NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post
December 8, 2018
By Melissa Klein
Two Long Island nuns have become defiant “#ChurchToo” activists, posting public messages to end abuse in “faith communities” at the same time their convent supervisor, a priest accused of sexual misconduct, was allowed to return to his Brooklyn church.
The Greek Orthodox sisters, shown in their habits, began their Instagram and Facebook campaigns in October as Rev. Gerasimos Makris was reinstated to the pulpit at Holy Cross Church in Bay Ridge.
Makris — an imperious figure who insists on his parishioners kissing his hand — confessed to “inappropriate interactions with two adult women” and an archdiocese “spiritual court” recommended he be banned. But church higher-ups put him back anyway.
The scandal is the latest black eye for the Greek Orthodox church and the Holy Cross parish, whose former leader, the Rev. George Passias, was defrocked after The Post revealed his affair with the married parochial school principal, whom he impregnated, and their kinky “cake crushing” fetish.
On Oct. 10, just as Makris was returning, the nuns began advocating for change, posting powerful photos of themselves holding signs with messages that read: “believe survivors,” “silence isn’t spiritual,” “end rape culture” and “take a stand.”
In a November post, they wrote “Sexual abuse is real. It happens in our families, our local communities + even our faith communities, in every Christian denomination including the Orthodox Church.”
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