Mr. Bill Marianes: A shepherd is essential in any flock. Indeed, the entire April 29, 2018, Stewardship Calling Fifth Sunday series program here on Ancient Faith Radio focused on the clergy: their needs, their challenges, and what we can do for them. So if you missed it, please go to the archived version, either on stewardshipcalling.com in the internet radio tab or ancientfaithradio.com under the Stewardship Calling archive pages. But just as the clergy are the shepherds of their parish flocks, they, too, have a shepherd in the form of their hierarch, under whose omophorion and episcopal ministry they serve. Indeed, if you actually look at this from a spiritual perspective, it is that bishop that is the spiritual father to not only the clergy but to all the faithful in the jurisdiction, and he is the spiritual guide and leader of everybody that’s entrusted to him.

Tonight’s Stewardship Calling “Meet the Met” program on Ancient Faith Radio is devoted to a wonderfully dynamic spiritual father and hierarch, Metropolitan Gregory of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of [North America].

Hello, brothers and sisters, and welcome to a Fifth Sunday Stewardship Calling program on Ancient Faith Radio. This is Bill Marianes from Gainesville, Georgia, and the always-free re-church resource stewardshipcalling.com. It helps people and parishes discover and live their stewardship callings as they follow Christ’s great commandment—to love one another—and his great commission—to make disciples of all nations.

I have a simple premise: you have been called by your Creator to your personal calling, a reason to your life and a reason for your life, something you need to do with all of the gifts of which God has made you a steward. It’s what I call your stewardship calling. St. Paul makes it crystal clear that we all have a calling. In his letter to the Ephesians 4:1, he says, “I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called.” Until 2017, by day I was blessed to be a partner in a great international law firm of over 1100 lawyers who was managing partner of the Atlanta office and practiced in the area of mergers and acquisitions in corporate law, but my why, my personal calling, is to be a stewardship calling evangelist. I’m here to help people and parishes discover and live their stewardship callings so that they may have a good account before the awesome judgment seat of Christ as we follow his great commandment to love one another.

This program and a lot of other helpful tools and information about effective churches and stewardship and strategic planning and other resources can be found at the always free website, stewardshipcalling.com; that’s stewardshipcalling.com. And you can reach me at bill@stewardshipcalling.com.

Now, to all of our listeners, we usually invite you to call in. However, this show had to be pre-recorded, so if you have any questions for Metropolitan Gregory or want any follow-up, please email me at bill@stewardshipcalling.com, and I will get the question to His Eminence, and we’ll get it answered in due course.

In tonight’s program, I’m venturing away from my usual topics of helping people and parishes discover and live their stewardship callings because I am so honored and so blessed to have a very, very special guest, His Eminence Metropolitan Gregory, the Metropolitan of the holy American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of [North America]. While many listeners of Ancient Faith Radio may be familiar with certain Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States, perhaps it may be helpful to share a little bit about the American Carpatho-Russian Diocese that was established as long ago as 1938 by His All-Holiness, the late Benjamin I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. When the Diocese was formed, there was a whole history behind it, and at some point we’re going to get His Eminence to share some of that history and some of that story, so I’m not going to cover it now. But tonight I’m absolutely blessed to have, right here in the Stewardship Calling Ancient Faith Radio studio in Gainesville, Georgia, the amazing and inspirational hierarch of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church. Folks, please fasten your seatbelts and return your seat backs and tray tables to the locked and upright position, because we’re fixing to go on a quick and whirlwind journey on the life of this amazing servant-leader.

Metropolitan Gregory was the first of two children of Peter and Antonia Tatsis and was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, with the baptismal name of George, which is when I actually first met him. Now, he’s a double Tar Heel. Before all our listeners out there who are not from the South start planning my ex-communication or execution for defaming a hierarch, please allow me to explain. Metropolitan Gregory first graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a BA degree in biology, and then subsequently earned a Master’s degree in biology from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Now the nickname of the University of North Carolina are the Tar Heels, so someone with two UNC degrees is a double Heel, a double Tar Heel.

And for our Yankee friends, who may not know the origin of this nickname, the term Tar Heel dates back to the actual origins and the beginning of North Carolina’s history, when the state was one of the leading producers of supplies for the naval industry, and workers who distilled turpentine from the sap of the trees and burned pine bars to produce the tar and pitch often went barefoot during the hot summer months and undoubtedly collected tar on their heels, so to call someone a tar heel was to imply that they were a hard-working tradesman. Now, during the Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression as it is sometimes referred to down South, North Carolina soldiers flipped the meaning of the term and turned an epitaph into an accolade. They call themselves Tar Heels as an expression of state pride, and others adopted the term, and North Carolina became widely known as the Tar Heel state.

In the 1880s, when the University of North Carolina first began competing in inter-collegiate sports, they needed a nickname. It didn’t appear that they had to debate over it very much as to how the teams had to be called to express their school spirit, and they were known and have always been known as the Tar Heels. But I digress.

So while those of us who see and hear Metr. Gregory, and anybody who has heard him can attest to the fact that he is a very dynamic and inspirational and distinguished hierarch, a clergyman, and a servant of the Lord, what you may not know is that before all of that he worked for over 20 years in the field of cardiovascular research at the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. And Metr. Gregory authored or co-authored over 100 articles, abstracts, and book chapters in scientific fields. So let me repeat that so that you can understand what we’re talking about here. This is a man who has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific articles, abstracts, and book chapters, and we’re actually going to get into that a little bit later in the show.

But he is truly a son of the Church from his early years and from his early days. He served in his home parish of Holy Trinity at the Greek Orthodox cathedral in Charlotte, North Carolina, in a whole variety of capacities from the altar to a Sunday school teacher for 13 years, and in leadership positions including parish council president. I remember when he was parish council president; he was a pretty good parish council president. But most importantly, he was a founding member of the St. Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he also served on the parish organizing committee, as a Sunday school teacher, member of the choir, and as its first parish council president. I don’t know if there’s anybody else that’s done that, to be the parish council president of both of the wonderful parishes in Charlotte, North Carolina. And in those days he was a layman and he was assisting as the chair of the Metropolis of Atlanta Clergy-Laity Assembly.

After taking part in a mission trip to Alaska that was sponsored by the Orthodox Christian Mission Center, Metr. Gregory felt the calling to pursue his life-long dream of studying for the holy priesthood. He left his secular job in the early 2003s and entered Holy Cross Orthodox School of Theology where he graduated with a Masters of Divinity degree. He was ordained a deacon at St. Nektarios Greek Orthodox Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, on November 4, 2006, by His Eminence Metropolitan Alexios of Atlanta, and he was tonsured a monk at Agia Lavra Monastery in Kalavryta, Greece, on January 17, 2007, receiving the name Grigorios, with St. Gregory Palamas as his patron saint. If you have never had the chance to go to that incredible monastery in Kalavryta, you’re missing a huge opportunity.

Now, I’m honored to say that I was actually present at the Annunciation Cathedral in Atlanta on January 28, 2007, when he was ordained into the priesthood, also by Metropolitan Alexios of Atlanta, and our dear Metropolitan was elevated to the rank of archimandrite on the same day. On February 1, 2007, he was appointed as the hierokyrix, the kind of itinerant preacher, of the Metropolis of Atlanta, and on September 14, 2007, he received the offikion, the rank, of Confessor at the Archangel Michael Greek Orthodox Chapel in Atlanta.

Serving as the itinerant preacher and the confessor, Metr. Gregory traveled extensively throughout the eight southeastern states where he led parish retreats, heard confessions, and provided spiritual direction to countless members of the clergy and the faithful. But, recognizing his immense affinity for youth ministry and his extraordinary administrative skills, he was given the responsibility of overseeing all of the youth programs in the Metropolis of Atlanta.

Metr. Gregory also served as a parish priest of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, from December 2010 to May 2011, and then on October 1, 2011, he served as the Dean of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in New Orleans, Louisiana—I think the oldest Greek Orthodox parish in America. And he was the vicar of the western conference of the Metropolis of Atlanta.

But on Saturday, July 14, 2012, at a special assembly of the diocesan priests, Metr. Gregory was nominated as the successor to His Eminence, Metropolitan Nicholas of Amissos, and on August of 2012, the holy and sacred synod of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople canonically elected Bishop Gregory as the titular bishop of Nyssa and ruling diocese hierarch of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of [North America]. He was consecrated a bishop at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Johnstown in 2012. And at his consecration he was there with His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios of America, His Eminence Metropolitan Alexios of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Atlanta, His Eminence Metropolitan Savas of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Pittsburgh, and His Eminence Metropolitan Antony and His Eminence Archbishop Daniel of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA.

