END OF AN ERA
It was just announced by our Archdiocese of America that His Eminence, Archbishop Demetrios, Geron (Elder) of America submitted his resignation to His All-holiness Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. The acceptance of the resignation will be considered by the Holy Synod of Constantinople at its meeting next week.
While much can happen in a week, and it is uncertain how things will play out in the weeks to come regarding the election of a new Archbishop and so forth, it appears we are coming to the end of an era.
His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios is the third Archbishop of America under whom I have served as a clergyman, and as I was ordained in 1994, certainly this is the longest tenure of any Archbishop during my own ministry, and His Eminence is the hierarch of the three whom I knew "personally" and best.
I met him as a student at our seminary, when he was a visiting professor at our own Holy Cross Orthodox School of Theology and Harvard University Divinity School. Even before having him as my own professor of Old Testament Exegesis, he was a frequent, if not daily, browser in the seminary bookstore where I worked. He was always engaging conversation with students--even freshmen in the undergraduate program such as me--and always teaching in some manner. I cannot recall hearing any criticism of him as a teacher (and I had none), though such criticism was abundant for nearly every other instructor. Humble, friendly, cheerful and gently-spoken even when apparently irritated or frustrated--this is how I recall His Eminence at school.
When change is incremental as it often is in our Archdiocese, it is sometimes taken for granted. Much has changed for the better under His Eminence's leadership. Perhaps a fair criticism of these last two decades is that there was not enough institutional change, but such inertia in such a vast institution as our Archdiocese and its very nature makes this an enduring criticism. Indeed, His Eminence's predecessor was criticized, and perhaps ultimately removed, for undertaking change too rapidly.
In the past several years, our Archdiocese has faced numerous crises and problems, mostly of an administrative and financial nature. Many of these have been issues before the tenure of His Eminence and reflect systemic and perennial problems our Archdiocese; they will persist for years to come, and will require the efforts of many persons to solve them. One man, such as any Archbishop, cannot solve them without the cooperation of the faithful at every level of our ecclesiastical life, and it is unreasonable to believe so. Perhaps His Eminence could have done more, and perhaps he made mistakes along the way. Yet it was not for lack of devotion to the Church, or faithfulness as a pastor, and for a man now in his 90s, these are still evident in his person.
Even as we pray for the Holy Spirit to rightly guide the Holy Synod of Constantinople to elect a worthy successor, we should pray that the Lord continue to bless His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios as he enters into what I imagine will be a retirement or, more likely, a new phase in his service to the Church through his scholarship to which he can now return. We owe him our deep gratitude for nearly two full decades of service.
