[jeaccatty]

"Knight of the Sovereign Greek Order of St Dennis of Zante", which rewards "merit and humanitarian achievement", The title and blue sash were bestowed by Mladin Zarobica, an American businessman of Serbian parentage who also is a knight of the organisation. "

I would point out here that the Greek Orthodox Church did NOT award anything to Mr Karadic, rather this was a parachurch organization which exists alongside the Church but which has no official existence within the Church. I don't know anything about this particular group, but I would be willing to guess that it is more "nationalistic/ethnic" than it is Orthodox.

We have to be careful when we see such statements by the mainstream media, especially in the west, since they really have very little clue about the Orthodox Church and what is or is not a part of the Church. I know that more than once when I have had the opportunity to give an interview to the local paper, even though I am very careful and clear about what I say and make sure the reporter understands, by the time the article comes out it is full of inaccuracies and false/ignorant assumptions. Reporters also tend to accept without much verification the word of their subject that they are "Orthodox" (hence once I was once floored to see in the newspaper that the leader of an independent, non-denominational, ex-catholic bible study was an "Orthodox priest". They only took his personal self description as an actual fact.) So we really have to be careful to find out what the facts really are.

Fr David Moser