Author: Lawrence B. Wheeler

B.A., M.Div. Former Anglican priest, convert to Orthodoxy.

This Budde’s for You, Mr. President!

It was the morning of the day that Donald Trump would be inaugurated president for the second and last time. The customary prayer service for the president’s tenure in the highest office in the land was held in the majestic National Cathedral. I visited the grand church many years ago and was duly impressed by the shear scale of the structure on a rise in the otherwise flat District of Columbia. It didn’t take much to impress me because I’ve always been enamored of Gothic church architecture, but that edifice is truly massive. There was something queer about it, though. As I stood in the center aisle near the west door in the back of the church, it was clear that the chancel way up forward was not on center. It was skewed markedly to the left. How symbolic of the politics of the Episcopal Church! Was this flaw a demonstration of the Almighty’s subtle sense of humor?

Back to Inauguration Day, 2025. Donald Trump, the non-political real estate magnate and entrepreneur turned politician was soon to be sworn in. He had not yet taken his first action as president, but he sat there chomping at the bit like a race horse in the gate. Protocol demanded that he be docile just for a short duration while he was seated at the feet of Mariann Budde, the bishopess of the small but influential Episcopal Diocese of Washington. Budde is an unassuming woman, small of stature, quiet of voice, lacking the type of personal charisma that one would expect from a hierarch in her vaunted office in our capital city. She was dressed the part in her long rochette and chemire with her master’s academic hood draping down the back, and black tippet down the front. But underneath the finery Budde’s demeanor was thoroughly unimpressive. She would look less out of place officiating at a little noonday service in a side chapel than she did that morning in the nave of the cathedral. I had noticed the lack of appeal in the woman when she officiated at Jimmy Carter’s funeral only days before, so it was clear that she wasn’t just having a bad day the morning of Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

Like ships passing in the night?

The unassuming bishopess reminds me of Winston Churchill’s quip about the prime minister who followed him in office after World War II and whom he in turn succeeded. “An empty taxi pulled up to Whitehall and Mr. Attlee got out.” Dare I say that another nondescript prime minister, the grey but pernicious Keir Starmer has about the same personal appeal as old one-termer Clement Attlee, the father of the British welfare state. Marriann Budde with shortly-cropped hair and lack of makeup looks and acts like these British beta-men. Uninspiring is the word one might use just to be polite.

At the end of her unimpressive homily, Budde decided she had a singular chance to take a dig at the president soon-to-be. In a soft motherly tone, she pleaded with Pres. Trump to have mercy on the transgendered youth and the illegal migrants in the country. Apparently, some were afraid even for their lives. Perhaps those fears are justified, not because of what Pres. Trump might do, but rather because of the permanent damage that bodily mutilation might do. Pleas for so-called “gender-affirming care” are utterly disingenuous. I despise the usage of that misleading euphemism for the chemical interruption of puberty and the butchery of castrations and double mastectomies. Budde spoke in soft, irenic tones implying support for medical interventions that would have delighted the monster Dr. Mengelè of Nazi notoriety. Budde has children of her own; would she have allowed them in their pubescent confusion to complain that they had been born in the wrong body? The devil appears as an angel of light, and sometimes in episcopal finery.

This Budde’s for you, Mr. President!

From her perch in the cathedral’s grand pulpit, Budde urged Mr. Trump to have mercy also on the illegal immigrants that Joe Biden deliberately encouraged to flood into our country. She wasn’t aware how naïve she sounded when she spoke in support of the invasion of millions of unvetted foreigners who have placed a tremendous burden on our welfare safety net. Surely she wasn’t so stupid as to deny the fact that many illegal foreign criminals have raped, maimed, and killed American citizens and stolen their property. Where, O where was the bishopess’ compassion for her fellow Americans and their need to be safe on America’s streets? Likewise for the sakes of many illegal aliens in our country who are trapped here as indentured servants by criminals as child laborers or prostitutes. Deportation may just be the way for some who are at the mercy of drug cartels and gangs of thugs to break free from their own personal bondage.

