KLEROS – CLERGY
[Wrong Use of the Word]

By
 George Savva Eleftheriades, OAM, JP

MIM reporters and announcers in their news reports are wrongly referring to non-Christian priests as "Clerics."  In fact there is no Cleric outside the Christian denominations.

There is no Muslim Cleric; neither is there in any non-Christian religion.  To name a Buddhist, or Jewish, or Muslim, or whatever priest "Cleric," is a gross mistake and misnomer, which indicates ignorance.

The terms Clergy and Cleric originate from the Christian Greek New Testament event, which describes the election of the first deacons to take care of life's needs of the early Christian community after some complaints about discriminations.  The Apostles then asked the congregation to choose some of the faithful to care after their needs.

Because many faithful qualified, the community drew lots to elect seven of them: their first deacons.  The Greek word for lots was the "kleros."  The kleros fell on seven deacons (Greek for servants) who were thus named "kleros" or "klerotes."  As the clergy in all hierarchy always begins with God's "cleros"—as a deacon being the initial stage—all up to the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Pope are named "Cleric," "Cleros," "Clergy."  These terms are applicable only within Christianity.

Since no other religion connects to that Biblical event, they may be referred to in their correct nomenclature, viz. Jewish Rabi, Buddhist Lama or Monk, Muslim Sheikh or Immam, etc.  But, non-Christian priests are not "clerics."

For the sake of learned appropriateness please correct the describing terminology of your mass information media.

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Source: The Nexus [intercultural-social forum of Australian Hellenic organizations], C/-49A Tramway Street, Rosebery, New South Wales, Australia 2018. Tel.: 9667 3045. E-mail: geleft@optusnet.com.au.

Expansion of Western Civilization: from Constantine the Great to Constantinople and Byzantium and onward to America

NEW BYZANTIUM is The AMERICAS
 We are sincerely pleased you have come to visit our Site and we extend to you our warmest greeting in the highest tradition of BYZANTIUM.  Our Principal goal is to impart to you heretofore intentionally little known facts about BYZANTIUM as the foundation of Western Civilization.  We will avoid knowingly withholding the truth as an aim to social disorientation.  Practice of historical deception must cease.  We hope that you will enjoy our contribution to the fullest.  Welcome.
Constantine the Great began his eventful climb in York, England and reached the apex of his achievement in Constantinople, the City that he founded and named after himself (Constantine+Polis [city]=Constantinople).  By means of these pages, our readers travel through time, touching upon the early periods, including that of Constantine, of historical Constantinople, and of Hagia Sophia—the nexus of the Christian world—to arrive at places and events of our present day.  Our readers reach the outermost limit to which both Eastern and Western Christian groups expanded, bringing forth the flower of Western Civilization.  That limit is the Western Hemisphere as a whole, and in particular the coast of California near San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge where the two groups converged  as they approached from the North and from the South.