Met. Anthony of NY reposed on the Sunday of Orthodoxy

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Maria
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Re: Met. Anthony of NY reposed on the Sunday of Orthodoxy

Post by Maria »

The following blog is notorious for promoting name-worshiping, but it is the only source of a biography that I can find on Met. Anthony of New York.

http://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=english&id=608

...

The late Metropolitan Anthony was considered to have been a spiritual son of the ROCOR’s third chief hierarch, St. Philaret (Voznesensky). He was born in the state of Georgia in 1942, graduated from Holy Cross Seminary in Boston, and went over to the ROCOR in the early 1960s. He was ordained by Bishop Laurus (Shkurla) and served in the Greek parish on 153rd St. in Manhattan before founding a new parish church in Astoria, NY, dedicated to the feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos.

In 1986, after the infamous Nativity Epistle of Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) of that year was published, which, in effect, rescinded the ROCOR’s anathematization of ecumenism, Fr. Anthony went under the omophorion of the Greek Old-Calendarist Met. Akakios together with Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston and a whole group of parishes that formerly belonged to that same church. In 1987, Fr. Anthony did not support the decision of the Boston monastery to go over to Archbishop Auxentios, the chief hierarch of another “branch” of Greek Old Calendarists. However, in 1990, Met. Akakios abandoned Holy Protection Parish, thereby placing it in an “acephalos” situation. Only in 1997, after many years of deliberations, the Holy Protection parish in Astoria with Frs. Anthony Gavalas and Michael Maklakov (now Archbishop Andrew of the ROAC) went under the jurisdiction of the Mattewite Synod.

After the death of his wife, in 2011, Fr. Anthony was consecrated to the rank of Metropolitan and became the first head of the Matthewite diocese in the US, with no more than ten parishes under his supervision.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.

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Maria
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Re: Met. Anthony of NY reposed on the Sunday of Orthodoxy

Post by Maria »

Here is a beautiful message from Facebook posted by a brother of Metropolitan Anthony (Gavalas). Since not everyone is addicted to Facebook, I have copied the following here as it is so beneficial for our spiritual well-being.

John Basil Gavalas
March 21 at 2:20am ·

Anthony, Metropolitan Bishop of New York City, Bishop of the United States, bearer of the Great Schema of monasticism, has fallen asleep in the Lord. His passing from his labors in time, into his reward in eternity, occurred auspiciously on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, March 7/20, 2016. He was my eldest brother. He was the pebble in my shoe that made me careful about where and how I stepped in life. He was my hero.

Anthony Basil Gavalas was born in Augusta, Georgia, on June 24, 1942, to Basil Anthony Gavalas, originally from the island of Kalymnos, Dodecanese, in the Aegean Sea, and Eutychia Catherine Calomiros Gavalas, originally of Atlanta. Remembered as an extraordinary little boy, he injured his arm severely in front of the boarding house that was the family’s first residence at the corner of 4th and Greene, when he tried to keep an ice man’s mule from walking off with the day’s cargo while the merchant made deliveries, by holding doggedly onto one of the wagon’s wheels.

In high school at the Academy of Richmond County, which boasted its near-1,000-strong cadet corps, 17-year-old Anthony was told that, although he had achieved top cadet honors, he would not be appointed Cadet Colonel for his senior year of 1960. The young noble bore, with what would turn out to be a lifelong humility, patience, and forbearance, the insulting explanation, “We just can’t give it to a Greek boy.”

At the theological seminary in Brookline, Massachusetts, he and several of his classmates were harassed by the administration and eventually expelled for observing the Orthodox Church’s canons on fasting. They were permitted to graduate; however, they were barred from graduation exercises, and their diplomas were sent to their parents’ homes. The silver lining to this cloud was his meeting a classmate’s relative, Theodora Leos of Brooklyn.

Anthony settled in New York City, and, as “Tony” and “Terry” got to know each other, she introduced him to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. Anthony agreed that these refugees from the murderous anti-Christian wrath of the Soviets were at that time the most steadfast and courageous defenders and practitioners of Orthodox Christianity taken pure in America. He was ordained to the deaconate and then to the priesthood by these Russian hierarchs in 1972, and so was founded the parish of the Greek Orthodox Church of the Holy Protection of the Mother of God, in Astoria, New York.

Supporting his family on his New York City elementary school teacher’s salary, he never received a penny for his ministry, but, on the contrary, regularly pinched himself, his wife, and his four children to add substantially to the adornment and upgrade of the parish’s first and second homes. (By the way, his three daughters and his son are four of the best people that I’ve ever known; and the noetic beauty of the grandparents shines through to the grandchildren as well -- there was never any pinching with regard to love, attention, discipline, haven, comradeship, faith, decency, and unqualified positive regard, and these cascaded in abundance down to the second generation of his line.)

When his beloved “Presvytera” Theodora reposed in 2011, Archpriest Anthony resisted for as long as he could the command of the synod to which he owed obedience under the Lord, to be elevated to the episcopate. He resisted because of a healthy fear of the Judgment Seat of Christ, remembering the warnings of Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, that very few bishops enter the Kingdom of Heaven – very few; and of those who seek the office – none. When he at last obeyed and accepted the miter and staff in 2012, he began to minister to parishes across America, and it became obvious that his fame had spread to three other continents due to his straightforward, actionable Orthodox preaching, when others outside America began to seek communion with him. And, naturally, on the shifting sands of factionalism on which Anthony continued to hold fast to the Truth, the Metropolitan strove at all times to be in communion only with prelates who were Orthodox in fact, and not in name only.

Such was the illustrious half-century during which Bishop Anthony worked tirelessly for God’s Glory and God’s Will above all things. He was the best representative of religion that I ever knew, the best representative of Christianity that I ever knew, and the best representative of Orthodoxy that I ever knew. The best preacher, the best teacher, the best confessor, and the best liturgist that I ever knew.

We will never forget what he was to us. We will never forget what he said to us. We will never forget what he did for us. His imprint upon us whom Benevolent Providence entrusted to him, is so wide and so deep in each of us, that to try to eradicate it, would result only in distorting and disfiguring our very selves beyond reclamation.

And, so, although I miss him – it’s been only hours since he left, but I miss him so much already – I am happy for him. For I am certain that, when Gabriel sounds Assembly on the Never-Ending Eighth Day, Anthony and his beloved Theodora will take up residence for all eternity in a most lovely mansion in Paradise, very near to God, and in the fellowship and friendship of all the saints from every age, through whose intercessions may we all see God in the Face.

Worthy! Worthy! Worthy! Eternal be his memory! AMEN.

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.

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Re: Met. Anthony of NY reposed on the Sunday of Orthodoxy

Post by Agios_Irineos »

Lovely tribute, Maria. Thank you for sharing this.

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Barbara
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Re: Met. Anthony of NY reposed on the Sunday of Orthodoxy

Post by Barbara »

Yes indeed. Very nicely written by the youngest brother. Good find, Maria !

Likewise about the Portal-Credo biography. One needs to assemble as much as information as possible in order to understand the newly reposed Metropolitan Anthony better.
I liked that Met Anthony was considered to have been a spiritual son of Metropolitan Philaret of NY.

Thanks for the picture at the funeral, too, and the listing of the clergymen pictured. It is fitting that Abp Stephanos was able to arrive here from Athens along with Fr Stephen Fraser from Arizona to serve.

It's nice to gain a glimpse of the Holy Protection parish in Astoria. One recalls seeing the inside of the Church how with a lot of striving and determination, this parish was begun and expanded over the years, up through the present. Inspiring for all !

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