Imagine the ire that Mr. Trump must have suppressed while he was forced to listen to Democrat talking points coming from the pulpit where Gospel words of encouragement would have been welcome to the ears of the incoming president.

One might get the impression that EMM prefers sexually deviant migrants to run-of-the-mill migrants.

Let us also be cognizant of this fact: Budde’s moral posturing conveniently omits the fact that the Episcopal Migration Ministry (EMM), the federal contracting arm of her church, has been profiting immensely from taxpayer-funded government programs aimed at resettling migrants. In 2023 alone, EMM raked in $53 million to resettle 3,600 individuals, according to the New York Post. (Jim Hoff, Gateway Pundit, 2/5/25) That’s a generous $14,722 per migrant. Did all of that money go to the migrants? One might ask what the Episcopal Church is doing abetting illegal migration anyway.

“I want to build up the liberal church again so we can be a legitimate conversation partner in the public arena,” Bp. Budde told The Washington Post five years ago. (AP, JUNE 1, 2020) The Episcopal Church has always been pretty good at keeping records. Statistics show that the Diocese of Washington — that is the Episcopal Church in our nation’s capital and part of Maryland — suffered a drop in average Sunday attendance at services during the decade between 2014 and 2023. Washington is a small diocese in both land area and membership. Of the 30,000 members, only 13,330 showed up on any given Sunday in 2014, but as one might suspect, that number dropped over the years to 8,483 in 2023, even accounting for an uptick in interest after Covid. Although one must admit that all of the old mainline Protestant denominations have suffered similar losses in attendance over the years, the trend is not exactly a ringing endorsement for Bp. Budde’s episcopate, which commenced when these numbers began to be tabulated. She was consecrated bishop and installed as the diocesan ordinary on November 12, 2011.

Mr. Trump’s assessment of Ms. Budde is more profound than he may have intended it to be, for truth be told, Budde is no bishop. She is no bishop because she is no priest. She is no priest because she is a woman. The Church — the one, holy catholic and Orthodox Church — has never ordained women to the priesthood, much less the episcopacy. The Episcopal Church adhered to this ancient tradition until 1976, the year that I graduated from college. That is the year when the national Church voted to normalize the so-called ordinations of the Philadelphia Eleven, women who had received the laying on of hands in 1974 by retired robber bishops who acted in ultra vires fashion, scandalizing the entire Episcopal Church. Now saddled with that fait accompli, the liberals in Massachusetts elected Barbara Harris, a radical black priestess and consecrated her suffragan bishop for that diocese in 1988. Barbara Harris, the first woman to be consecrated bishop in the Anglican Communion, was conveniently black, so any critical reaction to her ordination was considered racist, not merely sexist. Women had now swung their hips and barged into all of the major orders of the Church.

Barbara Harris, the first woman to be consecrated bishop in the Anglican Communion, was conveniently black.

With Barbara Harris’ illicit elevation to the episcopacy, any doubt that the Episcopal Church was a swinging branch of the greater Church Catholic was removed once and for all. The Episcopal Church, the American branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion, still prides itself on its claim as the third branch of the Church Catholic along with the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics. They are decidedly not so. They never were, except in their own mistaken theology: the Branch Theory.

To confirm their contention to be “The Church of What’s Happening Now”, the national Church approved the 2003 election of Vicky Gene Robinson to become bishop coadjutor with right of succession to the seat of the Diocese of New Hampshire. Robinson was a gay man, despite the feminine name, who was once married to a woman with whom he sired two daughters, but then divorced the mother. He came out of the closet and acquired a male partner whom he later “married”… and subsequently divorced. Robinson is not exactly a bishop above reproach.

Bp. Vicky Gene Robinson. His parents wanted a girl, it’s said.
Notice that the capital P on Robinson’s rainbow mitre is in the same font as the P’s in Planned Parenthood. Abortion is another issue enthusiastically advocated by the Episcopal Church.