But in July of 2013, in recognition of Metr. Gregory’s experience in youth and adult ministries, he was appointed by the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the USA as the episcopal liaison to the Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) and the pan-Orthodox college ministry. And in 2016, he was selected as Secretary of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the USA, and I’m honored to serve on his secretary committee.

In August of 2018, Metr. Gregory was elevated to the rank of titular Metropolitan of Nyssa by the holy and sacred synod of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, and from that day until today I’ve been hounding him to do a “Meet the Met” program here on Stewardship Calling on Ancient Faith Radio. It’s taken a while to get him here in the studio, but by the grace of God, here he is. With the consecration and enthronement of His Eminence, he became the fourth ruling diocesan hierarch of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese and entered an exciting new chapter in history in this wonderful church that we’re going to talk about.

Now, Your Eminence, I know how much you hate it when we talk about you and your incredible accomplishments, but I thought it was very critical to our listeners who don’t know you to get to know a little bit about you and the incredible diversity of your background and also the incredible spirit of servant-leadership that you bring. So, welcome, and thank you for taking time out of your incredibly busy schedule to join us on Stewardship Calling on Ancient Faith Radio.

His Eminence Metropolitan Gregory of Nyssa: It’s good to be again back in the South after being up in the North, mainly in Pennsylvania, for the last almost eight years. So it’s great to be here, to be with you, my dear friend, and to just discuss whatever you want to talk about.

Mr. Marianes: All right! Well, this is great! What His Eminence is referring to is that his headquarters is in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and he’s traveled all the way from Johnstown, Pennsylvania, here to beautiful Lakeland here in Gainesville, Georgia. Unfortunately, it’s a beautiful day out, but it is raining, raining very heavily; otherwise, I would have taken you out on our boat which is, by the way, the only boat in the Lakeland area to fly the Greek flag. People driving by looking at it go: “What in the heck is that?”

Metr. Gregory: Zi to?

Mr. Marianes: Zi to, exactly. Let’s take a short break right now, and when we come back we’ll begin my interview with Metropolitan Gregory of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of [North] America. Please remember that tonight’s show had to be pre-recorded, so regrettably we can’t take your questions live, but if you have a question for me or Metr. Gregory, you can send me an email at bill@stewardshipcalling.com. So let’s take a short break right now.

Mr. Marianes: Welcome back to Stewardship Calling where tonight we’re blessed to be speaking with Metr. Gregory, the presiding hierarch of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of [North America]. And all our listeners, again, we normally invite you to call in or join the chatroom, but because the show had to be pre-recorded, if you have any questions for Metr. Gregory, just shoot me an email at bill@stewardshipcalling.com, and I’ll get it to him. So let’s begin.

Your Eminence, while I just shared your amazing CV with our listeners, given your incredibly long record of service to the Church here in the US, it occurs to me that we don’t really know that much about your upbringing in the early days of your journey. Laity often forget that bishops are people that were once young themselves. So in the spirit of really giving an opportunity for people to get to know you better on a more personal level rather than just being the distinguished theologian and visionary hierarch that we always see, what do you want to share with us about your growing up, your family, the people or events that influenced you to become the man you are today, including any struggles or doubts that you faced along the way?

Metr. Gregory: Well, Bill, I can begin by saying my parents were Greek immigrants, and so I’m first-generation. When my mother came to America, she was pregnant, and so I began life in the mountains of northwestern Greece, in the state of Epiros, which is near the Albanian border, but I was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, and so I proudly claim dual citizenship.

Mr. Marianes: [Laughter] Yeah.

Metr. Gregory: My family—my father, my mother, my younger sister, and I—we attended church services at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Charlotte. My father’s family was very large. There were eleven siblings.

Mr. Marianes: Holy cow!

Metr. Gregory: And so I had 22 first cousins, and I was the oldest, so I was always around young people growing up.

Mr. Marianes: Were they all kind of in the Charlotte area, or a lot of them were?

Metr. Gregory: About half of them were here, and half were in Greece. My father had brought several of his siblings over.

During my education in high school I had some really wonderful teachers that opened up my mind to the fields of science and history, and both of these fields are something that I continue to study and love. There were some inspirational people other than teachers. I would say Fr. Phaethon Constantinides, who was my parish priest in Charlotte. My grandfather, my father’s father, who was also a priest.

Mr. Marianes: Oh, I did not know that!

Metr. Gregory: Yes, in Greece, Fr. Demetrios Tatsis.

When I was about 16 years old, I was visiting Greece one summer. I remember him saying to me as if it was today, “Giorgio, min phovasai kanenan o anthropo mono ton Theo,” which means, “George, fear no man, only God.”

Mr. Marianes: Great advice!

Metr. Gregory: So this is something I have always remembered as a child growing up. Did I have struggles in my life? Like everyone I had struggles, but nothing that overwhelmed me to the point that I couldn’t find resolution. I always had good discussions with my father and with others. So they showed me the proper way, I believe, to achieve… overcome difficulties in life. I think the difficulties in my life as a teenager are not the same difficulties that our teenagers have today. It’s more difficult. To tell you the truth, I look at them and I say, “I don’t know how you do it.”

But as far as my family growing up, I had great parents… Just a wonderful time.

Mr. Marianes: That’s fantastic. And it’s good that you were able to be with so much family in that regard. Even today, now, people are spread out all over the place and don’t have the benefit of doing that. And to have actually great advice from a grandfather who was a priest—this was really important stuff.

Metr. Gregory: He lived into his late 90s.

Mr. Marianes: Oh my goodness! So that bodes very well for your longevity!

Metr. Gregory: I don’t know about that. [Laughter]

Mr. Marianes: I mean, you know, come on. That’s a genetic thing, isn’t it? I mean, you’re the biologist here! I’m just a lawyer.

Metr. Gregory: I will take whatever the Lord gives me. [Laughter]

Mr. Marianes: All right, that’s good. That’s good. Well, thanks for that background. Again, I think it’s really helpful when people understand the progression that our blessed hierarchs have taken in their lives.

So a large part of my Stewardship Calling ministry is focused on helping people discover and live their stewardship callings, inspired by St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and many other Scripture passages. He was really good at constantly exhorting the faithful to live the calling to which they had been called. All clergy, as you know, are called to an amazing and an incredible life of service to the Lord. But hierarchs have a more unique and dedicated calling. So what can you share with our listeners about how it was that you were called to the priesthood and the specific journey through the priesthood to the episcopacy?

Metr. Gregory: Okay. I can start by saying I was always close to the Church. I always went to Sunday school, every Sunday, never failed. From eight years old on, I was an acolyte, an altar boy. From the age of 10th grade to 12th grade, I was the head altar boy at the cathedral in Charlotte. I read the epistle every Sunday for three years.

Mr. Marianes: Wow. That’s a big deal, folks, for those of you that don’t know. The cathedral in Charlotte, which at the time I think was the diocesan headquarters, is a really big and beautiful church.

Metr. Gregory: 1250 families, big place. I really enjoyed Holy Week services. And so the calling to the priesthood for me came around the age of 17. It was my senior year in high school, and everyone was saying, “Oh, you’re going to make a great priest,” or “Of course you’re going to be a priest,” stuff like that. So I’m now torn, and I’m struggling with the calling. Do I go to seminary and serve God, or do I go to university and study to be a doctor, in fact a pediatrician? This was also an idea I had. So now I’m stuck. I’m stuck. What am I going to do?

Mr. Marianes: Right now I’m sure there are high school seniors who are feeling that kind of same confusion of the past.

Metr. Gregory: Stuckness.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, stuckness! That’s a new word. All right, I’m going to use that one.

Metr. Gregory: Put it down.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, I’m going to write that down.

Metr. Gregory: I’m Greek. We can invent words. [Laughter]

So I was stuck. So one Sunday, I went to church, and Fr. Phaethon asked me, he said, “Well, George”—which is my baptismal name—“is it theology or biology?” And I responded, “Father, I think I will go to the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill—Go Heels—and study to be a doctor.” And he said to me, “Go and do as you think.”

Mr. Marianes: Okay, so he didn’t push you?

Metr. Gregory: He didn’t push you in either direction.

Mr. Marianes: Right. He was very supportive.

Metr. Gregory: Just: “Go and do as you think.” And so I went to Chapel Hill, and I studied biology, and I got my degree. I tried to get into medical school. In fact, I tried ten schools for three years, and in the end I was rejected 30 times. You can imagine.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah! Well, that is one of the most difficult things to get admitted to, so. You’re in good company.

Metr. Gregory: But 30 rejections.

