BOSTON – Rev. Thomas FitzGerald, Interim Dean of Hellenic College – Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, has made attempts behind the scenes in pursuit of the permanent appointment of Metropolitan Methodios of Boston as President.
Fr. FitzGerald assumed the position as interim Dean after the ouster of Fr. Christopher Metropulos from the helm of the School in April.
Specifically, The National Herald has learned that Fr. FitzGerald sent a letter to His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros urging him to shut down the search committee seeking a new president and to appoint to the position Metropolitan Methodios, praising him for his gifts. He stressed the need for “stability” at the School.
Sources close to FitzGerald told TNH that he echoes, apparently, the opinion of clique from the faculty and other employees who act as “advisors” to Methodios and that FitzGerald spoke to the Archbishop during one of his visits to the School.
It is reminded here that Metropolitan Methodios had served in the past as president of Hellenic College and Holy Cross, but the late Archbishop Iakovos of America ousted him after the intervention of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Now he has returned to the administration of the School temporarily as interim president after the ouster of Fr. Metropulos. The later continues to live in the School’s apartment.
The National Herald made many attempts over a two-day period to contact Fr. FitzGerald, to no avail. Telephone messages were left at his office at the School and also on his personal mobile phone.
Fr. FitzGerald was Dean at Holy Cross for five years but the then-president of the School Fr. Nicholas Triantafillou did not renew his contract and he consequently departed from the Deanship. He was replaced by Demetrios Skedros, who resigned due to the dire crisis into which the School was led by the previous administration. It is reminded here that Metropolitan Methodios as well as Fr. FitzGerald were throughout the years involved in the affairs of the School, including serving on the Board of Trustees where former Archbishop Demetrios of America was chairman and Thomas Lelon Vice chairman.
The same applies for the rest of the professors, some of whom were acting behind the scenes, as TNH is in a position to know, trying to keep Demetrios in his position as Archbishop and at the same time defaming the new Archbishop Elpidophoros to his colleagues, professors in Thessaloniki and also to political officials in Athens.
TNH has learned that among those who have applied for the presidency of the School are professor of Greek Aristotelis Michopoulos and Archimandrite Tony Vrame, Director of Religious Education Department. Also, Rev. Frank Marangos former Director of Religious Education, former Dean of the Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New York and past Director of Communications of the Archdiocese has applied.
It is reminded here that Archbishop Elpidophoros in his speech during his first meeting of the Archdiocesan Council spoke about the Theological School and said that: “I will be frank with you: our School has been sinking for a long time. I saw it myself when I taught there fifteen years ago. What is the American expression? ‘Kicking the can down the road.’ No real solutions to the current problems, but rather mortgaging the future of the clergy by virtually bankrupting the School, and ignoring the requirements of the academic accreditation agencies as if they were predatory lenders. I cannot tell you the shock that I felt when I learned how close we had come to losing our accreditation and our ability to even grant a degree. I say these things not in a pessimistic manner, but in a spirit of truth, concern, and love, with much hope for the future of our School.”
He added that “nothing is more essential to our equipment than our Seminary, our preparatory school to ready the future generations of priests and lay leaders. We must elevate and build it up our School from its present circumstances to ensure that such dereliction never occurs again.”
The Archbishop also emphasized that “we need to be clear-eyed about these things. Just look at the Archdiocese Registry statistics over the past twenty years; every category is falling, except funerals. But we can never accept to be a Church that is dying off.”
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