What do I mean by the Branch Theory? The Anglican Communion as a whole claims that their bishops have always been ordained by senior bishops in an unbroken line of apostolic succession. They can even unroll ecclesiastical genealogies to prove their places on the family tree. The problem is that mere succession to the apostles is not enough to maintain one’s rightful place of honor within the universal Church. Adherence to the Apostolic Tradition is just as necessary as membership in the Apostolic Succession. The influence of the Calvinist and Lutheran movements of the sixteenth century led the mother Church in England to jettison aspects of Tradition which the Catholic Church had maintained even after the eleventh century rupture with the Orthodox East. For example, five of the seven sacraments were downgraded to sacramentals. The mystical epiclesis of the Eucharist was removed. And King Henry VIII plundered the monasteries to fill the royal coffers after he declared himself Supreme Head of the Church of England in 1531, depriving the pope of Rome of his place atop the hierarchy. We Orthodox don’t even accept the Roman Church’s contention that they are the One True Church of Jesus Christ; the notion that the Anglican Communion ever was a branch of the same tree has been utterly rejected by our hierarchs several times in history. The shenanigans performed by the Anglican Churches makes any claim to catholicity utterly laughable now that the Episcopal Church in particular has made a mockery of their Holy Orders.

I must admit with a tinge of sadness that I was born and raised in the Episcopal Church and later was trained and ordained a priest in its sister jurisdiction, the Nippon Seikokai. When the Seikokai decided in convention in 1990 to study the prospect of ordaining women to the priesthood, I knew the handwriting was on the wall. The first woman to be made deacon was Margaret Shibukawa, a senior colleague of mine in the Chubu Diocese centered in Nagoya. She ultimately was the first woman to be priested in Japan. At a clericus in the mountains of Nagano, Shibukawa complained in front of all the clergy of the diocese that I was targeting her for criticism. I stated plainly that my reasons for opposing her potential ordination were not personal, but rather theological. Women had never been ordained to the priesthood because they were not qualified to officiate at the unbloody sacrifice which is the Eucharist. Not only that, but the Scriptures, specifically St. Paul, did not permit women to teach men (I Timothy 2:12). He even prevented women from speaking in the Church! (I Corinthians 14:34) As valid as my argument was, it was ignored by Ms. Shibukawa and our bishop Samuel Hoyo. For that reason and others, I left the Nippon Seikokai and returned stateside with my family in 1994; Ms. Shibukawa was ordained the first woman priest in 1998.

from the website of the Nippon Seikokai provincial office in Tokyo.

Here is what I would say to the bishop of Washington given the chance: Ms. Budde, if I may say so, your vindictive little stunt before the president was uncalled for. You may have scored points among your fellow liberal Episcopalians and Democrats, but a large portion of the country found it to be in poor taste. I agree with the president; you owe him and the country an apology.

Nervous in the Service

I am going to admit my lack of faith. An Orthodox believer who practices the peace of God ought to be perfectly calm, I know. But I am no saint, so I am nervous.

It looks as though the candidate whom I support in his bid for the presidency has a good chance to nab a victory, but the polls are so close that it would be a fool’s errand to say that it is in the bag for him. A slim advantage in any swing state that falls within the margin of error does not allay one’s concern that the numbers may add up to Harris’ advantage.

She is the candidate who was thrust forward by the marionette masters of the incumbent party who realized late in the game that the original candidate was just as senile and indolent as we had all suspected since the campaign of 2020. But they have the home team advantage. That advantage is reinforced by the mass media who, with a few exceptions, are owned by left-leaning oligarchs. Let us hope that the refusal of three newspapers of record to endorse Harris is an indication that they know more than we do and are acting accordingly. Jeff Bezos may be thinking ahead to January and hedging his bets, sensing that it is prudent to refrain from antagonizing the candidate who may soon be in a position to make life difficult for the owner of Washington’s own newspaper.

Caption required?