Mr. Marianes: That’s hard. That’s hard, isn’t it?

Metr. Gregory: When the last envelope came, I knew what it said, because it was just an envelope. If you get accepted to medical school, they’ll send you a package: “We need you to fill out all these things and more stuff.” So I knew what it said. I opened it anyway, and of course it said, “We cannot offer you a seat in the class of” whatever. So I took this rejection letter, went to the bathroom, looked in the mirror, and I said to myself, “George, I don’t think God wants you to be a doctor. There must be something else.”

So I had already, in the meantime, started working in a cardiovascular research lab there in Charlotte, and I continued to do this for 20 years. I stayed connected to the Church; I never lost my sort of faith in God. I taught Sunday school. I served on the parish council, one year as the secretary, two years as vice-president, three years as president…

Mr. Marianes: And if that doesn’t turn you off to the Church, I don’t know what can!

Metr. Gregory: But it didn’t.

Mr. Marianes: Presidents of parish councils are really…

Metr. Gregory: But it didn’t.

Mr. Marianes: That’s a blessing.

Metr. Gregory: I had a beautiful time there. I served as festival chairman, and the festival in Charlotte, the Yiasou Festival is a huge event: 55,000-60,000 people come through the gates for four days. It’s tremendous.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, if you’ve never been, you have no idea what an epic activity this is, for four days, to do that.

Metr. Gregory: Yeah, it’s huge. I continued to serve in the altar at times.

Then in 1998, we had the need for a second Greek Orthodox parish to organize in Charlotte. So St. Nektarios was born. I actually served as its first president of the parish council. Then in 2000 and in 2001 I went to Alaska on the OCMC teams that were sent. These were catechism teams, so we were in Eskimo villages—Yupik Eskimo villages—on the Kuskokwim River one year, the Yukon River the next year, and we were teaching Sunday school to the kids in the morning, the teenagers in the afternoon, and the adults at night.

Mr. Marianes: Oh, wow.

Metr. Gregory: So this went on for a month, both summers. It was an awesome experience.

Then during the second year, 2001, I got the calling to the priesthood again, in a very intense way. And I said, because I had rejected God’s calling the first time—remember, I went to be a doctor—but he doesn’t let go. He gets you in the end.

“Okay, Lord, you win. I’ll do whatever you ask.” So I returned from Alaska and I wrapped up my research efforts. It took about ten months to finish up the studies I was involved in. And then I headed to Boston, to Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. I got my degree in three years. Metropolitan Alexios told me: “Not four, three.”

Mr. Marianes: [Laughter] “I have need for you.”

Metr. Gregory: “I need you.” So I graduated, he ordained me a deacon, but I maintained a fourth year at Holy Cross as Dean of Students.

Mr. Marianes: I missed that in the CV.

Metr. Gregory: Yes, it’s not there, but for a year. But he cut it off halfway through: “I need you now.” So I came home at Christmastime. I left Holy Cross and went to Kalavryta, Greece, was tonsured a monk. And this is the monastery where the war of independence started in 1821, the famous monastery. If you go into the museum, you can even see the lavra, the battle-flag that’s full of bullet-holes from the conflict that started the war of independence from the Ottoman Turks after 400 years of slavery, finally the Orthodox were going to be free.

Mr. Marianes: And it was a bishop, Bishop Germanos.

Metr. Gregory: And it was a bishop, exactly.

Mr. Marianes: In Agia Lavra, that kind of began the war for independence.

Metr. Gregory: Absolutely. So it was something that needed to be done, so I was tonsured a monk. That’s where I received the name Grigorios, Gregory Palamas, which was a bishop of the Church. I came back to Atlanta, and Metr. Alexios ordained me to the priesthood, elevated me to archimandriti the same day. That’s usually an eight- to ten-year period, but he was in a hurry. He needed his hierokyrix exomologos, the itinerant preacher-confessor, to begin his ministry in the Metropolis of Atlanta, which I did for five years, which was a beautiful ministry for me.

I served short-term in Raleigh, North Carolina, between priest assignments of others, and he sent me to New Orleans to be the dean there. I served there exactly one year to the day before I left to become the hierarch for the Carpatho-Rusyns. So that’s kind of my story. It’s a long story, but it took years for it to come together. But, again, the calling was at 17; I denied it. The calling came again in my early 40s, and I said, “You win.”

Mr. Marianes: Right. That is a really powerful and inspirational story. I mean, you see this all the time. I’m blessed to travel the country and talk to people. The number of people who are in what I refer to as day jobs—some career, some profession, some activity—but there’s something inside them, there’s something that they can feel inside them that’s calling them. Fortunately now we have a lay diaconate program that’s an opportunity, and we did a Stewardship Calling program on that. But I think it is just a testament to hear you talk about the fact that you said no, and you said no for a long time—a couple of decades is a long time—and then finally you said yes, and, boy, it was a rocketship from that point forward, right? I mean, you just truly fashioned your seatbelts.

Well, thank you for sharing that background and story. For those of you that are out there that are looking and thinking and struggling and may feel in this new word that he’s created, the degree of “stuckness” in where you are, there is perhaps a calling and a passion and a path for you.

Now, look, as I mentioned in the introduction and as you covered a little bit, you really had a distinguished career in the field of science. One of the things that I will never forget was you did a talk at the cathedral on reconciling science and theology. I went there with pre-conceived notions because of what’s happening in the world around us because we live in today’s post-Christian and secular world and we’re constantly bombarded with… whether it’s fake news or whatever, but how science and religion are in opposition and can’t be reconciled and whatnot. And I heard you deliver this amazing talk that really brought a consonance of our theology and the world of legitimate science. What can you share with the listeners about that critical topic? And then if you have any suggestion about where they can go to learn more, that would be really fantastic.

Metr. Gregory: I remember the presentation you’re discussing. This was at the cathedral I think on a Wednesday night.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, it was one of the Wednesday Night Life sessions.

Metr. Gregory: That’s right. Well, I’m a scientist by training. I have both the bachelor’s degree in biology and the master’s degree in biology, and like we said earlier, 20 years in cardiovascular research. There’s lots of science in my life, and yet I still believe in God with no problem. And you’re right: there is this sort of penchant of “faith versus science,” that they can’t co-exist. What do we say in our Creed? God created the heavens and the earth, all things visible and invisible. That means he created everything. It’s all his stuff, all of it. Science is what we as human beings have discovered and understand about God’s stuff. That’s science. So if we put our hands together and we create a sphere, everything in the sphere is science—that’s what we know. Everything outside the sphere is God’s stuff we don’t know—yet. In the history of man, it took 5,000 years to double the knowledge base, way back when. The knowledge base today, the doubling of the known information by man, is 1.2 years.

Mr. Marianes: That’s incredible.

Metr. Gregory: In 1.2 years—just a little bit over a year—we can fill another set of books that are in all the libraries in the world and double the size. So the sphere keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But outside the sphere is God’s stuff that we still don’t understand. So we will continue to increase our knowledge, but there’s still stuff we don’t understand. Every 1.2 years: can you imagine what’s going on in the world that we are learning things? And so that’s one way of thinking about it, science and faith, faith being the God-stuff outside the sphere.

One of the theories out there, of course, is Big Bang, Big Bang Theory. At one point in the distant time, there was a point of energy that was very dense, condensed. You can visualize this. If you make the sign on your hand, the symbol we use to make the sign of the cross: we bring the thumb, the index finger, the middle finger together and make a little triangle, and then the other two fingers are down in the palm, the two natures of Christ. That little triangle between all three fingers is the dense energy right before the Big Bang. This is the way I think. The Big Bang is a beautiful theory if you will allow me to say that the Big Bang is when God [Snap] snapped his fingers, and that little energy that was there was released.

Mr. Marianes: Oh, I love that visual imagery!

Metr. Gregory: That’s the Big Bang.

Mr. Marianes: I wish you all could have just seen him form his hand ready to give a cross and then snap his fingers, because that is a visual…

Metr. Gregory: God snapped his fingers, and that’s the Big Bang. Or another theory that’s out there—

Mr. Marianes: Oh man, I just bought into this one! Now you’re giving me something else. I love this.

Metr. Gregory: Yes, because there are multiple scientific theories.

Mr. Marianes: That’s what scientists do. I get it.

Metr. Gregory: This is a primordial-sludge theory, that there’s just lakes of goo, millions of years ago, billions of years ago—use whatever number of years you want—that’s just sitting there and that’s just slowly, components within the goo form amino acids. And then slowly after some more millions of years, the amino acids form one-celled organisms. And then some more time passes and they become larger organisms. And maybe some more time passes and there’s some fish-like creatures, which swim to the edge of the goo-pond and they approach land, and some of them edge out onto the hard land, using their fins sort of as legs; and some stay and some leave. This is a theory. I will accept this theory, if you will allow me to say that this theory did happen when God put his finger in the pool and everything took off.

