Corfu, Greece, August 12, 2021
Met. Nektarios (left), Met. Luke (right). Photo: romfea.gr
A great annual tradition was again honored on the Greek island of Corfu on Tuesday, in celebration of a miracle worked by the island’s patron saint more than 300 years ago.
In 1716 the island was besieged and blocked by a large Turkish army. The 40-day confrontation wore down the strength of the local inhabitants. Hoping for Divine intercession, the helpless people gathered in the Church of St. Spyridon and tearfully lifted up prayers to the saint. Suddenly, on the night of August 10 there erupted a terrible storm on the sea. Preparing themselves for the decisive battle, the island inhabitants learned of the great miracle that occurred in the night: eyewitnesses said that St. Sypridon, with an innumerable host of angels and a flaming sword, banished the multitudinous Turkish army from the island.
St. Spyridon, whose relics repose on the island, is one of the most beloved saints of the entire Orthodox Church, and this year, His Eminence Metropolitan Nektarios of Corfu was joined by a brother hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church—His Eminence Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye—for the feast, the Metropolis of Corfu reports.
Met. Nektarios is among the Greek hierarchs who vocally support Orthodoxy and canonical order in Ukraine and denounces both the anti-canonical intervention of the Patriarchate of Constantinople there and Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens’ recognition of the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine.”
The Metropolitan has consistently warned about the dangers of Constantinople’s invasion of Ukraine and consistently pledged his support for the canonical Church headed by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine. The Greek hierarch has also publicly noted that everyone was willing and wanted to dialogue on the Ukrainian issue, except Pat. Bartholomew.
As Met. Nektarios acknowledges, his stance greatly angers Pat. Bartholomew.
Moreover, it seems that those who are aligned with Constantinople are also quite upset that Met. Nektarios served with the Ukrainian hierarch Met. Luke, who has not been shy in his criticism of Pat. Bartholomew and his schismatic group in Ukraine.
Met. Luke has called the Patriarch a “heretic and blasphemer” who belongs in the anathemas proclaimed every year on the Sunday of Orthodoxy for the division he has wrought in the body of Orthodoxy. And after the primate of the Cypriot Church recognized the schismatics under “Metropolitan” Epiphany Dumenko, Met. Luke told him that he “supports blasphemers dressed up in priestly vestments.”
The Constantinople-aligned outlets Fos Fanariou and the Orthodox Times both ran articles yesterday expressing their extreme displeasure that Met. Netkarios dared to serve with Met. Luke, who “has lashed out with unheard of and offensive—at least— expressions, both against the Ecumenical Patriarch and against the Church of Greece and Cyprus,” in the words of the Orthodox Times.
In concelebrating with the Ukrainian hierarch, Met. Nektarios “shows unprecedented tolerance against the[se] insults,” writes Efi Efthimiou, the Editor in Chief for the Orthodox Times, and disobeys the Church of Greece to which he belongs:
The attitude of the Metropolitan of Corfu, that is, to concelebrate with Metropolitan of Zaporizhzhia [sic], an abuser and denier of the canonical status of the decision of both the Church of Greece and of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, places him against the line taken by the Church to which he belongs and serves.
It remains to be seen whether these actions of the Metropolitan of Corfu will go unnoticed by the hierarchy of the Church of Greece.
The issue could be discussed at the Greek Holy Synod meeting later this month, Efthimiou writes.
As the Union of Orthodox Journalists notes, the Ukrainian Church maintains communion with those Greek hierarchs who don’t support Constantinople’s lawlessness in Ukraine, and Ukrainian clerics and laity make frequent pilgrimages to the dioceses of such right-believing hierarchs.
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