Wonderful story by our friend Jim Forrest. The Orthodox Peace Fellowship is an ecumencial partner of Pax Christi, to which I belong, and Jim is also a leader of the World Fellowship of Reconciliation, which federates Pax Christi, OPF, and similiar Protestant organizations.
The Archbishop is a wonderful man, former professor at the Unviersity of Athens until the Ecumencial Patriarch appointed him Exarch and then Archbishop of Albania. The Archbishop had some problem when the E.P. sent three Greeks as bishops under him and both the government and some of the 2/3rds of the Church who were ethnic Albanians objected to the Hellenization. No objections were raised as to the Archbishop himself. He worked with the Albanian government to get the E.P. to back down and recall two of the bishops. He and the the other bishops then elected two ethnic Albanians, one as bishop, one as Metropolitan. The Metropolitan, John Belushi, is a cousin of the late American actor of the same name.
Clearly, to this wise bishop, compromise is not a dirty word.
K.