Mr. Marianes: That was the catalytic event.

Metr. Gregory: That was the catalytic event. So it’s either Big Bang, snapping his fingers, or him putting his finger in the goo that life begins. I will accept those things in correlation to Genesis, because we see: there was darkness, there was water. Things were happening in the water. What was happening in the water? All of a sudden there’s things happening outside the water. Okay!

Mr. Marianes: It explains it.

Metr. Gregory: It explains it, but only if you allow God to be part of the question. If you cannot allow God to be part of the question, then you’re creating a tension between science and faith. Why? And I’m so much into this stuff that in my diocese three years ago, we added a fourth week in our summer camp season: faith and science.

Mr. Marianes: Oh! I didn’t know that. That’s fantastic!

Metr. Gregory: Our kids, a segment of them—we have about 125 a week—for that particular week there may be 25 or 30 kids, and we focus on God’s creation through all the sciences: meteorology, geology, astronomy. There’s telescopes, microscopes all over the place.

Mr. Marianes: Can I come?

Metr. Gregory: Come!

Mr. Marianes: I’d love to do that. That’s fantastic.

Metr. Gregory: Come and see.

Mr. Marianes: That is fantastic.

Metr. Gregory: That whole point is to show kids that are in school doing science that you can connect God with what he has created; it’s all his. Enjoy it. I mean, if you look at a drop of water from a lake or a creek under the microscope, you will see a new universe there: animals, plants, floating around. How did they get there? Because of a random Big Bang event? No, it’s God that put them there.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah. That is fantastic. One of the things that always struck me was… You will remember that the National Institute of Health was tasked with sequencing the human genome, and it took them 15 years to do it, although the vast majority of the accomplishments were in the last several years. It’s kind of that exponential theory there. But what struck me was when the then-head of the NIH, Francis Collins, at the ceremony at the White House, announced that they had finally sequenced the human genome, the phrase he used that I’ve never forgotten was he said, “We’re one step closer to understanding the language of God.”

Metr. Gregory: Yes.

Mr. Marianes: And that caused such a huge stir in the scientific community: How could you be saying that? When, in fact, he wrote a phenomenal book called Glory to Jesus Christ: A History of the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese. It’s wonderful. This is fascinating. And it’s actually… I can read this. My eyes are getting weak here in the old age and stuff like that, but this is… Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Your Eminence.

Metr. Gregory: You enjoy.

Mr. Marianes: That is fantastic. I am going to look at this. I had a unique experience to work with the Anglican Catholic Church, which I didn’t understand what it was, and it’s actually multiple jurisdictions and they broke off from various Episcopal jurisdictions, and their presiding hierarch is actually in Athens, Georgia, a short hour away from over here. So I drove over there and spent a day with him, and he, too, gave me a book about the Anglican Catholic Church. So it’s a really wonderful opportunity to learn something.

Okay. Folks, let’s take a short break right now. We’re going to catch our breath. I’m going to give His Eminence a chance to get a drink of water, and when we come back I’m going to have a few more questions for His Eminence, Metr. Gregory of the holy American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese of [North America]. Again, please remember that tonight’s show is pre-recorded, so we can’t take your questions live, but if you do have something you’d like to know or some follow-up, if you just shoot me an email at bill@stewardshipcalling.com, I will get it out to His Eminence and we’ll get back. So let’s take a short break right now.

Mr. Marianes: Welcome back to Stewardship Calling. Tonight we’re blessed to speak with Metropolitan Gregory, the presiding hierarch of the American Carpatho-Russian [Orthodox] Diocese of [North America]. Again, remember to all our callers that this is a pre-recorded show so we can’t take all your calls, but if you have any questions, please shoot them to me at bill@stewardshipcalling.com, and I’ll get it to His Eminence.

All right. Metr. Gregory, you and I… You have had some really amazing experiences in your life, and I am not suggesting that the range of experiences you have rivals Forrest Gump, but…

Metr. Gregory: I like that movie.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, I like that movie, too. But you’ve recently completed a most unusual and kind of once-in-a-lifetime official trip to the Communist country of Cuba, on behalf of the Ecumenical Patriarch. So I’d like to have you tell our listeners a little bit about what brought you to this amazing, unique country, and what you experienced there and what you learned there.

Metr. Gregory: Okay. It was the evening of January 7 of this year, and January 7 is Old Calendar Christmas. By the way, I have 65% of my parishes are Old Calendar, and 35% of my parishes are New Calendar.

Mr. Marianes: Oh, really!

Metr. Gregory: So I have both calendars in my diocese.

Mr. Marianes: So you fast all year, in other words?

Metr. Gregory: Yes, and it shows in the size that I am. [Laughter] The thing is that I had just come back from a Christmas celebration. We had just opened gifts at my chancellor’s house with his grandchildren. I got back to my house in Johnstown and was sitting there—it was probably nine o’clock in the evening—and I received a text. The text essentially said, “Are you available to represent our patriarch in Cuba?”

Mr. Marianes: [Laughter] Yeah, that happens to me all the time. I get texts like that, like: What!?

Metr. Gregory: I have to tell you, I was a little stunned.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, like: Is this real?

Metr. Gregory: It was real. Just to shorten the story a little bit, the next day I called the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in New York to learn the particulars, and of course I replied, “It would be a great honor for me personally and for the people of my diocese to represent the mother church and His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Cuba.”

It turns out that I had less than 20 days to get ready for this, probably close to 15 days. What was happening was that the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Havana, Cuba, was celebrating the 15th anniversary of its consecration as a church by Patriarch Bartholomew. This was going to be the weekend of January 25-26. Of course, I said yes. A couple of days later I received the official letter from His All-Holiness informing me of his request. How he found me, I didn’t find out the story, but the patriarchate has about 150 bishops, so why they would pick the guy in Johnstown to represent him in Cuba, I don’t know, but I was honored.

I received several days later a phone call from Metopolitan Athenagoras of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean Islands. I had not spoken to him for many years; I knew him as a layman. He called me and we discussed the particulars. He told me everything and so forth. So we had to prepare documents with the Cuban government, of course. I received a religious activities visa.

Mr. Marianes: Yes, that’s a very limited visa to get out.

Metr. Gregory: Very limited now to get into Cuba as it is. That was all taken care of. I received it the day before my departure.

Mr. Marianes: Oh, wow.

Metr. Gregory: So I arrived Friday evening, eventually made it through the customs/immigration control business.

Mr. Marianes: That must not have been very easy, though, I would think, for an Orthodox clergyman/hierarch to go through a Communist country that isn’t known much for favoring the religious…

Metr. Gregory: It was not easy. Yes, it was a challenge, but it took about an hour and a half, but I cleared the customs. Saturday, now, the next day, we visited the cathedral. I met with the local clergy, with the family, with parishioners, the beautiful children that are there. And then for lunch we went to the Greek embassy, and the ambassador, she hosted us there, a wonderful luncheon with business people who either live or do business in Cuba, Greek businessmen. Earlier, before then, we went and visited an elderly man in a building full of artwork. It turns out—and this is the way Metr. Athenagoras described him—the greatest historian/preservationist of Cuban art and architecturally important buildings. So this man who was in his 80s had spent his life saving Cuban art and buildings from being destroyed. Beautiful.

Sunday, of course, we had Orthros and the Divine Liturgy, services mainly in Spanish. There was some Greek, of course. I threw in a couple of petitions in English, and the auxiliary bishop, who is Ukrainian threw some Ukrainian in, so we had four languages going. The church was full. The Greek ambassador was there with her staff. The council-general of Panama was there with her family.

Mr. Marianes: Oh, wow.

Metr. Gregory: There were two Roman Catholic bishops. The imam of Havana was there.

Mr. Marianes: Ah, okay.

Metr. Gregory: So there were Muslims in the house. And then there were government officials, including the assistant to the president. The president was scheduled to be there, but at the last moment was detained by something else. You know how government stuff is; you do what you have to do.

We celebrated the Liturgy. Everyone came and received the Eucharist. Then after we finished, I read the patriarch’s letter to the people, which was, of course, in katharevousa Greek.

Mr. Marianes: Ha ha, yeah! And they’re looking at you like: What did he just say?

Metr. Gregory: “What did he just say?” And one of the priests had also translated the letter in Spanish, so I did a paragraph, he did a paragraph, back and forth.

