The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America has released a response to a claim by a New York newspaper that $15 million was “missing” from accounts of the St. Nicholas Shrine at Ground Zero, calling the allegations “completely false.”
The response was in reference to a story in The National Herald, a Greek American newspaper published in Astoria, New York.
It is important to note that at no time did The Pappas Post claim that $15 million was missing from St. Nicholas accounts.
Our story, published yesterday, states that an amount of over $3 million was transferred out of St. Nicholas accounts and used for unrelated expenses to cover deficits at the Archdiocese.
The Archdiocese made no reference to this claim, which was reported to The Pappas Post from an anonymous source inside the Archdiocese with direct knowledge of the transfer and was corroborated in an email by Archdiocese treasurer Michael Psaros.
That transfer, according to our source, was conducted by George Papadakos, the director of finance at the Archdiocese, who has subsequently been fired.
It is unknown if Archbishop Demetrios, head of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, who is effectively the CEO of the organization, had any knowledge of these activities.
Psaros, a successful New York businessman who has promised to work tirelessly to help restore the Archdiocese into a “world-class ecclesiastical not-for profit institution” has engaged an outside consulting company to conduct a thorough operations review.
In an email to members of the Archdiocese Council, Psaros unequivocally states that “We further discovered, that to fund the deficit over the past two years, segregated/restricted accounts were invaded.”
Again, the Archdiocese in their rebuttal made no mention of segregated/unrestricted accounts being “invaded,” which Psaros confirmed were discovered.
The Archdiocese statement, which was released on the official website here, refers only to The National Herald’s claim of $15 million missing. According to the statement, “The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America wishes to inform the faithful that information published today in the Greek-American Newspaper Ethnikos Kirix stating that “fifteen million dollars are missing from the St. Nicholas Fund,” is completely false.”
The rebuttal went on to state that “His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios and the Officers of the Executive Committee of the Archdiocesan Council are preparing material to inform the faithful responsibly and comprehensively about the facts and the true circumstances of the Archdiocese’s administrative and financial situation.”
5 comments
This is a feudal system . Run by corrupt
despots , and clergy who for years have
fleeced the communities. I’m not surprised at
all that they have stolen and have lived beyond
their means. They behave with complete arrogance
and stolen the money of the people.
The district attorney needs to investigate and finally the culprits should return the money back to the churches .
So many scandals have been exposed and the archibishop and his council have covered up
many crimes , sexual, and other abuses.
Unfortunately the Orthodox Observer has no credibility in the eyes of the faithful. The appropriate name of the churches news paper
should be called “the Orthodox Disturber”
The corruption by the people running the Archdiose and the Dioceses is rampant.
They have lost touch with the people and the communities that they serve.
“To psari vromai apo to kefali” is a wise Greek
saying that is applicable to this scandal.
Thanks , for bringing this to the forefront
and people hopefully will demand that the preachers would stop acting as the mafia, enriching their bank accounts at the expense
of the people. They hide behind their “rasa”
and the Bible . This scandal and many others were
not done by the devil, it was done by the clergy in the archdiocese their friends and the directors. If they had any honor they should resign and go to a
monastery so that they wouldn’t do any more harm to the institution.
You know this is Karloutsos game. Jerry Dimitriou got hired because Karloutsos lost the Archdiocese money on the Pelham Esplanade with Chris Demetriades. When Spyro Gyro left, anything that wasn’t nailed down at the Archdiocese disappeared, ostensibly because of renovations. Don’t forget the Arcantony travelgate. Karloutsos got Bart to encourage Jake to go to Ligonier then twisted it against him. Karloutos is the very snake of Eden, the self-same Caiafas beholden to the self-same Lazio Evil Empire.
Sell all the dead parishes for cash. Snap audit and sell any parish with fewer than twenty taking communion. Churches belong to the Bishop, not Athena Brotherhood.
A hundred parishes have opted out of Fair SHare, following the example set by Cake Fart Passias in the 1980s when he directed funds to the Muhammad Agape Fund. But here’s the rub, these Greek CHurches would rather submit to the Vatican than OCA.
when Alex Karoutsos gets involved, the money disappears- period- end of story- this problem apparently runs in his whole family- anything any of them get involved in the money sems to disappear