NEW YORK – The Order of St. Andrew, Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate are distinguished through their service to the Orthodox Church.
As successful individuals in all walks of life, they deploy their God-given talents in the vanguard of the fight for issues such as religious freedom and the defense of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but they never forget that everything they do must be built on a sound individual and collective spiritual foundation.
On March 27 and 28 Archons and members of their families gathered at the Kimisis – Dormition of Mary Church of the Hamptons for their annual retreat which aim to inspire and re-charge the spiritual batteries through lectures and fellowship.
This year’s retreat master was Father Themistocles (Themis) Adamopoulos, who operates a mission in Sierra Leone under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Alexandria.
After Vespers on March 27, he set the spiritual tone by talking about the value of “making time for God” through prayer but for most of the retreat he focused on preaching “The Gospel of Social Justice and Salvation” though presentations and discussions about his philanthropic work at ground zero of the Ebola epidemic.
Although fear is abating as reports indicate the epidemic is waning, the mission must cope with the aftermath and Adamopoulos is in America to raise funds for an Ebola orphanage.
In Church on Friday he noted that “The environment we live in is not conducive to spirituality,” and that that the solution “is to have an internal revolution.”
“It is not enough to come to church,” he said. “When I do not know Jesus… if inside there is not the love of Jesus Christ… Everything becomes just a show…There needs to be a discourse, a dialogue between you and Jesus, and the dialogue is called prayer,” he said.
“Despite the constraints of modern life, time must be invested in a prayer life. Failure to do so “is a fatal mistake….We need to make time for God…every morning and every night before we go to sleep…And it will come back to you. Never fear that you are wasting your time if you give 15 minutes a day to pray to God,” he said, and declared that the rewards – beginning with the immediate benefit of calming down our hectic lives – will be abundant.
After investing in God “go ahead and do the other things that have to be done, as long as they are honest and transparent and don’t go against the will of God…You have made an effort to be here. That means you care for God,” he told them.
Services on Friday and Saturday were followed by modest but enjoyable Lenten meals in The Muses Hall of the new Nicholas A. Zoulas Hellenic Center.
Archon John Halecky welcomed the guests and thanked Father Alex Karloutsos, Presbytera Xanthi Karloutsos, Fr. Constantine Lazarakis and the Kimisis parish for hosting the retreat. He then introduced Archon Peter Skeadas, chairman of the Archons’ Spiritual Committee who has organized numerous retreats and thanked everyone who made the well-organized and well-received event possible.
Τhe guests learned that Adamopoulos, whose work was inspired by Mother Teresa, went to Sierra Leone because he wanted help the poorest country on Earth.
Louis Toumbas, a successful businessman from Australia – like Adamopoulos – is the International Director of organization that helps support the endeavors, whose website is http://paradise4kids.org.
Presbytera Gigi Souritzidis, who attended with her husband, Fr. Peter Souritzidis is the President of the charity’s U.S. branch and attended the retreat.
Toumbas told the story of his spiritual awakening and how he became Adamopoulos’ friend and partner in philanthropy, and Adamopoulos described the work of the mission, which aims to help in ways that do not foster dependence.
Food, medical care, counselling and religious services are offered, but education at all levels and job training is the mission’s hallmark.
FAITH IS NOT ENOUGH
Fr. Adamopoulos began his main Friday presentation by posing the great question of how one reaches the Kingdom of God and noted that while the later Protestant churches preach that it is only through faith. The Orthodox Church, however, taught from the beginning that faith must be accompanied by works.
St. Paul said, “Faith, without works, is dead,” and works of philanthropy, especially acts of solidarity with the poor, are the quintessential good works as helping the needy is equivalent to worshipping their creator.
Adamopoulos summarized the work of Africa missions by noting the dilemma of the typical African mother, who must take care of her family in $2 per day, and the challenge to people in affluent countries that throw away 1/3 of their food. The African mother can either feed her children or buy soap to wash them. The first choice exposes the babies to the diseases which are rampant in sub Saharan Africa like malaria.
On Saturday poignant videos narrated by Adamopoulos described the plight of Sub-Saharan Africa and spotlighted what is being done to help. “I want to show you war, and what happens with war, and how we deal with it,” he said.
He described the cruel cycle of poverty-war-economic breakdown and bemoaned human nature that makes it so “easy to go to war and so hard to build up societies again….Entire generations could not good to school and 12 year olds and given AK-47s,” he said.
One of this most powerful point, however, was “You don’t need money to help someone.”
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