Archive for June, 2008
Joseph Mattar, a young member of St. Paul’s Dandenong in Melbourne, recently wrote a letter to his Eminence, Metropolitan Paul Saliba, regarding comments he made during his Holy Friday sermon at St. Paul’s.
For those of you who have only heard rumours about “the letter,” you might care to read it for yourself. You can download a PDF of the exact letter that was emailed to the bishop on the 28th of April, 2008 here: Letter to His Eminence Re: plans for St Paul’s.
Avoiding the issues
The letter raised some very important issues, and sadly in his response, the bishop failed to deal with any of these.
Continue reading ‘What happened when someone wrote to the bishop…’
It’s no secret that for a long time most Antiochian Orthodox churches have engaged in fund-raising activities after the Sunday Liturgy, whether it be selling food, books, CDs, or raffle tickets. Their two main reasons for doing this are usually that:
- The church is providing a service that is needed by the congregation
- This is the only way that they can get people to give enough money to the church
People are hungry after the Liturgy and will buy food from somewhere else anyway, so why shouldn’t the church get their money instead? And the church has financial burdens and people simply don’t give enough in the collection for the church to be able to pay it’s debts and bills. Right?
Let’s answer these two points in reverse order, because it will make more sense that way.