Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
As some of you may know, we have three new Auxiliary Bishops in Canada. According to an article in the Orthodox Times, our new bishops are as follows:
Father Nektaros Mostratos was elected Bishop of Keramos and has now been ordained Bishop Bartholomew
Father Alexandros Salmas was elected Bishop of Patara and has now been ordained Bishop Athenagoras
Father Dimitrios Antonopoulos was elected Bishop of Zinoupolis and has now been ordained Bishop Iakovos
My understanding is that these three men were Archimandrites prior to their ordination. I hope that they will be ΑΧΙΟΙ, or worthy of their ordinations to the hierarchy, but since we, the laity, were not consulted about it (as we should have been), and I, personally, knew nothing about the background of these men, here are the results of my searches.
- Bishop Bartholomew, previously Archimandrite Nectarios Mostratos, has some history recorded on the Greek Orthodox Community of West Island of Montreal website here, which is an interesting history of this community. Regarding BB, it only states: “In August 2004 the Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios Mostratos was appointed Rector of the Holy Cross Church in Laval…” It appears that he served there for at least 40 years according to the site which states “The HCGM congratulates the Very Rev. Nektarios Mostratos on the 40th Anniversary of his Ordination”. I also learned that he had a special relationship with Father Seraphim Rose which can be found here. I was unable to find anything else. If anyone has any further information, I would greatly appreciate you sharing it in the comments with those of us who have never lived in Montreal, and do not know Bishop Bartholomew very well.
- Regarding Bishop Athenagoras, previously Archimandrite Alexandros Salmas, unfortunately, I could not find any biography regarding this new Bishop. I believe Bishop Athenagoras is from Greece and has never served in Canada before. It would be nice to know more about him.
- Bishop Iakovos, previously Archimandrite Dimitrios Antonopoulos, held an
interview which outlines his biography and which can be found here. He is also fluent in Greek, English, German and advanced French with knowledge of basic Spanish and basic Russian according to linked-in. He served at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Toronto from 2011 to 2013/2014 when he was transferred to Montreal. He first served at the Church of the Annunciation and then at St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Montreal. He is originally from Crete.
It would be nice if our Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in Canada had properly introduced to us these three new Auxiliary Bishops prior to their ordination as Canada is a large country and the majority of Greek-Canadian Orthodox people have no prior knowledge of them.
I also pray that our three new Auxiliary Bishops will prove to be truly ΑΧΙΟΙ, and will uphold Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition as it was passed down to us by Christ, His Apostles and our Holy Fathers. I pray that they will remember that their epitrachilion is supposed to be a “yolk” around their necks and the tassels on the bottom represent all the souls of the faithful who rely on their hierarchs for their salvation; and for which every hierarch will be held accountable. It is, indeed, a very grave undertaking. May the Holy Theotokos give strength and enlightenment to our new Auxiliary Bishops to rightly carry out their Orthodox responsibilities.
In Christ,
Irene
Orthodoxy in Canada is in crisis! Sign the petition here to preserve Orthodoxy by upholding the HOLY TRADITION (PARADOSIS) of the SINGLE COMMUNION SPOON. Visit our petition page for more information.
Time will tell if these Bishops are Axioi. They will either be sycophants of a heretic hierarch or have the courage of their faith in the bold tradition of St. Mark of Ephesus and other Holy Fathers of our Church who have bravely protected her from the storms of heresy.
Make no mistake, what this Archbishop is doing is heretical. And don’t get me started on his priests, many of whom (thankfully, not all) lack any credible training or education, yet act like seasoned theologians, slandering those who hold their feet to the fire as blasphemous. I ask you, since when are our Holy Traditions heretical and the faithful who defend them heretics?
If these belligerent priests think they’re pleasing their superior to avoid reassignment, they are only fooling themselves and angering the laity and God in the process – Φωνή λαού οργή Θεού.