Apart from these factors, the ideological left have long since marched through the institutions of education, entertainment, and even religion. America’s own Greek Orthodox Archdiocese under Elpidophoros is in bed with the Democrats.

Kamala’s campaign is flush with cash from wealthy donors like that dubious character, Bill Gates. Old Bill has been indicted in Holland over his promotion of the Covid vaccines, which are useless at best and murderous at worst. Gates is certainly keen to see Harris waltz into the Oval Office so that he can duck any indictment stateside, so he slipped her campaign a cool $50 mil.

It is still October and a cursèd Halloween surprise is not beyond the pale of possibility. Women who practice witchcraft are busy putting hexes on Donald Trump in an attempt to thrust a stick between the spokes of his bicycle as he glides toward the finish line. It is said that their conjurings have come to naught due to an inexplicable Force that fouls their plans in the metaphysical world. It seems to be the case that the prayers of myriad believers are being heard.

Donald Trump is no saint. We all know that, do we not? Beside that, not every decision that he made as the 45th president passed the smell test. Jim Jatras, one Orthodox intellectual whom I have recently had the privilege to get to know, thinks that Trump still has not learned his lesson. He will make similar mistakes, despite being granted a second chance.

I know a lot less than Jim about the Machiavellian nature of Washington’s denizens, so I can be excused for being cautiously optimistic that Trump will perform better as 47th president than he did as 45th. But first he needs to win that second term. That is what makes me nervous. Ballot drop boxes have been burned in Oregon, the secretary of state in Colorado has given away the codes to her computerized voting machines, and hundreds of ballots have found their way from the trunk of a sedan with Rhode Island plates into drop boxes in Pennsylvania. 2020 redux? Dear God, I hope not!

What if Trump wins in spite of the cheating committed by the opposing camp. Will the vice president of the country and president of the Senate certify the electors’ votes? Let us hope that she acts with the same integrity that a previous Senate president and himself candidate for the presidency, Richard Nixon, did in January of 1961. His decision to reject calls for a recount and certify that election gave the nation John F. Kennedy, despite the shenanigans that went on while ballots were being counted in Chicago and Texas, and despite the razor-thin margin here in Hawai’i.

In any case, let us pray that both candidates be protected by divine providence from bodily harm, and that a godly tranquility will descend upon the electorate, no matter which way the pendulum swings on November 5.

Elpidophoros the Prevaricator

Abp. Elpidophoros has accomplished a trifecta. On June 11, the archbishop of the Greek Church in the Americas once again cast pearls before swine by celebrating the divine mysteries in the synagogue of Satan, St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in Manhattan. The same parish, grand in its bastard Byzantine architecture, is the epicenter of the abominable homosexual and transgender movement to queer Manhattan. Here are three remarks that fell trippingly from Elpi’s lips during the liturgy and this author’s initial reactions to them. Elpi is a prevaricator, or a damned liar, if you prefer.

St. Bart’s, Manhattan festooned with the old rainbow flag.

Elpi the Prevaricator makes bold to say, “Such connectedness with others is often feared in many Christian communities today, as if contact with those of differing perspectives might somehow pollute one’s faith.” Fiddlesticks! We all distinctly recall that it was Elpidophoros, archbishop of the GOA, who meanly refused to grant religious exemptions to the faithful who could not, for conscience’ sake, submit themselves to inoculation with an experimental serum during the pandemic. So much for Elpi’s own ability to listen to differing perspectives.

Elpi the Prevaricator boasts, “Thus, the Ecumenical Patriarch models for the Orthodox Christian Church, and for all people of good will, what it means to love your neighbor, even as you claim to love God.” What a patent lie! Bartholomew betrayed the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by unilaterally proclaiming the founding of a phony replacement entity in that cradle of Slavic Orthodoxy. Black Bart’s ultra vires meddling led to the disenfranchisement of the UOC in her motherland and the persecution of her clergy and people, and the theft of her property. History will not be kind to that schismatic, Black Bart of Istanbul.