Then His Eminence Metr. Athenagoras asked me if I would like to say something on my own. Now, if you know me—and, Bill, you know me—if you give me a chance, I’m going to take it.

Mr. Marianes: Amen, brother. And, thankfully, you do.

Metr. Gregory: And so I did. Now, I spoke in modern Greek, and one of the priests translated into Spanish. I told them who I was, where I was from, how I got there, the fact that I had made new friends in Cuba in just two days, that a country that was only 90 miles away from the United States was off-limits to me as a young adult in America, and not in my wildest dreams did I think I would ever visit this place. I mentioned I had studied Spanish for five years in high school and college, 40 years ago, and that I had not needed to use any of it until I got there Friday night in the airport.

Mr. Marianes: But you could pull some of it out, right?

Metr. Gregory: But I needed it, and I somehow dealt with these issues that I had. But I told them that I remembered one phrase very well. “Una cerveza, por favor. One beer, please.”

Mr. Marianes: [Laughter] I remember that from my Spanish classes!

Metr. Gregory: The whole congregation broke out laughing. The priest who was translating was bent over double, and I told him, “You don’t need to translate this. They got it.”

Mr. Marianes: [Laughter] They got it! Now here’s the question: Did anybody run up and give you a cerveza?

Metr. Gregory: Wait, wait, wait.

Mr. Marianes: I’m getting a head of you.

Metr. Gregory: Don’t get ahead.

Mr. Marianes: I’m trying not to.

Metr. Gregory: So following the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and all the talks, we had a concert in a hall next door. The first group was an all-female string orchestral group, young females, 18-25 maybe. Unbelievable. Fantastic what they were able to do with violins, violas, and cellos. Then there were individual little girls who came up and played on the piano, by themselves and then together. Awesome. There was a member of the parish, a young man, who was offering a Greek tune in his operatic voice.

Mr. Marianes: Oh, wow.

Metr. Gregory: And I’m thinking: These people are fantastic. They have a great gift. Then there was one choral group that came out and sang songs in multiple languages. So this is part of the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the consecration of the church. We went outside in the courtyard outside the church and had lunch. And that’s when people came up and said, “Would you like a beer?” And: “No, thank you.”

But while we were having lunch, the local elementary school children were performing skits that were comical skits. Unbelievable. My encounter with the local people was awesome, and so my trip to Cuba was fantastic. I am blessed that I was given the opportunity to explore a new land just for a couple of days, but it was a great honor for me to represent the patriarch.

Mr. Marianes: That is absolutely fantastic, and I think for the listeners out there who may not have known that we actually have an Orthodox church in Cuba and it’s celebrating its anniversary now, that’s important. We obviously have focused on, as we should, the Orthodox travails in many of the countries and jurisdictions that people are suffering and dealing with unbelievable persecution and things of that nature, but they are the loyal, faithful folks in Cuba. Do you have a sense of how many folks belong to that church or that parish?

Metr. Gregory: On any given Sunday, 125 to 500 people.

Mr. Marianes: That’s fantastic.

Metr. Gregory: And they’re all, most of the parishioners, because there’s only about… I asked, “Well, about how many Greeks are here?”

Mr. Marianes: Because that’s how it got started, right? That was the initial origin.

Metr. Gregory: “Thirty.” I said, okay, so 30 Greeks. Everyone else who’s Orthodox is Cuban, and the reality is they have outside of their church there in the courtyard they have a baptismal font, a large one, that many people have been baptized in and have become Orthodox. But on any given Sunday, 125 to 500 will show up.

Mr. Marianes: What a great evangelical story, to go into that place that’s, again, not necessarily the most pleasant environment for Orthodoxy or Christianity, and to really grow. That is absolutely fantastic, and I will not ask you if you brought out any Cuban cigars over here. We’ll leave that comment. I don’t want to get you in trouble, now, because I’m a lawyer.

Metr. Gregory: No, you’re not going to get me into trouble, Bill; stop.

Mr. Marianes: All right.

Metr. Gregory: The reality is— How did I know you were going to ask this question? Almost everyone who heard I was going to Cuba said, “Are you going to bring cigars?” and of course I laugh because I don’t smoke. So when I got there, we’re doing our thing, and as I got to the airport to leave, I thought to myself, “You know, people were asking for cigars. But you don’t smoke. Why would you buy cigars?” And then I said to myself, “But how many times are you going to come to Cuba?” So in the airport I found the tobacco shop, and I bought three boxes.

Mr. Marianes: All right!

Metr. Gregory: I would have bought four, but I couldn’t have put it in my carry-on bag any more. I jammed them in there.

Mr. Marianes: [Laughter] And there was no problem bringing them in, huh? You had no problem?

Metr. Gregory: You can bring up to a hundred cigars, less than $800 value. So this was actually one of the questions I researched before I came back. I have several connoiseurs in my priests. We will share them at our clergy convocation in May.

Mr. Marianes: [Laughter] As well you should. Well, I don’t want to out my source, but I have source who’s kind of a US citizen and a Greek citizen and spends a lot of time at the patriarchate and goes back and forth and whatnot, and apparently you can get Cuban cigars in Turkey fairly readily.

Metr. Gregory: Yes.

Mr. Marianes: So for those of you out there that are connoiseurs, you have to be a hierarch and be invited to a celebration, or you have to know a hierarch who’s been invited to a celebration.

All right, look. There’s probably no bigger and more visible topic in our Church and our world today than the unique challenges that are being faced by our youth and our emerging adults. Obviously, I know how passionate you are on this topic, not only from your decades of service—from teaching Sunday schools to running camps to being at every one of the camps that I know of that have taken place in multiple jurisdictions, and the passionate work that you devoted, even in the American Carpatho-Russian Diocese, to youth ministry and things of that nature—but we all know and have heard over and over again that oft-quoted statistics that show that 40% of emerging adults have left whatever faith tradition that they were raised in and that ultimately up to 60% of youth will leave the Church once they leave their parents’ homes. So if you could summarize… I don’t know. That’s an unfair question to ask you, but if you can summarize, what are some of the lessons that you’ve learned and some of the initiatives that you would like to see our Church undertake to address these really unacceptable and alarming trends?

Metr. Gregory: I would say some of the things I have sort of learned from working with youth for several decades now. One is that our youth are like sponges. They will absorb anything we throw at them if it is presented in the right way and made relevant to them. Now, how can we make it relevant to them? First, we need to know what they know. What are they reading? What are they watching? What are they listening to? What is their lingo? How are they relating to each other? We have to know this as youth workers in order to make a connection with young people.

As an example, in the spring of 2012, when I was responsible for all the youth ministries in the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Atlanta, summer camp season was coming, just a few months away. What are the kids reading? They were reading The Hunger Games, a dark scenario set of books where young people are being hunted by each other for sport, representing the region of the country where they lived in, while the wealthy gambled on the results. Now, that’s pretty dark.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, that’s not good.

Metr. Gregory: And it’s actually a trilogy, as I said. So I read the first book, and I read the book, and I read the third book. And I even watched the movie that had come out that spring. Eventually there’s a happy ending. The main character of this series of books is a female known as Katniss Everdeen. Katniss Everdeen.

So summer camp starts, and sometime during the week I’m discussing something with the teenagers, and I mention Katness Everdeen—just the name. The somewhat inattentive group becomes very attentive. And at that time I was known as Fr. Grigorios, or Father G. “Fr. Grigorios, you know about Katniss Everdeen!?”

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, you made a connection, didn’t you?

Metr. Gregory: “Yes, I read the book.” “You read The Hunger Games!?” “Yes, I read all three of them, and I saw the movie.” “You read all three of the books and you saw the movie!? Yes!” From that moment on, I had them eating out of my hand. It didn’t matter what I talked about; the rest of the week, I had them.

Now, it takes time to read books, and it takes time to see the movie. But I consider that part of my job. If I’m going to be involved in youth ministry, that’s part of my job. So I had made the connection. So I think that’s very important. And there are ways of finding out what’s going on in their world—there are actually youth magazines that keep you up to date—so when they’re talking music, you actually can name the musical groups that they’re listening to, and you can critique it, like: “I think that was pretty cool” or “That’s not very good.”

Mr. Marianes: Right, you can engage in conversation, in dialogue.

Metr. Gregory: That’s all they need. That’s all they want.

The second thing I would think to say here is that our youth have something to say, and we must give them the chance to say it. It does not mean that we agree with everything they say, because in most cases we won’t—but we give them the voice. Young people are much happier when they have a voice, when they’re heard, the engagement. I’m not talking down at you; I’m talking eye-to-eye with you. They like that.