And to make matters worse, the Archbishop has adopted yet a new argument in recent weeks to defend the indefensible. Now he accuses those who have chosen to not give Holy Communion under these blasphemous circumstances as committing a great sin. Someone should tell His Eminence that when he finds himself in a hole to stop digging.
Our St. Kosmas Aitolos Monastery has wisely chosen to not dispense Holy Communion while this heresy unfurls. God bless our beloved Mother Superior Alexia and our beautiful Sisters who understand that Holy Communion in and of itself does not save us if communing becomes mechanical as a result of a fear of contamination. If we are governed by this fear and not the fear of God then receiving will be to our condemnation…“it is as a lighted coal burning the unworthy.”
Far from committing a sin, our monastery and its new Priest, Father Fanourios, are a shining example of how we should struggle and fight for our faith and holy traditions.
It pains me to say this but this man is bereft of divine virtue. His actions and decisions give him away. This is why if we have to choose between what our holy monastery says and does and this impostor of an Archbishop, we must choose the monastery everyday and twice on Sundays.
Yes, we should pray for him and for us all. But what did he expect would happen when literally overnight he changed a 1000-year old holy tradition in the middle of a pandemic. Did he expect there would be no public outcry or push back? Does he fully understand the optics of his depraved decision? And by optics I mean optics in the eyes of God because Holy Communion after all is His sacred body and blood.
How presumptuous of us to think that even after insulting Him, doubting Him, fearing a communal spoon and its so-called power to contaminate Creator and communicant, alike, that God would still impart His Grace during the consecration process. Take some to think about that.
This crisis sickens me to no end because it was completely unnecessary yet here we are. God have mercy on us all and forgive us for what is happening in our churches.
Why not introduce each new Auxiliary Bishop in an Orthodox Voice series so we can learn more about them. Mind you, I agree with the writer, the Archdiocese should have done this when they were first elected, if not earlier, not after their respective consecrations.
And the Orthodox Voice program would have been a perfect platform to do so. It can still be. If anything, it would be a refreshing change from the Archbishop’s ongoing spiel about how the method of offering Holy Communion has changed throughout our Church’s history. He sounds like a broken record. Does he even know the meaning of the word context? Unlike all the other changes, this radical change has been triggered out of a fear of contamination in the middle of a pandemic, the consequences of which are so grave as to say to God He is contaminable on and by a communal spoon, so we must protect ourselves from God Himself and the “all-powerful” communal spoon and receive Him on a separate spoon.
O ye hypochondriacs, of little faith!
Anyway, getting back to our new bishops. We want to know more about them, especially where they stand on this horrid mess. Their “Axioi” moniker depends on it.
Watching the Archbishop’s weekly Orthodox Voice TV program is proving to be an exercise in futility and the very definition of insanity. With every video, I hope and pray he will finally see the error of his ways, but without failure and with a straight face he ends up saying the same thing over and over again, none of which bears any semblance to reality.
In today’s installment, for the upteenth time, he spewed nonsense about the Toronto City Council passing a bylaw about the method in which Holy Communion is dispensed. This is an outright falsehood but that’s his story and he’s sticking to it. Does he expect a highly educated laity to simply take what he says at face value, with no questions asked, and that we will follow him like sheep to the slaughter? It doesn’t take a lot of digging to find out there is no such bylaw or regulation, for if there were, our sister Orthodox Churches in Toronto would not be dispensing Holy Communion in the traditional way as they’ve been doing since churches reopened in June.
Does he expect us to believe that local governments have singled out the Greek Orthodox Church, and not our Serbian, Russian and Romanian brethren? MPP Christina Mitas has already publicly stated that the provincial government has not prohibited the dispensation of Holy Communion in the traditional way, so this crisis is not the province’s doing either. No, our Archdiocese deserves the credit for this fiasco, and for miscalculating the laity’s response to this multiple spoon experiment.
“Whoever has ears, let them hear.” We must pay close attention to what is happening and why, and see past the smoke and mirrors.