Elpi the Prevaricator exaggerates: “The Patriarch welcomes all at the Phanar, the Sacred Center of worldwide Orthodoxy.” Not so. Orthodoxy doesn’t have a headquarters like the Vatican. Constantinople’s Phanar is a mere shadow of its former grandeur, but even at the apogee of its trajectory, it never was the “sacred center of Orthodoxy”. The hierarchical authority of the Church has always been shared by the several patriarchates and metropolises. Thank God for the decentralization, especially now when Orthodoxy groans at the heresies and schisms caused by Bartholomew and Elpidophoros.

Elpi at the “big, fat Greek gay baptism”

There is No Alternative

The godless minions of the Democrat Party have played their latest hand in the game of Lawfare quite successfully. Never before has a president of the United States been convicted of a crime, but now the vindictive Democrats have made one for the Guinness Book of World Records. The kangaroo court in Manhattan has taken one of the most bogus lawsuits to date and conducted a shamefully flawed trial that will go down in the annals of legal history. For all intents and purposes, America is now a banana republic. The only way to turn this around is for the voting public to cast their ballots for Donald Trump in November, if for no other reason than to spite the demonic powers that have nigh on overthrown the rule of law in our beloved country.

The CIA’s Man in Constantinople

The U.S. government is making itself felt in Orthodox internal politics.

(The following article is so good that Handwritings’ editor has decided to lift it wholesale from its original publication, The American Conservative. All credit for this fine piece is attributed to its author, Michael Warren Davis. Photos and captions are not from the original text.)

Everyone knows that the Moscow Patriarchate is in bed with the Kremlin. Few realize that the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople is deeply beholden to the United States government. 

This ignorance is surprising, given that many Greek Orthodox leaders are quite proud of the fact. In 1942, Athenagoras Spyrou—the Archbishop of America for the Greek Orthodox Church—wrote to an agent of the Office of Strategic Services. “I have three Bishops, three hundred priests, and a large and far-flung organization,” Athenagoras wrote. “Every one under my order is under yours. You may command them for any service you require. There will be no questions asked and your directions will be executed faithfully.” 

In 1947, the OSS was rechristened as the Central Intelligence Agency, or CIA. One year later, Athenagoras was elected Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodoxy. 

One might point out that, when Athenagoras reached out to the OSS, his native Greece was under Nazi occupation. It is understandable that a Greek bishop in America would support the American war effort. But it was more than that. Athenagoras was a strong supporter of American exceptionalism and encouraged Washington’s militarist foreign policy. The U.S. Consul in Istanbul recounted a conversation with Athenagoras in 1951: “As usual, he talked at some length of his belief that the United States must remain in the Near East for several centuries to fulfill the mission which had been given it by God to give freedom, prosperity and happiness to all people.”

(These quotes, by the way, are pulled from a talk given by an Orthodox historian called Matthew Namee at Holy Cross Hellenic College, the Greek seminary in Boston. These are not malicious forgeries peddled by Russian propagandists—the Greek Orthodox are quite proud of their association with the American deep state.)

Athenagoras was not merely an Americanist. He was also known as a renovationist, as liberal Orthodox are known. In 1964, he met with Pope Paul VI in Jerusalem; together, they officially lift the mutual excommunications placed by their predecessors in 1054. This gesture sparked outrage across Orthodox world. Athenagoras was accused of compromising the Orthodox Faith for the sake of a paper union with Rome.

Bartholomew whispering sweet nothings into Elpidophoros’ ear.

The current Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew, is cut from the same cloth as Athenagoras. He is very close to Pope Francis; the two share a passion for mass immigration and environmental activism. Also like Athenagoras, Bartholomew shares a close relationship with the U.S. government—a partnership that has proven mutually beneficial.

