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Many individuals write articles attacking this Church and
her clergy. You will find these individuals are "members"
or "clergy" of independent church groups claiming to be
orthodox and generally claiming their lines trace back to
this Church. They attack us because we deny their false
claims, their non-orthodox lines, their non-orthodox
lifestyles and everything else about them and their false
claims when they claim to be from this Church.
The Church and Metropolitan are presently parties to a Lawsuit against Montgomery Giffith-Mair. He makes many claims that he is a priest, a bishop, a member of the Anglican Communion, and so on. He claims he is an independent priest or bishop. If he is a member of the Anglican Communion it is because he was baptized into the Church of England, but he has not been ordained into the Church of England or any member Church of the Anglican Communion. This "Monty" is the defendant in our defamation, harassment and Invasion of privacy lawsuit in Garland County Circuit Court, Hot Spring, AR. The Court date is set for April 2004. Monty is a convicted criminal in Bay St. Louis, Ms. He was also arrested in Hot Springs, AR. but those charges were dropped because the victim had run off - out of fear we believe. Monty told a reported it was not rape, but he did not deny having sex with the 20 year old male he was arrested for beating and raping. Monty makes many claims and feels he can do this without fear of legal recourse. Many claims are defaming, outright lies, harassing and invasion of our privacy. As the law was stated to us - The first ammendment does not protect words that incite, not are slander or libel protected. Unless we are "public figures" we have a right to privacy but this is violated many times over. Monty takes our copyrighted materials esp. phtographs and alters them, places his fraudulent copyright notice on them and puts them on his website. He violates US Federal Law (USC or US Code) in many ways, esp. as follows; Title 17, USC, Ch. 5, Sec. 506(E) - Fraudulent Copyright notice (with criminal penalities) as well as Title 17, Ch. 1, Sec. 106a(3)(A) which prevents intentional distortion, mutilation or other modification of anothers copyrighted photographs. Freedom of Speech is what Monty claims in all he says, but lies, slander, libel, (defamation) and other such acts are not covered by "freedom of Speech". If you lie about someone (an individual or organization) and attempt to make them appear to be other than what they are and you cannot "prove" or "support" your statements you have no "freedom of Speech" protection. In this matter Monty claims the Plaintiffs are demonic, psychotic and more and he claims our Churches are defunct. Yet in his answer in Court he admits our Churches are corporate entities therefore not defunct while he admits he is being sued under many diffeent names (that he uses) - none of which are corporations. Monty claims (falsely) that we picked up a lapsed (church) corporation but our corporation never was "lapsed" or not active and in good standing. He has also published statements that we are criminals. One such claim is based on the fact some of our corporate directors are from the United Kingdom. Monty claims they are "foreign agents" and not registered and foreign agents. He shows how uneducated he is with such claims. A foreign agent is in the employee of a foreign government, not an unpaid non-profit church corporate trustee. He also claims we have filed to register with the british charties agency but in fact we were never required to register since we do no fund raising in the United Kingdom. Just more lies of montys. He claims we are criminals and when we go to court we want to see him squirm his way of of his lies. When he cannot "legally" prove his published claims the court will see him for what he really is!
On other websites he has made many false claims such as -
Much more has been published attacking Metropolitan Victor, This Church, Archbishop Colin James and the Continuing Episcopal Church. Monty repeatedly states the Metropolitan is "His Holiness of the Ozarks" but no one has ever seen the Metropolitan use that title. There was a similar title given to the Metropolitan in 1997 when he was elected but he rejected a number of title and the Synod voted to allow the Metropolitan to use the title(s) he requested - mainly "Most Reverend" and "Metropolitan". Monty also claims in his answer to the Court that our titles are self-given. Our titles were handed down from former Church leaders tracing back to the first Synod. All titles used in this Church are approved by the Synod before they are used. We look forward to the court date in Hot Springs, AR. Once this is settled we will decide which case to pursue next as we have a few options available at this time. We can pursue the case against Monty for Copyright and Service Mark Infringement, or we can go after his former co-defendant (Tony Begonja). These two have claimed we lost our earlier (first) case but in fact we did not lose. The court ruled that the Denver US District Court did not have jurisdiction but we can re-file anytime in the US District Court that had the jurisdiction to hear this matter.
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Monty publishes a page said to have been written by Bertil Persson. He does not appear to understand Orthodox Canon and Tradition which shows in his claims.
He claims Sophronios excommunicated or deposed Abp. Aftimios and Bp. Nichols. We had put a page up on our website some years ago stating that "The North American Holy Synod" would not recognize any rumored claims that Abp. Ofiesh or Bp. Nichols had been deposed or excommunicated since only this synod would have had the authority and jurisdiction to make this decision and we did not do this. Such claims cannot be factual since orthodoxy requires a council or synod to do this to any "orthodox" bishop. NO ORTHODOX CHURCH OR CLERGY WOULD RECOGNIZE SUCH AN ACT, ESP. SINCE AFTIMIOS WANTED TO BE CALLED BEFORE A TRIBUNAL BUT NEVER WAS. Therefore all acts by Abp. Aftimios including his marriage stand as valid but not accepted, according to the reactons, by the other Orthodox Churches. Archbishop Aftimios married contrary to the Canons but in fact bishops in other parts of the wold were allowed and even directed to marry. Today even priests have been allowed to "re-marry" and remain in an active ministry. Since Abp. Aftimios was the highest ranking bishop in the U.S. (from the Russian Synod) when he was named to head Theocacna and since Theocacna is an autocephalous Church no one was in a position to take any action against Abp. Aftimios from outside this Church without a Tribunal and no Council or Synod of this Church acted canonically against Abp. Aftimios Ofiesh.
Persson also publishes a history of Sophronios and his acts of ordinations (and consecrations). Some of these acts as published are unknown to this Church meaning no mandate was issued and no synod approval had been given for said acts. These acts (if done) were done without the approval and authority of the Church and we do not accept such acts since in most cases they were done contrary to the manner required in the sacred and divine Canons.
| News Reports about Monty |
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