FoMA Chairman Steps Down after 36 Years

Our profile was I think, perhaps surprisingly, at its highest during the 1990s, the first decade of our existence. That was a time when the autonomy and the pan-Orthodoxy of the Mountain were threatened by the Athens government and even by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The renewal was still in its early stages, and the monks had not yet found a powerful voice. I remember, when one abbot and the representatives of several monasteries were deposed by Constantinople for voicing their support of the non-Greek monks, we were asked if we could place an article in The Times newspaper drawing attention to the situation and signed by Sir Steven. At the time this seemed a tall order. But we did it: a full-page article with illustrations appearing on Easter Monday. The depositions were withdrawn shortly afterwards. There were several other such incidents that brought us to public attention and allowed us to ‘punch above our weight’ when problems occurred.

We work of course as a team, and I think we can all take pride in some of the things that we have achieved. Our support of the appeal for the rebuilding of Hilandar after the catastrophic fire of 2004 springs to mind. It was not the sums that we collected (never more than a drop in the ocean of the total that was required) that weighed heavily with the monks but the fact that we were first off the mark to declare our support and the high profile of some of our donors. An emergency fund enables us to act fast in the event of storm damage or earthquake. And our ongoing long-term commitment to the restoration of the cell of Axion Estin has been a much-valued moral (as well as financial) support to the fathers there.