“This is the final arbiter,” Harry Danalis, President of the Greek Orthodox Community of New South Wales (GOCNSW) stated, after last week’s historic election in which an agreement was finally reached between the community and the Archdiocese.
78.3 percent of the members present voted in favour of restoring relations between the Archdiocese and the Greek Orthodox Community, at the Extraordinary General Meeting of the Community that took place at Lakemba on July 3rd.
The result finally put an end to the division between the GOCNSW and the Archdiocese which has existed for over 50 years. Over 800 people attended the meeting. 678 people voted in total, among which 531 voted in favour of ending the longstanding division and 133 voted against. There were 14 invalid votes.
Danalis was pleased and relieved at the results and stated: “It means that we’re no longer isolated ecclesiastically by 90 percent of those that follow the official church, and that people who felt before that they couldn’t attend our functions, our hostels, our child-care centres, and our schools can now attend, because there’s no prohibition as such.” The next step is sorting out the fine details of how the agreement will work in practice. There’s work to do. We have to sit down with the Archdiocese and work out how it’s going to be implemented”, he added.
GOCNSW will now register the historic amendments to their constitution with Australian Securities and Investment Commission, after which the implementation process will begin.
(Source: neoskosmos)
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