The Ecumenical Patriarch is the spiritual leader of Orthodoxy. However, he only has direct jurisdiction over a few thousand Orthodox Christians in Turkey. The rest of the Greek Orthodox world are autocephalous, or self-governing. This includes the Church of Greece, the Church of Cyprus, and the American metropolises (or dioceses). Many look to Bartholomew for leadership, but they are not directly under his authority. It is also worth noting that a large majority of Orthodox Christians around the world belong to the Russian Orthodox tradition. These churches do not look to Bartholomew for leadership in any meaningful way. Some, like the Patriarchate of Moscow, are in schism with Constantinople.

Bartholomew is not the “pope” of Orthodoxy—although he would like to be. Over the last few decades, the ecumenical patriarch has also worked to consolidate hard power over the various Greek Orthodox churches. This effort has proven most fruitful in the United States. 

In 2014, Elpidophoros Lambriniadis, the current Archbishop of America and Bartholomew’s heir apparent, published a short essay called “First Without Equals.” Its name was a play on the phrase primus inter pares, or first among equals. This title originally referred to the Pope of Rome, but was transferred to Patriarch of Constantinople by the Orthodox following the Great Schism of 1054. Of course, the Schism itself was caused in no small part by a sense that the Roman Pontiffs failed to respect the rights and privileges of their fellow bishops, especially in the Christian East. Clearly, the Archbishop was signaling his desire to cultivate a more authoritarian, centralist ecclesiology within the Orthodox Church, a philosophy which has been dubbed Greek papism. 

In 2022, during an interview with the Greek newspaper Ta Nea, Elpidophoros was asked if he expected to become the next Ecumenical Patriarch. Elpidophoros demurred, claiming that “the succession will be decided by God.” This, too, is a radical departure from Orthodox tradition. In fact, it goes beyond Greek papism. Even the Roman Catholic Church explicitly denies that the Pope is chosen by God.

Nevertheless, the United States government officially supports the doctrine of Greek papism, as will be shown. Strengthening the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s position within global Orthodoxy serves two purposes. First, it necessarily subtracts from the influence of Constantinople’s rival, the Moscow Patriarchate. Washington regards Russian Orthodoxy as a tool for Kremlin propaganda and, therefore, a legitimate target for counterintelligence operations. Secondly, the renovationist Ecumenical Patriarchs are willing partners in Washington’s campaign to spread liberal, democratic values across the globe. 

Consider, for example, the schism in the Ukrainian Church. In 1990, the Patriarchate of Moscow granted self-governing status to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC). It was not, however, given full autocephaly. However, a group of Ukrainian nationalists led by then-president Minister Petro Poroshenko organized an “independent” Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). With the support of Western media, these nationalists successfully branded the canonical UOC as the “Russian Church.”

In 2018, when asked about the Orthodox Church of Ukraine’s bid for autocephaly, Kurt Volker—then Special Representative of the United States Department of State for Ukraine—appeared to wave the question off. He insisted that the U.S. government does not take a position on such matters and would respect the decision of Bartholomew and his synod. 

Make no mistake: By declaring that the decision belongs to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the U.S. government is taking a position. First of all, autocephaly cannot be granted unilaterally by any patriarch or bishop. Second, if the decision belonged to anyone, it would be the Patriarch of Moscow, the spiritual leader of Slavic Orthodoxy. Even the great Kallistos Ware denounced the Ecumenical Patriarchate for meddling in the Ukrainian Church:

Though I am a metropolitan of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, I am not at all happy about the position taken by Patriarch Bartholomew. With all due respect to my Patriarch, I am bound to say that I agree with the view expressed by the Patriarchate of Moscow that Ukraine belongs to the Russian Church. After all, the Metropolia of Kiev by an agreement of 1676 was transferred from the omophorion of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to that of the Patriarchate of Moscow. So, for 330 years Ukraine has been part of the Russian Church.

