MASSACHUSETTS
Pokrov
Author: Theodore Kalmoukos
Date Published: 11/29/2012
Publication: The National Herald
BOSTON, MA – A sexual scandal of huge magnitude has shaken the Orthodox Monastery of the Transfiguration in Brookline, MA. The Monastery’s founder and former abbot Archimandrite Panteleimon Metropoulos has been accused by his own monks of homosexual advances and activities in the monastery involving members of his monastic community.
Eight monks made their written and signed accusations to Metropolitan Ephraim of Boston at the end of August 2012. The Monastery does not belong to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, but it is rather an autonomous group. In the past, the Monastery was under the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Russians Abroad. In 1986 it left and joined an Old Calendarist group in Greece under Archbishop Afxentios. Initially in early 1970, the Monastery had existed under the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Also, the first group that established it including former Abbot Panteleimon as well as the current one Fr. Isaac are graduates of Holy Gross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. The Monastery is within walking distance of the Theological School.
In the middle of last September, 17 monks and one Bishop, Demetrios, left the Monastery and they entered in the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Genuine Orthodox under the ecclesiastical leadership of Metropolitan Pavlos Stratigeas of Astoria. The 17 monks and Bishop Demetrios have already resettled at the Monastery of Ascension in Bearsville in Upstate New York. Demetrios was appointed as abbot and everything was made official last month with the visit of the Archbishop Kallinikos, who is the Archbishop of Old Calendar Group in Greece, to which the Metropolis of America under Pavlos Stratigeas belongs. There are more than seven different Old Calendar Groups in Greece, all of which proclaim themselves Genuine Orthodox.
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