For context see the Metropolitan Joseph: The Scandal section in our Archives 2020-22 linked at the top of this page. Note that Roman Catholic media have begun to pick up the story from Orthodoxy in Dialogue.

ADDENDUM 9/19/22: A reader informs us that she has asked the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office to look at the following report.

Metropolitan Joseph (Al-Zehlaoui)

A source who describes himself as “a simple parishioner (i.e. pew warmer ) of the Antiochian Archdiocese sympathetic to institutional transparency and accountability” has sent Orthodoxy in Dialogue the links to the following documents. He writes:

It is not a stretch to suspect that it is likely there are more properties around North America.

Attached are the copies of the recorded documents related to this property. Notice the $600,000 loan attached to the property, it appears to be either an investment scheme, a way to funnel money to Joseph, or heaven knows what (laundering??).

The information of the Kootenai County Assessor’s Office is so very revealing as it positively connects the name “BISHOP G JOSEPH” with the Antiochian Diocese in Los Angeles (note the LA address).

This raises all kinds of questions which demand an explanation – what is a bishop [and tonsured monk] doing with a high value $$$$ property, and receiving funds from overseas? Where is this money coming from and to what purpose? What else is out there? What other properties are owned by the BISHOP G JOSEPH REVOCABLE TRUST? Who else knows about and is controlling this trust? Is any of this funded by the coffers of the Archdiocese? Perhaps there is an explanation, but such would need to be forthcoming post haste in complete transparency to the people of the Archdiocese.

This should be exposed – the time to publish documentation and let it be known seems to have come. It looks like it will be swept under the rug by way of a retirement – case closed. So people need to see this and soon. If the Patriarch and Archdiocese are not transparent, then transparency will have to come by other means and ways.

2311610000 property record 1

2311610000 property record 2

2311610000 property record 3

2311610000 property record

Neither Orthodoxy in Dialogue nor the individual who sent this information is qualified to offer a legal opinion on these documents.

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