For context see the Metropolitan Joseph: The Scandal section in our Archives 2020-22 linked at the top of this page.

Patriarch John X of Antioch and All the East

Today the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Antioch convenes under the presidency of Patriarch John X. We at Orthodoxy in Dialogue, together with our readers around the world, pray that “the grace divine, which always heals what is infirm and completes what is lacking” (prayer of ordination), descend once again upon the assembly of our fathers in the Faith to reveal to them in all things what “seems good to us and to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 15:28).

As a word of clarification for our readers, this is not an ad hoc meeting to resolve the scandal of the former metropolitan of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America. Rather, this is the normal semiannual meeting required of each local church’s synod of bishops by the canons. (The other falls during Great Lent.) The matter of Joseph Al-Zehlaoui occupies a place of singular importance on the fathers’ agenda. Read More

For context see the Metropolitan Joseph: The Scandal section in our Archives 2020-22 linked at the top of this page.

James and Jasminka Chenich Gabrie

(Photo credit: Galerie Gabrie)

Yesterday, October 10, Orthodoxy in Dialogue reported that the disgraced former metropolitan of the Antiochian Archdiocese, Joseph Al-Zehlaoui, shares three addresses with an Orthodox businesswoman who plays a prominent role in the life of the Church, e.g., organizing a banquet in Al-Zehlaoui’s honour and a retreat to Serbia, among others. Her parents were family friends with our editor’s family at St. George Serbian Orthodox Church in San Diego from the 1960s on. The two young people were in his aunt’s wedding in 1971 when she was 11 and he 16. For sentimental and ethical reasons, we have withheld her name not only from yesterday’s report, but from all previous reporting in which we referred to the second woman in Al-Zehlaoui’s questionable orbit after the author of the incriminating email. Numerous sources have informed us, independently of each other, that this second woman was furious to discover from our reporting that she was not Al-Zehlaoui’s one and only love. We have reached out to her privately on three or four occasions to ask how she would want us to proceed, with no reply. We now feel compelled to go public with her identity and her stunning, nakedly self-serving attempt to advocate with Patriarch John on Al-Zehlaoui’s behalf.

To begin, we direct our readers to compare the addresses in the two screenshots below, taken from the public domain and sent to us by a priest of the Antiochian Archdiocese. They contain three addresses in common, including that of the Los Angeles chancery: Read More

For context see the Metropolitan Joseph: The Scandal section in our Archives 2020-22 linked at the top of this page.

GUILTY

Insider sources at the headquarters of the Antiochian Archdiocese in Englewood NJ have confirmed that the law firm investigating the former metropolitan, Joseph Al-Zehlaoui, has definitively determined his guilt in the matter of a predatory sexual relationship with a married woman under his spiritual authority, for which he groomed her over time at a vulnerable period in her life. (Read the victim’s email and hear the voicemail attached to it. We are told this is but one of almost two dozen incriminating voicemails.)

It’s unclear whether the investigators interviewed any other potential victims, including the one whose name is known to Orthodoxy in Dialogue and whom public records disclose as sharing three addresses with the multi- named, multi-domiciled Al-Zehlaoui. We certainly have not seen any public calls for other victims or witnesses to come forward. This would appear to be an unconscionably incomplete investigation, given the likelihood if not certainty that a predator can never be satisfied with one or two conquests. If you have been targeted by Al-Zehlaoui’s sexual attentions, whether consummated or rebuffed, or you have witnessed the same, we urge you most strongly to contact the investigating attorney:

Paul E. Gaspari
Weintraub Tobin
475 Sansome Street, Suite 510
San Francisco CA 94111
(415) 772-9618
PGaspari@weintraub.com

Read More

For context see the Metropolitan Joseph: The Scandal section in our Archives 2020-22 linked at the top of this page. The screenshot below was sent to us by a reader of Orthodoxy in Dialogue to supplement the one we published earlier today. It would seem incumbent to investigate why Joseph Al-Zehlaoui conducts his life under so many names.

Read More