The 91-year-old head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America has resigned after nearly 20 years of leading the nation’s largest Orthodox population, his tenure ending amid financial struggle — manifested by the mothballed shell of an ambitious national shrine project.
And now the global leader of Eastern Orthodoxy is preparing for a swift appointment of a successor by as soon as Saturday, causing the U.S. archdiocese’s top council to issue a public letter urging a slowdown of the process.
Archbishop Demetrios of the U.S. church submitted his resignation last Saturday to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople, who oversees a synod that has the ultimate say in appointing a successor.
The charter of the U.S. church grants its Archdiocesan Council — which includes bishops, priests and lay people — a role in advising that synod and presenting recommendations for a new archbishop.
But in a letter posted Friday, the council expressed “our surprise and concern” that the patriarch informed it on Thursday that it had only until 2 p.m. Friday to make any recommendations. The council said it needed at least 30 days to “complete the required advisory process, with appropriate speed and diligence.”
If the synod insists on a quick appointment, the council urged that it pick one of the current American bishops.
“It was the strong desire of the council that it be allowed to offer its advice in the manner prescribed in the regulations,” said Metropolitan Savas Zembillas, bishop of Pittsburgh. “This is the procedure that is prescribed by the patriarchate.”
He noted that Patriarch Bartholomew just oversaw the naming of a new archbishop for Australia, and he hopes he allows for some deliberation for the U.S. appointment.
“We are his largest and most active and important eparchy (jurisdiction), and he is anxious to provide us the best possible leadership as soon as possible,” he said.
A Greek-born, Harvard-educated scholar, Archbishop Demetrios was appointed archbishop in 1999 and was seen as soothing the waters after his predecessor’s tumultuous tenure.
In 2017, Archbishop Demetrios announced he was “utterly surprised and saddened” to learn of a severe financial deficit. An auditor later found the archdiocese improperly borrowed from a fund that was supposed to be dedicated to the building of a national shrine where a Greek Orthodox parish church had been crushed on Sept. 11, 2001, by the falling World Trade Center.
The archdiocese has since cut staff and repaid what it borrowed, and it says it has stabilized its finances.
But cost overruns continue to plague the Ground Zero project, the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine. Archbishop Demetrios envisioned it as a “masterpiece of architecture,” intended as both a memorial and as a landmark of Greek Orthodoxy in America.
But the costs to create the masterpiece grew to be far larger than were publicly announced, an auditor’s report said. The contractor halted work on it mid-project, and the new archbishop will inherit the problem of how to fund and restart it.
The archdiocese has said it cooperated with a federal investigation into the finances.
Peter Smith: petersmith@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416; Twitter @PG_PeterSmith.
First Published: May 10, 2019, 8:23 p.m.