Third, just days before Volker gave his interview, Joe Biden—then only the former vice president—flew to Ukraine to express his support for the OCU. As soon as Bartholomew ruled in favor of the OCU church, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo expressed the Trump administration’s firm support for his decision. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, our government has implicitly supported Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky’s policy of seizing property(including church buildings) from the UOC and transferring them to the OCU. In one particularly egregious episode, a nationalist mob attacked a UOC church in the middle of a funeral, dispersed the worshippers and beat the celebrant-priest so badly he had to be hospitalized. The kicker? It was a funeral for a Ukrainian soldier who died fighting against Russia.

This one detail cannot be emphasized enough: Whatever the media claims, the canonical UOC is not an arm of Russian influence. Its members are not “pro-Russia”; much less are they Russian collaborators. They, too, are giving their lives to defend their homeland against Russian aggression. But that doesn’t matter to Washington or Constantinople. By supporting the separatists, Bartholomew is undermining Moscow’s influence within global Orthodoxy. And that’s good for the Russophobes in our foreign-policy establishment.

In 2019, the State Department gave $100,000 to the Orthodox Times, a news site strongly aligned with the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The purpose? “To counter entities spreading fake news and misguiding believers in Orthodox communities”—in other words, Russian disinformation. 

It’s ironic that Trump’s State Department pursued this pro-Constantinople agenda given that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is openly and proudly aligned with the Democratic Party. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America boasts: 

President Truman often emphasized the pro-American convictions of Patriarch Athenagoras and the importance and influence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, along with the Greek Orthodox community in the U.S., as vital to American foreign policy objectives. Indeed, Truman saw the Patriarchate and Athenagoras as crucial to bolstering the pro-Western resolve of both Greece and Turkey, as well as to promoting stability in the Middle East.

In 2020, Patriarch Bartholomew wrote to congratulate his old friend Biden for defeating Donald Trump in the presidential election. “You can only imagine my great joy and pride for your successful election as the 46th president of your distinguished nation, the United States of America.” Archbishop Elpidophoros, in that same interview with Ta Nea, also offered a thinly-veiled endorsement of Joe Biden:

In America, the issue of abortion has been completely politicized…. It is as if the only qualification for being a good Christian or a good politician depends on one’s stance on the issue of abortion. All other principles and doctrines of Christianity do not matter; you can be a crook, a liar, a swindler, a warmonger, violent, or a misogynist, but if you are against abortion, then you are a politician suitable enough for “pious people” to support.

As Rod Dreher pointed out, this little-noticed interview contains quite a few shocking revelations. For instance, Elpidophoros is not simply concerned that abortion has been “politicized”: he is openly pro-choice. “Women bear the full burden in giving birth and raising their children, while men, otherwise directly involved in the pregnancy, do not bear the same burden,” he told Ta Nea. “Therefore, we must support women’s right to make reproductive decisions of their own free will.” Elpidophoros also discusses how proud he was to support the protests which erupted after the death of George Floyd, as well as the infamous “gay baptism.”

For those who aren’t up on their Orthodox church politics: In 2022, Elpidophoros baptized the sons of two wealthy Greek-Americans, Evangelo Bousis and Peter Dundas. (The children were conceived through surrogacy.) The baptism was performed in Vouliagmeni, a suburb of Athens. This set off a firestorm in world Orthodoxy for two reasons. Firstly, it is wrong to baptize a child if there is little to no chance of their being raised according to the Church’s teachings. The parents are making a commitment to their child to the Christian faith without giving them the tools to fulfill that commitment. Second, visiting clergy (including bishops) must receive permission from the local metropolitan before publicly celebrating the sacraments within their jurisdiction. In this case, the local metropolitan was Antonios of Glyfada. Elpidophoros requested and was granted permission to baptize the children of an American couple, but did not inform Antonios that the parents were a same-sex couple. 

Elpidophoros was condemned by the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece as well as the monks of Mount Athos, but he didn’t care. The Archbishop was simply giving the Orthodox world a taste of how he’ll do things once he becomes Ecumenical Patriarch. 

Karloutsos yucking it up with Elpidophoros. Rumor has it that, truth be told, they can’t stand each other.

