COO

The Chief Operating Officer

Mr. Phillip G. Barker, Jr.

Chief Operating Officer

Italo-Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of the Americas and Canada

Welcome Message

Dear Friends,

Thank you for taking the time to visit the online home of the Italo-Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of the Americas and Canada. It is our sincere hope that you will find this site informative and helpful.

This website represents a visual version of our Archdiocese’s Five-Year Strategic Plan. It lays out our vision and plans as to how we will go about rebuilding the Archdiocese, funding its ministries, programs and services, and ensuring that the Italo-Greek Church remains a vibrant, strong and faithful Bride of Christ for many years to come.

What you see in this website is a glimpse of what we hope our Church will look like once we complete the process of implementing our Strategic Plan. Within the next five years, our goal is to create a Church that is, in every aspect of it’s life: 1) a servant Church, 2) a stewardship Church, 3) a tithing Church, and 4) an accountable and transparent Church. By being faithful to these four principles, we are confident that we will remain grounded in the Gospel and be truly a Christ-centered Church, where everything we do, every decision we make, derives from Christ and returns back to Him. As you look through our website, it is important that you keep these four principles in mind because they will help you better understand the reasons for and purpose of what we are trying to do.

As a Servant Church, we are serve Christ by serving others. We are called to serve all God’s people, regardless of whether they are members of the Church or not. There is no limit or conditions to God’s infinite love and compassion thus we are called by our baptism to bring that love and compassion to all people through Jesus Christ. Jesus washed the feet of His disciples as an example of what we should do for each other. That act of humility and service is the example we must set for society today. In implementing our Strategic Plan, we will focus on being a Church that stoops down and washes the feet of those society would rather not deal with but ignore. It’s easy to remain in one’s comfort zone, but the true test of our faith comes when we step outside our comfort zone to do things which we may find distasteful, require more of our time, or require us to go against the crowd.

As a Stewardship Church, we understand and acknowledge that all that we have is a gift from God and that we are nothing more than stewards of those gifts. This is especially true as regards the financial and material gifts which the Church has been given by its members and others for the purpose of carrying out it’s divine mission and its temporal and spiritual works. We derive our income to pay our bills, fund our ministries and do God’s work from the money given to us by our members and others who believe in what we do. As Church administrators we are obliged to make sure that every dollar given to us is spent wisely and used only for the purposes for which it is intended. We must use the financial and material resources we have been given only for the furthering of the good works of the saints, for the building up of the body of Christ and for the good of the Church. We must be examples of prudence, of modesty and high ethical standards in caring for and handling the financial and material resources of the Church at all times. This means that spending money on extravagant and expensive banquets and dinners, costly conventions and council meetings, expensive cars and homes for bishops, etc. are not appropriate and good uses of the Church’s financial and material resources. We are the Church, not a business, and our way of living and behavior must always reflect that fact. Because we are committed to being Church, our ways of conducting the affairs of the Archdiocese will reflect a more simple and Gospel-based way of doing things so that we, by our example of faithful stewardship, may lead others to a more intimate relationship with Christ.

As a Tithing Church, we recognize that we have a responsibility as members of the Body of Christ to enable and provide for the Church to carry out its mission in this world. This requires that the Church have at its disposal adequate financial and material resources to carry out that mission. In many Churches and other Christian denominations fundraising has included the use of such means as bingo, raffles, pub tabs, casino nights, etc. In addition, it is the practice in many other Orthodox Churches to use a system of assessments to raise money to fund the work of the Church as well as for its support.

In putting together our strategic plan these practices were discussed in the light of our own past uses of them as well as their suitability as a way of raising funds for the Church. It was the unanimous consensus of the members of the Metropolitan Council, the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council and the Archdiocesan Finance Council that the use of bingo, pull tabs, raffles and such are not in keeping with who and what we are as Church and that we should not rely on them or use them in the future as a way to raise funds for the Church. On the contrary, we firmly believe that WE, as members of the Body of Christ, are personally and corporately responsible to provide for the needs of the Church through our own personal resources and gifts.

It can be said that when we participate in such activities as raffles, pull tabs, and bingo that we are, in fact, giving our own money to support of the Church. But, if that is the case, why not simply bypass them altogether and give directly to the Church, eliminating the middleman, as it were? There is nothing inherently wrong with games of chance per se, but when we use them as a major or sole means of fundraising, we have to ask ourselves if we are doing it solely to help the church or parish or because we expect to get something in return. If the answer is because you expect to get something in return then gambling cannot be considered to be an acceptable way of raising money for the Church. When we give to the Church, we should do so as an act of love, not because we expect something in return. When we participate in forms of gambling to raise funds for the Church but expect something in return, we forget that as baptized members of the Body of Christ we have a responsibility and obligation to support the Church. It is for this reason that the Archbishop has decreed that all forms of gambling as a means of regular fundraising will end in the Archdiocese as of December 31, 2010. After that, prior approval much be obtained on a case by case basis from the Office of the Chief Operating Officer and blessed by the Archbishop. No parish, mission or community may conduct a raffle, sell pull tabs or conduct bingo without first obtaining approval from the Chancery Office.

The practice in our Archdiocese of parish and individual assessments will also end on December 31, 2010. Beginning in January 2011, we will all make a tithing pledge whereby each member of the Church will agree to give a percentage of their gross annual income to support the work of the Church. The biblical standard for tithing is ten percent of one’s individual financial resources. While the goal is ten percent, one gives what one can afford. Tithing comes from the heart, it is an act of love and for many of us, it will be a sacrificial act as well, given the current state of the economy. Nevertheless, giving from the heart is so much better and more pleasing to God.