If our young people have a bright idea, put them to work! so they can take that and proceed from the idea to a product or implementation. Don’t shut them down. Make them put some work into it. Again, they will appreciate that.

As the episcopal liaison from the Assembly of Bishops to the OCF, the Orthodox Christian Fellowship, our college campus ministry, I have encountered truly amazing college students, in all kinds of fields. Every year at College Conference East in Ligonier Village, Pennsylvania, which meets between December 27 and 30, 275-300 college students gather for worship and seminars and fellowship and just for a great time. And what I have noticed is they don’t care about the Orthodox jurisdiction. They care about being together with other Orthodox. This may be a big lesson for the Assembly of Bishops.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, there’s a lot we can learn, isn’t it?

Metr. Gregory: There it is. Now, eventually this group of people is going to graduate, and they’re going to return to their parishes or they’re going to end up in other parishes depending on where their jobs take them: newly educated, highly enthusiastic, on fire with the faith, and they want to help and offer their ideas. And in most cases—not all, but in most cases—they are told: “Wait. It’s not your turn yet.” What? What are we talking about?

Mr. Marianes: You have somebody on fire, ready to work, ready to roll up their sleeves, a lot of energy…

Metr. Gregory: “Wait. Wait.”

Mr. Marianes: Sit on the sidelines.

Metr. Gregory: Now is the time to put them to work: as Sunday school teachers, parish council members, in fact, presidents of communities. Don’t make them wait. If you do, they’ll probably get married, they’ll have children, they’ll get too busy for church stuff, and easily they’ll float away. I think that’s part of what’s going on. So we have lost opportunities for the young adult; we have lost opportunities for the Church at large. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Put them to work.

As an initiative, I’d like to throw out there this: that at least 35% of all parish council members must be between the ages of 18 and 35.

Mr. Marianes: Oh! That’d be fantastic. Talk about a different perspective! That would be fantastic.

Metr. Gregory: I served as a president of the cathedral in Charlotte between the ages of 32 and 34. If you give young people a chance, they will do good things for you, I believe. 35% of parish councils, between the ages of 18 and 35. We have too many… And I don’t mean this in a disrespectful way, but we have too many parish councils that have a lot of people on them that have been on there for decades. Why? Get off and let your young people come on. They shouldn’t have to wait until you’re dead to get a spot. It’s not like an inheritance. You serve, you come off. You can always go back.

The fifth thing I would think to say about this, Bill, is that the catechism of our youth… Do we really care? How much time per week do we spend in Sunday school? How much money are we spending per child, per year? What are the materials? Are they Orthodox sources or the Baptist bookstore? Are our teachers certified? Have they been trained? And then, what’s happening at home? In my diocese, just this month we began a new program called SPF 50.

Mr. Marianes: SPF 50, okay.

Metr. Gregory: SPF 50. This is for the homes with children, families with small children, children up to 18. SPF—Scripture, Prayer, Family 50. The words are easy. 50—

Mr. Marianes: What’s the 50, yeah?

Metr. Gregory: 50 minutes per month.

Mr. Marianes: Oh, okay.

Metr. Gregory: That’s nothing.

Mr. Marianes: That’s nothing.

Metr. Gregory: 50 minutes per month. Can we go a little bit more? Sure. Can we go a little bit less? Sure; it doesn’t matter. But that’s the goal. It’ll take you about that much stuff. We have resources on our website—our website: www.acrod—a-c-r-o-d—.org. And in our parishes, every Sunday the priests have these materials available. So what’s happening in Sunday school? Do we really mean it? And then what are we doing at home? So we’re giving material to our parents so that they can do things together. And what are they doing? They’re reading Scripture, and they’re praying. There’s no Sunday school lesson there. We’re just reading the Scripture and praying as a family.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, it doesn’t have to be more complicated, right?

Metr. Gregory: It doesn’t have to be complicated, and so let’s not.

And then the sixth thing, and really the thing that sort of hurts me the most, I think, is that sports on Sunday are killing us.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, I hear that all the time, too.

Metr. Gregory: 30 years ago when this all started, we as Christians—and I don’t mean just Orthodox Christians; I mean all Christians—should have said no. We should have told our local officials no, and if they refused us, we should have voted them out, as politicians if they were involved, or we should have just formed our own leagues and had our own facilities. We have lost the battle, but there’s still time to win the war. So I encourage parents to say no now. The reality is your child is not going to be a major-league star in football, basketball, soccer, baseball, hockey, or whatever. They’re just not. But if he or she loses the opportunity to be an Orthodox Christian who’s active every Sunday, in the end they will have lost everything, and that’s what’s truly sad for me. That’s what’s truly sad for me.

Mr. Marianes: Listen, that is a powerful list. One of the things that struck me was from research that I did. Forbes did a study and then Activity Hero did a study, and what they estimated is that the typical American will spend about $2400 per year per child on enrichment stuff, whether it’s sports, music, dance, theater, chorus, whatever, and that includes what you spend for the leagues, for the materials, for the equipment, the training, etc., etc., the music, etc., and I make that point all the time. We spend $2400 a year on average per kid on stuff that will never be useful to them or will be marginally useful to them as they grow old. And the most important thing that will be with them for all of eternity we’re spending zero or a pittance on. And that really shows, when you look at church budgets and things of that nature… When we see churches without youth directors—committed people, not just parents—it’s wonderful that the parents are helping out…

Metr. Gregory: Since you brought that up… Years ago—I would say 20 years ago—the Greek Archdiocese did surveys every couple of years of the catechism/Sunday school departments across the country. And I remember this specifically for one of those years. And the surveys were put together by Fr. Frank Marangos—you know him.

Mr. Marianes: Absolutely.

Metr. Gregory: He was my teacher in religious education up at Holy Cross. One dollar and 67 cents per child per year for catechism. That was the average amount spent on a child in the Greek Archdiocese, per year. Now I know at the cathedral in Charlotte we were spending more than that, because we were buying textbooks for every kid. Which means that in other parishes they were spending nothing.

Mr. Marianes: Oh, that’s right.

Metr. Gregory: So that’s why I say: Are we serious about catechism or not? If we are and we say it’s the most important thing of our Church, our diocese, is our kids, and yet we’re not teaching them the faith, we’re not willing to spend the cash, whatever necessary to make it happen? To me that’s very sad.

Mr. Marianes: It is very sad. And kind of to summarize what I think are some really, really incredible points here, and this is kind of a textbook, if you will, for those people who are youth workers to kind of listen in to someone who’s got great expertise at this: Number one, form a connection with them. Know what they’re listening to, know what they’re reading, know what’s going on. Interestingly enough, the Stewardship Calling program on March 4 is with a fantastic guy, Scott Davenport, and in that conversation we actually talked about some work he’s doing to bring some fantastic new literature—Orthodox theological literature—but using gaming theory and gaming parlance. Make that connection.

Secondly, you talked about giving them voice and actually listening to them, not just the perfunctory “what do you think?” but you’re going to do what you’re doing to do. So giving them voice. Third, putting them to work, actually using that incredible energy that the Lord has given them and actually let them get their hands dirty and make some stuff happen. And number four was: Don’t make them wait. Give them opportunities in leadership and things of that nature, and really focus on youth catechism in this regard and the whole Sunday experience. I think that’s a really great list of activities, so let’s get busy, okay? How about that? Let’s get busy on that.

Metr. Gregory: Let’s do it.

Mr. Marianes: Let’s do it! All right. Look, I don’t like to harp on bad news, but we cannot ignore the facts. Back to the data: We know that 47% of adults raised in the Orthodox Church have left it. We know that millennial youth are leaving the Church 2.8 times faster than their parents left the Church. We know that, for example, in my diocese—yours is, by the way, off the charts—but in my diocese, in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, only one in five regularly attend church on Sundays. I think you guys are the leaders at almost 50%.

Metr. Gregory: 47.

Mr. Marianes: 47, okay, close enough. We don’t know if that data is 100% accurate, but it’s probably pretty close. But still, I mean, in some of the larger jurisdictions, we’ve got a very low rate of attendance. Some of the other research we’ve done show that when they’re there, they’re not really there; their minds are wandering and they’re thinking about other things. So when you put this entire package of truly unacceptable and dire directionality… Let’s talk a little bit about some visions and some ideas you have about the Orthodox Church in America to address some of these challenges and kind of where we can be over the next five to ten years.

Metr. Gregory: Well, it’s true that news is terrible. Can you imagine that nearly half—47%—of adults raised in the Orthodox Church have left? That’s crazy. I mean, it’s a nutty idea, and yet it’s true. And in the study that you mentioned, one in five of the Greek Orthodox—the Carpatho-Russians are actually 46%, but we’re at the top of the list.

