The Ecumenical Patriarchate

We shall point out that the penality in the canons are to depose clergy and excommunicate laymen for schism. The canon refers to those who cause the schism either not knowing the other clergy to be manifestly at fault either in point of piety or in point of righteousness or without knowing him (them) to be manifestly heretical or unjust! No such claims were made about Archbishop Ofiesh of Blessed Memory or the other synod bishops to date. Our Church did not case the Schism but in fact were victims of it and those who caused it violated the Scared and Divine canons.

The actual Schism in American Orthodoxy was caused, in 1929, by Ecumenical Patriarch Basil and the Greek Archbishop, Alexander, of the new Greek Archdiocese in America and other jurisdictions. It has been reported that +Alexander of the Greek Archdiocese told +Aftimios that he, Alexander, was over all Orthodox in North America. There was no canonical authority for this claim since we were canonically established in the New World by the Russian Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate

The Ecumenical Patriarch is First Among equals, equals meaning all the other Patriarch's in the Orthodox Communion. The Ecumenical Patriarch is not over all Orthodox worldwide, as Patriarch Alexy of blessed memory stated publicly in response to a claim about the Ecumenical Patriarch being the leader of all Orthodox worldwide. His response was that all Orthodox Patriarchs are equal and each Patriarch heads his own Orthodox jurisdicion.

There is no canon that calls on the Patriarchates to work to destroy a Church so they may assume that Churches Jurisdiction - but that is what occured in the New World when the Russian Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate chartered this Church. That is the Schism! They turned their backs on this Church, so for years later the Archbishop wanted a tribunal and he married in a civil ceremony. No tribunal was ever called. The ethnic orthodox, out of Greed for power and territory decided they wanted to be the American Church and they caused this schism in American Orthodoxy that violated the canons.

It should also be noted that in 2009 the Ecumenical Patriarch, when notified of violations of the canons by other Orthodox clergy ignored this information and allows such violations to occur. It also appears he ignored public information of violations of the canons since the Antiochian Patriarch Ignatius IV and Metropolitan Philip allowed a priest to remarry and remain a priest and this informaton was public all along.