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	Metropolitan Isaiah Supports Fr. Katinas Unequivocally By Theodore Kalmoukos Orthodox Reform June 13, 2007 http://orthodoxreform.org/cases/fr-nicholas-katinas/isaiah-questions-katinas-guilt/ Boston – Metropolitan Isaiah of Denver took a stand in support of Rev. Nicholas Katinas, who has been accused of being a pedophile by former alter boys while serving as priest at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox parish in Dallas, Texas for 28 years. Metropolitan Isaiah visited the Holy Trinity parish on its feast day of Pentecost, on Sunday, May 27, for the first time since rumors of this scandal began surfacing in June 2006. Metropolitan Isaiah surprised Holy Trinity's congregation when he said in his sermon that "I was very troubled because of what happened here in regard to my friend, and I will always call him my friend, the fallen priest. The fallen, that has fallen away. If he did, I don't know, I have no information. And all of us fall in other ways." This contradicts Rev. Michael Kontogiorgis, Assistant Chancellor of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese who paid an official visit to the Holy Trinity Parish in Dallas on Wednesday February 21, 2007, and said during his sermon to the congregation of about 400 that "there is no doubt that Fr. Nicholas (Katinas) engaged in serious moral transgressions." Two days later, on Friday February 23, 2007, the Archdiocese issued an official news release stating that "after a thorough investigation of allegations of serious misconduct involving minors, Fr. Katinas was suspended on accordance with the Archdiocese's Statement of Policy Regarding Sexual Misconduct by Clergy. As a result of the suspension, Fr. Katinas can no longer perform any liturgical, sacramental or other priestly functions." The release also stated that "parish administrators at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church were notified of the suspension in July 2006. On February 20 and 21, 2007 further information regarding the suspension was communicated to the Holy Trinity community during an official visit by the Rev. Fr. Michael Kontogiorgis, Assistant Chancellor of the Archdiocese." Furthermore, Archbishop Demetrios informed the Holy Eparchial Synod about the Katinas case, which Metropolitan Isaiah is a member of. In his sermon to the community of Holy Trinity, Isaiah makes no mention of the previous decisions or comments of the Archdiocese. Instead, he spoke in favor of his friend Fr. Katinas. "There are people among us who are guilty of fornication. There are people among who are guilty of adultery. There are people among us who lie constantly and the Lord says that Satan who is the first liar committed the first lie in our human existence." In another instance he said "granted it's natural to be upset but we look around at this person (Katinas) who we love dearly who has done wonderful things. But what does it say in Holy Scripture? Satan comes to knock down the shepherd so that the sheep will flee. You are not sheep who will flee because you know the treasure that we have, either by conviction or by natural birth by natural Orthodox parents." Metropolitan Isaiah also said, "I wrote a letter to all of you. I hope you all have read it. Several of you have and many people thanked me for the letter. One person did not. The head of this organization called SNAP, who appears to love innocent children, and you know when you love innocent children no one can complain against us. But in analyzing - and I had the time to do it - when it said I wrote the worst letter ever because I didn't mention the victims. If there are victims, they are 40 years old or older. You know who the victims are? Your children and your grandchildren who saw the news on television or read the newspapers. " Metropolitan Isaiah then attacked the media saying "the media is not all Orthodox, keep that in mind. Most of the media is atheistic. They don't care about Christianity, and especially, they don't care for Orthodoxy. Would you call it making news when the doorbell rings at Presvytera Angela's house and she thinks they're real estate agents and they shove a TV camera in her face? That's deceitful. And then they want to say we don't care for victims. We certainly do. Orthodoxy has always cared for victims no matter what age." Metropolitan Isaiah also told the congregation, "This too shall pass. Greater problems have existed in the church than what you have experienced. But you know something - you can call me masochistic - I love problems, because problems force me to be creative and to make a comparison between what is good and what is not good and I become stronger because of those problems." Isaiah made reference to the fact that the contributions and finances of the Holy Trinity parish have dropped significantly. Fr. Christopher Constantinides continues to ignore the Herald's calls to discuss this issue. In his sermon, Metropolitan Isaiah said, "I'm disappointed in hearing that the income of this parish fell 20%. Who are we punishing? Are we punishing God? This church belongs to God, not to you and to me. He established it and he died for it, in the Lordship of our Jesus