?
Is not the whole fulfillment in listening to You, as Mary did when she received the good portion that shall not be taken away from her?
In the intoxication of our self-importance and ego, we often forget You, my Lord, and replace You with our followers.
That is not Americanism, but it is Orthodoxy, which God willing, we in the States will grab hold of and never turn loose.
One of the hardest parables of our Lord to digest fully, is the Wheat and the Tares. Constantly, we paint with a broad brush folks set in denominations, and, especially our own. Living on the dry plains, I became very aware of the dreaded “sand burr”. Its foliage looks identical to a very common native Fescue variety, but, the seed it produces can be instant agony as it sticks to any and everything it touches, as a manifestation of the corona profile. And, often, if it breaks off–if not extracted delicately–the point remains unrecoverably embedded in the skin–the points are microscopically barbed.to go in easy and difficult to extract. Jesus said, you shall know them by their fruit, not their foliage. The most hideous of evils, often hides behind the most righteous facade. Its sort of like, terrorists using children for shields–kill the evil, and there is unacceptable collateral damage–and this is the whole point of Jesus’ parable of wheat and tares. But, there will come a time when it all will get sorted; when what is done in secret will be shouted from the house top.
All human governments are no better than those in power. But, at least with a pure monarchy, there is only one despot to deal with. Julian the Apostate demonstrated monarchies are corrupted just like democracies, but, at least, it flows from a singularity, and not a governing body. And, maybe the Brits have forgotten “Bloody Mary”. Only one kingdom is without peer or adversary–God’s kingdom–, and the only, recognizable model on earth would be before Israel had kings. Moses was neither elected, nor king. .
Over and again, Man has proven himself to be unable to be self-governing (on any level) and with any form of government. Law is for the lawless, and the only reason for any human government is lawlessness. If all followed Christ, no law would be needed, anywhere–king or otherwise. Keep in mind, when God told Samuel to anoint a king over Israel, it was because Israel had rejected God as their King. The purest human government ever, was local elders governing on site, with insight all the matters of the community. We see this demonstrated properly in the Book of Ruth where the natural occurrence of elders–fathers of the community–were in charge–nameless and anonymous, but, men taking responsibility as they age. Since Adam, all governments were born from the human families–and Israel had elder-governance even in Egypt. During the time of the “Judges”, God was able to work with localities individually with disciplines. When the folks served God, they prospered, when they served idols, either famine or adversaries were brought to bear bringing about a sincere repentance. Now, the King’s sins, become the people’s sin–we see this even with David. Or, the sins of the democratically elected become the sins of the people–by that I mean, the people are affected adversely by it, as if they had sinned. The doctrine of ancestral sin, works in governments. When our bishops err, we all will suffer one way or another–its all baked into the equation. Yet, historically, the gravitas of the Church was in the bishop/presbyter level, not above it. St Paul knew nothing of an over arching patriarch. Yet, humanity, even Orthodox humanity, cries out for some sort of overarching king. This obsession that took Israel out of God’s hands, placed them into human hands still lives. Even American litigation precedent bears this out. All church properties are owned by the diocese, never the Patriarch level. But, nobody owns the people.
Have a fruitful Holy Week, and a blessed Pascha!