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Archbishop Demetrios’ Keynote Address

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His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios’ Keynote full address to the 39th Biennial Clergy Laity Congress is found at http://www.clergylaity.org/pdf/CLC08-Keynote.pdf.

I am quite excited by Archbishop Demetrios’ keynote address, particularly when he says, “The above observations help us understand the importance of the theme of the present Congress: ‘Gather my people to my home’. We are no longer a Church community looking for survival. Such an understanding of ourselves belongs to the past. We cannot be a self-centered, self-enclosed Greek Orthodox ecclesiastical body, limited to itself and directing its energy exclusively within itself. We cannot be a Ghetto Church. God calls us to gather His people. In order to gather God’s people we have to go out, to look for them, to search places and find them and lead them to God’s home. The theme of the Congress calls us in no uncertain terms to reach out, to move out and start gathering the souls who look for a spiritual home, for a living community and ultimately for a communion with God. How can we respond to such a sacred call?”

His Eminence goes on to point out that well over half of all Greek Orthodox marriages are to non-Greek peoples. Both culturally and economically the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese is no longer an immigrant Church, and cannot continue to either behave as such or to limit itself to such.

I could happily quote many parts of his speech. Instead, I urge you to go read it.

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