In the early seventies of the previous century, when the Holy Synod made the law for parish councils, they thought that it is good to have a committee of several people monitoring the issues of a parish from the spiritual, educational and financial aspects. In every community, the possibility to be active in work exists but also carelessness could exist too; you could find there good tempered or bad tempered people. Now I am not evaluating the success or failure of this law, because this could vary between different places and different piety levels in people.
Among the difficulties that exist is that the bishop cannot know all people that he appoints, and believers never agree on directing the bishop to the best options. Also, in some villages of the Archdiocese people do not accept that the priest is the head of the council. Those want to monopoly the management of affairs and to limit the role of the spiritual father to fulfilling prayers without having any opinion in his salary for example or in helping poor people who are under his care at the first place. The purpose of these lines isn’t to criticize the existence of these councils because the synod made them legitimate and there is no possibility to cancel them. However, how do we act if the management committed mistakes? How can the council have a good management instead of being simply a management machine?
The real question is: How do the members of the council live with each other? Our answer is that there is no living except in love, tolerance and forgiveness in a way that none of them would be stubborn in his opinion but accept the right one. An Orthodox believer isn’t only a human being that belongs through baptism to the Church of Christ, but he is the one that carries the righteous opinion. Therefore, if you felt during a conversation that your colleague has a more righteous opinion than yours, you should dump your opinion and follow his because this person might have gotten more inspiration from Christ or might have been directed to the right position because of his experience. It doesn’t matter if you were the leader of the thought or not; the important thing is for the truth to be inspiring for everyone in order for all of us to be sons of the truth.
What happens with us sometimes? Conflicts that are based on familial reasons or on the policy of the village occur, knowing that in this archdiocese we are a group of villages. If we carried love, we would love all families because they all belong to Christ who loves them all equally. The Church is not composed of families but of individuals. If you loved the truth, you would stand against your brother if he was against it.
The love for appearing, control and power comes from the devil. The humble person disappears; he suppresses his pride and doesn’t claim that his family is great or better than others. God judges all people: He doesn’t judge families but individuals. Your father might be a saint while you are bad. The only familial connections we have are among the good and the righteous. The bad man is a stranger for you. However, serve him well because he is Christ’s lamb.
Do not divide the parish council into cliques or groups in conflict. Unite them: Let your method be uniting the brothers. You must be one body in the council if you wanted to serve the community or if you willed to become a united community through Christ’s blood.
Translated by Mark Najjar
Original Text: “مجالس الرعية” –Raiati 19- 06.05.2012