Mr. Marianes: Right, so you guys are doing something right that the rest of us aren’t doing.

Metr. Gregory: If I figure out what it is, I will sell it to you.

Mr. Marianes: Please, please!

Metr. Gregory: Even 46% is terrible!

Mr. Marianes: Right, right.

Metr. Gregory: That means 54% of my people are not there on Sunday, which means: Where are they!? Where have they gone? What are they doing? What could possibly have them not be in church on Sunday morning? They’re watching Housewives of Atlanta—

Mr. Marianes: I hope not.

Metr. Gregory: —or they’re watching some tractor pull? What are they doing Sunday morning? They should be in church, unless there’s a legitimate reason. I’m not sure. Maybe people are really not afraid of anything, and so they just don’t need God any more.

Mr. Marianes: They’re not afraid.

Metr. Gregory: Not afraid as much of anything, and so they just… They don’t need God any more. And I know you remember 9/11.

Mr. Marianes: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Metr. Gregory: America gets struck on a Tuesday morning. That Sunday, every church in America—Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox—packed.

Mr. Marianes: Busting out at the seams.

Metr. Gregory: Packed! People who hadn’t been in church for weeks or months or years are in church. Why? Because they’re afraid. Something has happened, and they’re afraid. And then, slowly, the fear starts to dissipate, and attendance returns to “normal.” That might be one reason.

Mr. Marianes: That’s very thought-provoking. I really need to kind of focus on that a little bit, because I think there’s a lot to be said for that.

Metr. Gregory: I mean, if you don’t fear God, you don’t need to be there.

Mr. Marianes: Right.

Metr. Gregory: And fear is not necessarily “I’m afraid he’s going to pound me,” but “I’m not even respectful of God, because he’s awesome. I don’t fear his authority.” I’m his child. How many of us would not go see our father regularly?

Mr. Marianes: And participate and celebrate in a meal with him, right? I mean, that just…

Metr. Gregory: Every Sunday. If you’re in town with your parents, you go there Sunday afternoon for lunch. Every week. Why wouldn’t you? And there were times when I was living in Charlotte, of course, before I went to seminary, that I lived separately from my parents of course, and if I didn’t show up, I’d get the call!

Mr. Marianes: Oh yeah! “Pou eisai? Where are you?”

Metr. Gregory: Yeah. “Where are you?” And then it was like: “Well, I had to do this…” Well, okay. But my father, without any kind of reservation, on the Sunday of the Prodigal, would always say when I came, “Ah. The prodigal has returned.”

Mr. Marianes: [Laughter] He’s preaching the Gospel to you!

Metr. Gregory: He was preaching the Gospel to me. He’s gone now, three years, but still I remember.

Mr. Marianes: May his memory be eternal.

Metr. Gregory: It’s one of those things. So the lack of fear, I think, is one of the things. The other thing I think might be involved in a lot of what’s going on is people just aren’t comfortable in their local parish.

Mr. Marianes: They’re not comfortable…

Metr. Gregory: Not comfortable.

Mr. Marianes: Okay, what do you mean by that?

Metr. Gregory: Something’s not right. Something’s not happening right. Either the atmosphere of the church itself is cold or someone is turning people off. There are just some people that just… I don’t know; they’re just ornery.

Mr. Marianes: They get on your last nerve.

Metr. Gregory: And they’ll say something about someone. Say you’re a young adult, you’re looking for Orthodoxy, you have found Orthodoxy, you’re looking at the local church, you show up, you’re a young female, let’s say, and you have a little tattoo of a rose somewhere on an arm. There’s going to be a woman who’s going to attack you for your tattoo. And then you don’t ever come back. Somebody’s not comfortable.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, that’s a great example, actually.

Metr. Gregory: That’s an actual case of one of my parishes in Florida.

Mr. Marianes: I have no doubt. I’ve heard similar stories.

Metr. Gregory: Then I would say, maybe the sermons just aren’t clicking. [Laughter]

Mr. Marianes: Yep.

Metr. Gregory: Because, you know, a lot of the times, people come to church just to hear what the priest is going to say. So the priest—and this is the same Fr. Frank Marangos; he taught homiletics—“You have to prepare for your sermon. You’ve got to spend the time during the week getting it ready. Don’t try to pull it off the last minute.”

Mr. Marianes: That’s not the time to wing it.

Metr. Gregory: You can’t wing it. It’s got to be a forceful thing, every week, and it’s hard to deliver 50 sermons.

And then I would say—and this one might be taken… hopefully not taken the wrong way, but—are we using the right language in the services for the people that are there?

Mr. Marianes: Right. Let’s do this. Let’s have this conversation. What do you mean by that?

Metr. Gregory: If I go into a parish, and I don’t know a specific language, am I hampered by being there? I might find it charming, even adroit, but if I don’t understand what’s being said, I’m not sure I would go often. In Toronto, Canada, I have a parish—St. John the Compassionate, the mission—with the only English-language Divine Liturgy in the whole country.

Mr. Marianes: What!? Really?

Metr. Gregory: Originally, yes. All the Orthodox jurisdictions were doing it in their language. We did it in English, and all of a sudden it exploded. Now there are several. OCA has one in English, but the Greek Archdiocese is doing it in Greek—because there are no English speakers? Really? I don’t believe so.

Mr. Marianes: In Canada? Come on.

Metr. Gregory: Toronto’s got 5.5 million people. There are plenty of English-speaking people there. I think that can be a problem. Now, I’m not against language. I grew up with the Greek language. It’s actually my first language; English is my second language. I don’t think… But we need to see what’s in the congregation. If there are just old Greek ladies there, then we will do the service in Greek, but if we see young people who probably don’t know Greek, or visitors, strange people: a little bit of English might help. And I think that’s true of all jurisdictions. I think too many of them are still depending on the native tongue, but they’re not in the native land any more.

Mr. Marianes: Right.

Metr. Gregory: So I think that can be an issue, and I’m not necessarily against these things, but we should be thinking: What can be done? The Carpatho-Rusyns essentially said: We’re not doing Church Slavonic any more. That was 50 years ago. And part of the reason that they made that call is there were no Church Slavonic schools. In the Greek Archdiocese, we had Greek schools. I did six years at the cathedral in the afternoon, so I knew Greek. But in many of these places, there was no language school, so first generation, second generation, third generation—forget it. Nobody knows the language! We’re singing the hymn, which is nice, but I don’t know the words.

By the way, the Carpatho-Rusyns do “Christ is Risen” in multiple languages, including Greek.

Mr. Marianes: That’s beautiful.

Metr. Gregory: I didn’t teach them that. The previous [bishop] did.

Mr. Marianes: Well, he got it right.

Metr. Gregory: He got it right. Then I would continue with my list of things, Bill. I hate to say it, but maybe God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit have become irrelevant because…

Mr. Marianes: Yeah.

Metr. Gregory: And I would say, “Yikes!” to that. If it’s not a relevant thing for people, then they’re not going to come. That’s a big problem.

Mr. Marianes: It is huge. It is interesting. You got me thinking earlier on, when a travesty happens or a disaster happens or whatever, the first thing people say is, “You’re in my thoughts and prayers,” right? But are they really in their prayers? And why is it that everybody feels compelled in those circumstances to pray? And I think you kind of touched on it when you said fear—there is a fear factor there, and there is a moment in which they can recognize a higher authority that will take their souls or will do something with them.

The thing that kind of always struck me was, whenever I have a conversation with folks, and we talk 2 Corinthians 5:10—it’s embedded in the middle of the Divine Liturgy—the prayer “that the end of our lives may be Christian, without pain, blameless, and peaceful,” and then the big ask comes: “for a good account before the awesome judgment seat of Christ.” Then I ask them: Do you believe one day you will stand before the seat of your Savior and actually account, account for what you did? And I think if you have that long view, whether it’s fear that drives it, whether it’s faith that drives it—it’s probably a little bit of both—but the notion that I’ve got to account for what I’ve done… And we’ve lost that sense of accountability is what you’re saying, right?

Metr. Gregory: Yep.

Mr. Marianes: And we’ve lost that fear and we’ve lost that respect. I do agree with you that the discomfort factors are so funny and I do know the strategic plans. One of the first things that shows up on parish strengths is “Oh, we’re a welcoming parish”; then when I look at weaknesses, one of the first things that shows up is “We’re a very unwelcoming parish.” What we found…

Metr. Gregory: Same parish.