There’s more. In 2019, Elpidophoros appointed Father Alexander Karloutsos as vicar-general for the Archdiocese of America. Father Alexander is, for all practical purposes, the Biden family’s pastor. He sits on the board of the Beau Biden Foundation and serves as a spiritual advisor to the President. In 2015, Father Alexander attended a (now infamous) dinner hosted by Hunter Biden at the Café Milano in Georgetown. The dinner was a private reception for several Eastern European oligarchs, including Yury Luzhkov, the profoundly corrupt former Mayor of Moscow. This was the night that Hunter introduced his father to Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at Burisma, allegedly fulfilling the deal for which Baturina had paid Hunter $3.5 million the year before.

More troublingly, Father Alexander is also close to John Poulos, the Greek-Canadian founder of Dominion Voting Systems. Father Alexander has been credibly accused of serving as a go-between for Poulos and the Bidens during the 2020 election scandal. It is said that the priest relayed information between the two parties, but cannot be subpoenaed due to New York’s clergy privilege laws. Though all parties admit that Father Alexander was in frequent communication with both parties during that time, they also insist that he was simply offering them spiritual counsel. Undoubtedly both Poulos and Biden spent those difficult months in prayer and fasting.

As it happens, in 2018, Father Alexander also found himself at the center of an $80 million financial scandal, which was probed by the U.S. government. The federal government’s investigation to the matter was dropped shortly after it began, despite the fact that no explanation was ever unearthed. When President Biden awarded Father Alexander the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year, he jokingly warned, “I’m going to ruin your reputation by talking.”

Unfortunately, such allegations of corruption are fairly widespread in the Archdiocese of America. The Greek Orthodox Church is by far the wealthiest denomination in this country relative to its size. (A Roman Catholic priest can expect to make no more than $45,000 per year; a Greek Orthodox priest can earn upwards of $130,000.) There are many well-established second-generation families who still feel a deep loyalty to the Church even if they tend not to practice very faithfully. 

In other words, the Archdiocese of America is in roughly the same position that the Catholic Church was under Kennedy. It is rich in capital and assets but largely beholden to secular, liberal donors. Hence why the Hellenic College Holy Cross, the Greek Orthodox seminary, refers to former congressman Michael Huffington as a “faithful Orthodox Christian” despite the fact that he’s a practicing homosexual who publicly dissents from the Church’s teaching on sexuality.

Happily, most Greek Orthodox jurisdictions are not renovationist; neither are they in the pocket of the American government or beholden to liberal, secular donors. In fact, when the Greek parliament voted to ratify same-sex marriage, the Church of Greece called the decision “demonic” and excommunicated several of the “immoral lawmakers” who voted for the bill. 

But whatever our government may claim, it will promote Bartholomew and his successor, Elpidophoros, as “Greek Popes” in order to liberalize Greek Orthodoxy and counter Russian Orthodoxy. This is the policy of the U.S. government. There are State Department personnel (and taxpayer dollars) dedicated to achieving this exact goal. It is discussed—openly; gleefully—in the major institutions of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Archdiocese of America. And yet anyone who suggests that this is a gross betrayal of both the American people and the Orthodox faithful is immediately accused of being a “Russian asset.” Go figure.

EDITOR’S COMMENT: The author of this fine article, Michael Warren Davis, lays all the cards on the table vis à vis the infuriating duplicity of Greek Orthodoxy’s two jackals, Bartholomew and Elpidophoros, and Karloutsos, the hyena. We might ask ourselves whom we have to blame for promoting those three men’s betrayal of our Faith and their unjustified enmity against Russian Orthodoxy.

Why, no one else but our very own CIA and the Biden administration!

A vote to reëlect Biden and his Democrats this fall will be a vote to support the corruption which is American foreign policy for Ukraine and a vote to deepen the rift between Moscow and Istanbul, aka Constantinople. You many American Greeks who intend to defy righteousness and do just that had best take a time to fast and pray before you vote, knowing that heaven will hold you responsible for your 2024 ballot.