We share with gratitude Metropolitan Nathanael’s statement addressing the issues raised in our Open Letter to the Church: The Humanitarian Crisis at the US-Mexico Border.

Εις πολλά έτη, Δέσποτα! Many Years, Master!

Statement Regarding the U.S. “Zero Tolerance” Policy on Unlawful Immigration

+ His Eminence Metropolitan NATHANAEL

 Presiding Hierarch of the Holy Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago

Recent reports regarding the brutal treatment of families who have arrived at U.S. borders without prior authorization have prompted sharp criticisms by faith leaders and people of good will across our nation. As we learn more and more details about these practices and reflect on their impact upon both those who are directly involved and upon all of us as citizens, my heart aches and my conscience is restless.

The current “zero tolerance” policy on unlawful immigration being enforced by our federal government, which separates children from their parent(s), violates moral norms that we, as Orthodox Christians, hold sacred. It represents a practice that goes beyond differences between political ideologies, and transgresses basic human rights and foundational Christian convictions. Thus, remaining silent is, I believe, an unacceptable response for those of us entrusted with bearing witness to the Christian Gospel.

Affirming that every person is created “in the divine image” (cf. Gen 1:26), and that all of us are children of God (cf. 1 Jn 3:1-2), our tradition unequivocally teaches that every human being should be treated with respect, recognizing his or her inherent dignity regardless of age, race, ethnicity or gender, and regardless of any transgressions they or their family members may have committed. Read More

On June 18 we wrote to Metropolitan Tikhon of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), as well as to many other Orthodox hierarchs and clergy, to bring to their attention our Open Letter of the day before. To the best of our knowledge, His Beatitude is the first Orthodox hierarch—writing on behalf of the entire Holy Synod of Bishops of the OCA—to take up the subject of our letter with President Trump. You may view the PDF of the original here.

We especially applaud His Beatitude’s emphasis on what it means to be truly pro-life:

As Christians, we are called to defend all life, be it the life of a fetus in the womb, the life of a child at the border, or the life of a mother fleeing violence and seeking a better life.  Every one of these immigrants is a child of God.

Eis polla eti, Despota! Many Years, Master!

Letter of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon to US President Donald Trump
Concerning the Separation of Families
June 19, 2018

The President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

I write to you asking compassion for the children and their parents now being separated and confined in detention centers as a result of the Administration’s zero tolerance policy.  On behalf of these children—some of them infants and toddlers—and together with all the bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, I ask that you reconsider this policy and allow families to be kept together while the immigration courts are considering their cases.

This past January you proved to be a champion of life when, addressing those gathered in Washington D.C. to proclaim the sanctity of life, you offered the following words: “Under my administration, we will always defend the very first right in the Declaration of Independence, and that is the right to life.” As Christians, we are called to defend all life, be it the life of a fetus in the womb, the life of a child at the border, or the life of a mother fleeing violence and seeking a better life.  Every one of these immigrants is a child of God. Read More

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Read More

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To the God-Fearing Episcopate, Presbyterate, Diaconate, Monastics, and Laity of the Holy Orthodox Church in the United States of America, faithful servants of the Gospel of our Lord, God, and Saviour Jesus Christ: 

We, the undersigned, feel now more than ever that the time has come for our Holy Church to speak and act urgently as one body possessing one mind. Thus may our very deeds confess and glorify the Holy, Consubstantial, Life-Creating and Undivided Trinity unto ages of ages.

The crimes against humanity perpetrated by the US government—on US soil, against fellow Christians, babies and children, mothers and fathers—cry out to heaven for redress. If we, who are the very body of Christ, fail to speak as His mouth and act as His hands and His feet, we face a harsh day of reckoning at His Dread Judgment Seat, as He Himself assures us:

For I was hungry, and you fed me not.

I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink.

I was a foreigner, and you welcomed me not.

I was naked, and you clothed me not.

I was sick, in prison, a child locked in a cage, not knowing where my mother and father were…and you did nothing. 

On such a fundamental issue as this there can be neither left nor right, neither liberalism nor conservatism, but solely Christ and His Gospel.

We strongly urge the following and similar immediate actions:

Read More