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Can anyone provide any insight into this? I found this article on the Orthodox News site. It was my understanding that there was a tiny Italo-Greek Orthodox community in Utica, but that doesn't jive with this:
http://www.orthodoxnews.netfirms.com/179/Plans.htm

This is sheer nonsense. What has probably happened is that someone has gone off to the amazing world of the episcopi vagantes and obtained dubious ordinations, announcing himself as the "Italo-Greek Orthodox Archbishop" of the Americas - it happens frequently. The grandiose hospital scheme will not materialize, neither in Herkimer County nor anywhere else.

As to the Italo-Greeks: the original Italo-Greeks remained with Rome at the time of the schism. Over the course of centuries, they eventually assimilated into the larger Italian population, so that they came perilously close to dying out as a distinct Byzantine presence in Sicily and southern Italy. However, thanks be to God, they were strengthened by a substantial immigration from Albania. The descendants of the Albanians who remain Greek-Catholic now outnumber the remaining ethnic Greeks in the Italo-Greek community.

In neither case was there any significant Orthodox remnant in organized form (one could suggest the Greek Orthodox parish in Venice as an exception to that, but it is far away from the Italo-Greek settlements in Magna Graecia).

At present, however, there is an interesting development of the "nuovi Italo-Greci" - recent arrivals from Greece in Italy. These people are Greek Orthodox, and are organizing parishes here and there, within the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Archbishop in Venice.

For whatever reason, Italy is a "popular" place with the episcopi vagantes, and one can find quite a few of them in Italy if one wants to be bothered. There's little reason to seek them out.

Incognitus

I'm just wondering how Orthodox News, which seemed somewhat reliable, could post this???????

Vito,

here's a website: Italo-Greek Orthodox Archdiocese [igoarch.org]

OrthodoxNews.com has become increasingly unreliable, week after week, and throw whatever comes across their virtual desk up on their website. It is actually more of an editorializing site, run by OCL, which is an avowed enemy of the GOA, than a true news site. Although there is some "news" on the site, you have to wade through a lot of muck to get it.

This Italo-Greek Orthodox "news" is indicitive of the shoddy "work" it does, and the lack of understanding it has.

Anyone with a computer and a post office box can now become a "patriarchate."

Priest Thomas

Bless, Father Thomas,

You are right! That is why I also established a Patriarchal Chapel in my basement - just to make things more legitimate!

Blessings,

+ ALEX
Catholicos of Toronto and all Southern Ontario

My favourite "patriarchate" is The Most Holy Church of Rockall [uk.geocities.com] .

Σώσον, Κύριε, καί διαφύλαξον η�άς από τών Βασιλιάνικων τάξεων!

Vito,

This is indeed connected with the vagante Italo-Greek Archdiocese that is headquartered in Utica and which we discussed sometime back . Herkimer is only about 15 miles or so from Utica as I recollect.

The "Archdiocese" has made some significant advances in terms of its website [igoarch.org] , now much more professionally done than was the case previously (altho most pages are blank still). There is now a list of parishes (including 2 in Massachusetts that I have never seen or heard of - must check those out), which was absent previously, and their hierarch is identified by name - which he was not previously. I believe, but can't say with certainty, that he's the same individual formerly identified as Rector of the Cathedral.

The last time I traveled through Utica I checked out their "Cathedral" and it was in a state of disrepair that suggested a less than active place of worship. I will be traveling in that area in a few weeks time and plan to look at it again.

By far, my favorite one is "His Eminence The Metropolitan/Archbishop Dr. Chief Alexander Swift Eagle Justice, D.D., Ph.D., J.D. - Theologian, Academician".

The picture [education-1.net] at the bottom of the page of him in an (altar boy robe) sakkos, with a make shift omophor, holding a (curtain rod) staff is the best.

Priest Thomas

The parish listing seems questionable at best. This group has only been around for several years, yet their parish listing claims parishes existing from the 1920's, the 1950's, and so on. I know churches in Scranton and I know churches in Binghamton, but I've never heard of these Italo-Greek places, ever. I doubt their existance. I'm guessing that there may have been parishes, maybe even Italo-Greek Catholic communities, that existed for a brief time in the past and that this bishop is resurrecting and claiming as his own.

Dave

Took a quick glance at the web-site just now. The surnames provided don't seem either Italian or Greek!

Incognitus

I had realized that the Italo-Greek group of Utica was a fringe group, but what I hadn't realized was what the Orthodox News Service has become according to Fr. Thomas. Thanks, for that information and it's too bad that we can't rely on that news service for pan-Orthodox info.

Forgot to mention that I was told that there are a group of 200 people in New Orleans seeking to establish a mission parish of Italo-Greek-Albanians. I was also told that when the pope was in Bari recently a priest spoke to him about this. The New Orleans group doesn't seem to get much consideration from the local Latin ordinary.

Dear Friends,

That Italo-Greek Archdiocese also publishes Akathists to Italian Saints!

Just thought you might like to know . . .

Alex

If in fact there is "a group of 200 people in New Orleans seeking to establish a mission parish of Italo-Greek-Albanians" the obvious thing to do is raise the matter with one or another of the existing Greek Catholic jurisdictions, asking the bishop in question to erect a mission in New Orleans. Any Greek Catholic bishop having jurisdiction in that territory can do it (the Romanian Eparchy, the Melkite Eparchy, whichever Ruthenian Eparchy has jurisdiction in New Orleans or whichever Ukrainian Eparchy has jurisdiction in New Orleans). Once such an arrangement is made, the bishop accepting responsibility can receive a suitable priest from Piana degli Albanesi or Lungro, put him in the New Orleans mission, and life will roll along.

Incognitus