Christ. For me to hear that you come every day before church and talk about what happened. You know what I say - there are certain people who want to find a reason not to give. And that's probably good enough for them. But if they live this on planet and go to the next dimension, the Lord will ask them, 'why did you quit giving and quit supporting out church?' We have to be very careful." Metropolitan Isaiah made reference to the National Herald more than once during his sermon especially regarding our calls to defrock Fr. Katinas, opinions that were expressed by the Metropolitan, priests and laymen around the country: "And then something happened here which the Greek American newspaper is still harping on. They asked, 'Why was he not defrocked?' The former Patriarch of Jerusalem Ireneos was defrocked, and went down from patriarch to archbishop to bishop to archimandrite to priest to deacon and now he is recognized as a monk. The present patriarch is Theophilos III. There are problems in the Holy Land. We Greek Orthodox don't seem to get along when we should get along. The Israeli's have taken advantage of our division. The Greek Orthodox Church owns most of the property in Jerusalem and Israel, including the West Bank and up unto the Golan Heights. The country of Turkey has already taken 4,000 pieces of property from the Patriarch of Constantinople. Because unfortunately, we are at the time when Satan has been unleashed as John says in the book of Revelation." Isaiah also told the congregation that "every human being is created in His image, even though we fall into different kinds of sin. We have people telling you they are living a different lifestyle. That's a lot of boloney - God never made that. My professor - God rest his soul — John Romanides — in my dogmatics class said that by the time we leave this world we should try to be as much as we can like Christ. He is a holy God. We live in a society where we have no respect for God and no respect for one another. When you see great crimes taking place, in most cases, people have no higher authority than themselves. That is really how our world is today. They have become anthropocentric - man is the measure of our fate." He mentioned the National Herald again and said "but allow me to go back, because some people are writing about defrocking clergy, and the writer, the graduate of Holy Cross, is insisting on it. You know what he doesn't know? That the former patriarch Irineos who is now a mere monk - can become Patriarch again. To be defrocked does not mean the person cannot be reinstated, so what are we arguing about? One group says 'He is suspended', the other group says, 'He should be defrocked.' There is no difference. Say I decide to become a Buddhist, or Muslim or Jewish in my religious faith, I remain that way for a number of years and then I decide to come back into the church, I would not be re-baptized. My baptism is eternal. I can't be re-baptized. I'm only re-chrismated. And that is the way with clergy. If the graduate of Holy Cross had read the history of the church he wouldn't be arguing whether this priest or that priest should be defrocked. It means nothing, because if they are exonerated they can be brought back to their former position. That is the sacraments of our Church. So I don't want to hear any more arguing about who should be suspended, who should be defrocked, who should come back again. The church decides these things. All clergy are ordained by the Holy Spirit. did was because the president of the council who thinks he fired the priest. And I said to him, 'You can't fire a priest. I can't fire a priest. I cannot fire any priest. I don't have that authority. I can move him around. I can't fire him. He's a priest ordained by the Holy Spirit.' What has the Church done in these situations for the last 2000 years? These clergy have to go to monasteries in order to repent for the rest of their lives And so this parish should leave all this stuff behind. This is how the church has functioned for the past almost 2000 years. This too shall pass. But you're going to become stronger. And your children and grandchildren will let them know, that our Lord has established the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and this is part of that Church." The Metropolitan also told the congregation that he enjoys fighting: "You know I don't hide the fact that I like a fight. I hope some of you have that attitude," he said. "Not actual fighting in the physical sense, but standing up for what you believe in. We have the greatest treasure in our Holy Orthodox Faith. Let us look upon this church and every Orthodox Church as the ark of salvation because that's what it is. We are living in evil days. The apostle Paul said in the last days the love of many would grow cold. There is no love in the world today. God is love, God the Father is love, God the Son is love, God the Holy Spirit is love. And so when we kneel down in this Service it won't take that long, Let us in our own words beseech the Holy Spirit to increase the love that we have from God because if you love God you automatically love one another because we are the children of Him. Amen."
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