Mr. Marianes: Same parish, same parish! It took them a while to source this data, but here’s what they figured out: We are very welcoming to our family members and our close friends. We are not very welcoming to anybody else. In some cases, we’ll be social, we’ll be nice, we’ll be polite, but there’s a difference between civil and being welcoming. We’ve kind of lost that welcoming, engaging attentiveness in the process.

When you say the sermons… I mean, we did a two-part sermon series on Stewardship Calling, Ancient Faith Radio.

Metr. Gregory: Yes, I heard them both.

Mr. Marianes: Two priests that you know, Fr. Nick Louh, who also does a program on Ancient Faith Radio, and Fr. Barnabas Powell, who also does one on Ancient Faith Radio… [Laughter]

Metr. Gregory: Both good friends.

Mr. Marianes: Both good friends of yours, and both great, great preachers like you. And we really unpacked some of the things that clergy can do to actually improve the game. And the data shows that 83% of the people, when they go and they’re picking a church, the first and most important thing is the quality of the sermons. Welcoming is number two, by the way, but that sermon is so, so critically important. So I think you’ve put your fingers on it.

So, listen, I know we’ve got to wrap up shortly, but one of the things… Two quick things. One of the things… I wouldn’t have your life for all the tea in China, because you live in a fishbowl. I mean, the minute you come to a community, everybody wants a little bit of your time, and they want you to do stuff. I find out you’re coming to Georgia, next thing I know I’ve got to get you from Woodstock all the way here to Gainesville here to do this program. But at the end of the day we have to appreciate that every one of you, all of our beloved hierarchs, are just human people, just like the rest of us. You need to rest and you need to study and you need to pray and you need to do things that make you joyful and happy. So give us a little bit of an insight as to what do you do for fun and relaxation?

Metr. Gregory: Okay, well, I’m a biologist by training, so I love the outdoors.

Mr. Marianes: Okay, that’s a good start.

Metr. Gregory: So I like—I love—plants and animals. I love hiking trails, splashing around in creeks and small streams. That’s sort of the biologist in me. And Camp Nazareth is in western Pennsylvania. It’s where I spend a significant amount of time during the year, especially the five weeks during the camping season when my kids are there. I go to camp, and I stay.

Mr. Marianes: Okay, there you go.

Metr. Gregory: Now, if you can find another hierarch that does that, let me know so we can form a club of two.

Mr. Marianes: Right, right.

Metr. Gregory: I’m an avid reader. I like all kinds of books, although as a child I hated to read.

Mr. Marianes: Where’d that come from, then?

Metr. Gregory: I don’t know, but there are histories and books on science and politics and other things that interest me, so they’re around; always reading something.

I have two hobbies from my youth that I have continued at various levels of activity, and that’s coin collecting and stamp collecting.

Mr. Marianes: Ah! I could never pronounce that word. Philatedist, or what?

Metr. Gregory: Yes. Like I said: stamp collecting.

Mr. Marianes: [Laughter] There you go. Stamp collecting! Good. Make me feel better.

Metr. Gregory: I also love sports, but specifically I follow three teams. One is the Pittsburgh Pirates in baseball, something I’ve been doing since I was six years old. I also am a Carolina Panthers fan in football. I’m from Charlotte, so I’m going to pull for them.

Mr. Marianes: There you go. All right.

Metr. Gregory: And I love my Tar Heels, especially basketball, although this year we’re suffering greatly.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, this year is not the best year in history.

Metr. Gregory: But that’s okay. We have a hundred-year history, and it’s okay.

Mr. Marianes: Anybody that can produce what UNC has produced in basketball is an icon.

Metr. Gregory: Six championships, I will take them.

And then one last thing that I have been participating in off and on for probably the last 40 years is I’m an amateur astronomer.

Mr. Marianes: Oh really!?

Metr. Gregory: I pull out my telescope on a regular basis. And this is “astronomer,” not “astrologer.”

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Make that clear.

Metr. Gregory: I’m looking at stars and planets and other things.

Mr. Marianes: The science.

Metr. Gregory: The science in the sky, which, again, is part of God’s creation. I just love spending time just looking and contemplating, that God is there somewhere and created all of this beauty for us. So this is how I spend my time as best I can. Of course, I’m not married and I have no children, biological…

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, but you’ve got a ton of children!

Metr. Gregory: …but I have 400 in the diocese, and so I am the luckiest man alive. I get to play with these kids and have a wonderful time, while their parents feed them, educate them, and everything else.

Mr. Marianes: Right, and then you give them back to the parents.

Metr. Gregory: I give them back to the parents, and we’re all done.

Mr. Marianes: That is fantastic.

Metr. Gregory: So that is how I spend my free time.

Mr. Marianes: So what we’re learning from this is when you go to visit a new parish, rather than having another one of those rubber-chicken banquets over there, they need to find you a pond or a stream that you can go jumping around in or a planetarium that you can go look at some stuff. I think the thing here is to give yourself some space and to give yourself an opportunity.

Metr. Gregory: The kids are afraid I’m going to pull a water balloon out of my cassock and hit them with it.

Mr. Marianes: I have heard that that has happened on more than one occasion…

Metr. Gregory: Two thousand water balloons per week at summer camp, and I throw half of them.

Mr. Marianes: Listen, as a lawyer, I’ve got to tell you, that has to be one of the most fun parts about the exercise, too.

Metr. Gregory: It’s excellent.

Mr. Marianes: I’ve heard kids talk about how cool that is. All right, look. I’ve taken so much of your time and so much more than I’ve really thought, but it’s been so helpful to me and so insightful, and I know everybody will love it. Just kind of at the end here, you know, anything else that you wanted to share to people who are listening out there? Any other thoughts or any other ideas or any other… Just kind of free range to say whatever you need to say.

Metr. Gregory: Well, first, let me thank you, my dear friend, for giving me the opportunity to be together, and hopefully something useful will come of our efforts here. I will say a couple of things. One, the big question that I have is: If Christ was to return today, would he be happy and pleased with our efforts in building up the Church—not our Church; his Church? That’s a question I have for myself, for the other hierarchs, and for the clergy, and for the people.

Mr. Marianes: Yeah, for the laity, too.

Metr. Gregory: Are we doing what Christ wants us to do, and can we answer in the affirmative and he showed up today? Would he be happy?

The other thing I would ask is that you pray for your bishop. Whoever your bishop is, in whatever your jurisdiction, he needs your prayers. It’s not an easy vocation, but it’s a rewarding vocation, but we need your prayers. I would say: Pray for all the bishops, so that the Holy Spirit will enlighten all of us and give us the understanding and the solutions to any problems we are encountering today, and for sure the challenges that we will face in the future.

If we could just do these couple of things, I think that things will go well for us. God love us; we should love him back and try to be good children as we expect our children to be for us as adults. So, again, Bill, I thank you for the opportunity to share with those who hear our words. It’s been great, man.

Mr. Marianes: Well, listen, I really appreciate it. I can’t thank you enough for taking the time—and I know your schedule is jam-packed—for joining us tonight and to share both the history of your great diocese and the vision for the future that you see for the Church. I’m very grateful to you, and I know the Lord has put you in this position—American Carpatho-Russian Diocese—for a reason. I know that I speak for listeners out there who may not have been aware, or as aware as they should be, of your diocese and of your incredible ministry, that they take to heart what you said, that we include you in our prayers and that we include the other bishops in the prayers. So really I would ask everybody that they pray for their hierarchs and make sure that they include the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese.

So, again, thank you so much for your time. Folks, if you like these Stewardship Calling programs, please tell your friends. Remember, we’re live every first [Sunday] of the month in any month that has a fifth Sunday. Also, I always want to thank my dear friend, John Maddex, and the incredible team at Ancient Faith Radio who make this entire program possible. They provide one of the most amazing and beneficial transformational ministries and resources of all kinds that are available. I hope you will avail them and consider them as a part of your stewardship. All of these Stewardship Calling programs and the podcasts are available as archived versions, and you can go to the Ancient Faith Radio Stewardship Calling pages, or you can go to my website, Stewardship Calling, and go to the Ancient Faith Radio pages, and you can find them out there.

I want to invite you to look at any of the other resources that are available to you on the Stewardship Calling website, and please remember that two of the most important days of your life are first the day you were born and second the day you figure out why. So if you’re not a sower of your stewardship calling, I hope you prayerfully begin discovering your why and your stewardship calling.

Thank you for calling. God bless you as you seek to live your stewardship calling. And as I end every program, I pray that you S-O-T-P-A-E-T-J, which stands for: Stay On The Path (capital T, capital P), And Enjoy The Journey. God bless!