George Khodr’s Secret

This is an incident that I like to repeat. I visited Metropolitan George Khodr once. He was sitting at the kitchen table in his house eating breakfast. After greeting and chatting with him, one of the brethren of his assistants pointed out to us that the birthday of one of his close acquaintances falls on that day. The aforementioned man, whose birthday it was, is my friend as well. His number is on my phone. I asked the present Master if he wanted me to call him on the phone to congratulate him on his birthday. He immediately replied: “I do not care”! What is it that you care for? This is a question that is not to be posed to a Master who has spent his entire life caring for nothing other than that people be born in the kingdom of God. Metropolitan George cannot be accused of lacking in kindness. When he shocks you with something, anything, a word or a stand, nothing soothes the shock in you other than your acknowledging your flagrant failure to understand a Church that this elder bishop considers to be unlike anything else. I do not think that George Khodr has another secret. His secret is that he breathes ecclesiastically. May his secret live on.