wfn.org | Elenie Huszagh, Greek Orthodox, to be Installed as New NCC President

[Carol Fouke <carolf@ncccusa.org>]

Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227 (Nov. 12-15 at 510-451-4000)
Cellphone: 917-690-6075
11/9/01 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
E-mail: news@ncccusa.org <mailto:news@ncccusa.org>; Web: www.ncccusa.org
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Elenie Huszagh of Greek Orthodox Archdiocese to Be Installed as New NCC
President
Brings Record of Achievement That Is a Unique Version of a Classic American
Story

	November 9, 2001, NEW YORK CITY Among America's best-loved stories are
those of successful immigrant families.  One such story is about to get a
new chapter on Nov. 15 at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension in
Oakland, Calif.

That is when and where Elenie Huszagh, Esq., of Nehalem, Ore., 
first-generation Greek American, a longtime Chicago attorney, and a
prominent member of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, will be
installed as 21st president of the National Council of Churches (NCC).

She will serve the NCC -- the nation's largest organization in the movement
for Christian unity, with 36 Orthodox and Protestant member communions
comprising 50 million adherents in 140,000 congregations -- for a 2002-2003
term of office.  As president (a part-time, non-salaried position, similar
to chairman/chairwoman of the board), she will play a key role in leading
and interpreting the NCC's life and work.

	There are actually two intertwined story lines here. Ms. Huszagh is the
daughter of a family and of a church, both now well established in this
country,  whose lives were shaped by the wave of Greek immigration to the
United States in the beginning of the 20th century.

	Ms. Huszagh's father first arrived in the United States (as a penniless
stowaway) in 1905, when the number of Greek Orthodox congregations here was
beginning to burgeon. Her mother's family arrived in 1920, as the foundation
was being laid for a Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in "the New World."

Although a Greek Orthodox presence in America goes back to an experiment in
colonization in Florida in 1768, it was the generation of which Ms. Huszagh'
s parents were a part who arrived in numbers sufficient to create the need
for many new congregations and an archdiocesan structure to administer them.

Today, the two million-member Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America is the
largest of some two dozen Orthodox Christian bodies in the United States.
With a total of more than five million adherents, Orthodoxy has become a
major faith group in the United States.

	Ms. Huszagh grew up in Portland, Ore., where her father had eventually
settled and become a logger after an odyssey that took him across the United
States, and back and forth to Greece several times.

"The part of the story about being a logger is not your typical Greek
immigrant experience," she says with her characteristic understated sense of
humor. Indeed at that time, "there was only one Greek Orthodox Church in the
State of Oregon," she says. "It was the center of our religious and communal
life. It served to bring people together, to educate us in the faith and in
the culture of Hellenism."

	Ms. Huszagh's mother, one of the first registered nurses in the U.S. of
Greek extraction, came to that position by way of personal adversity.  When
she was a young woman, her leg was amputated and, consequently, she spent a
great deal of time at a hospital in Lowell, Mass., the town where she and
her family had recently settled. She became an informal interpreter between
the staff and other Greek patients and, after so much exposure to the world
of the hospital, decided on a nursing career.

	Recounting these and other cherished family stories, Ms. Huszagh says, "I
come from stock that never says die!"

THE ORTHODOX IN THE NCC

	The growth of Orthodoxy in the United States in the last century came at a
time when the modern ecumenical movement was getting underway. The Orthodox
have been an integral part of that movement, including at the NCC, where
today 11 of the 36 member communions are Orthodox (eight are Eastern; three,
from Egypt and India, are termed "Oriental"); 24 are Protestant, and one is
Anglican. Joining the NCC at different times, all the Eastern communions had
become members by 1966. Yet, Ms. Huszagh notes, it is in recent years that
they have become more visible in the NCC.

	"I'm pleased with the place of the Orthodox in the Council at this time,"
she says. "In the past, we perceived ourselves as marginalized and were so
perceived by others, but, as the years went by, we contributed more broadly.
We took our rightful place." By doing so, she says, "we bring something
different to our country and to the ecumenical movement. The Eastern
churches' view of the world and of reality is a benefit. We expand the
choices available."

	That view, she explains, is based on "a living continuity" with the Early
Church that is unchanged by forces that shaped Western Christianity, ranging
from the Renaissance to the Reformation. Therefore, the Orthodox have a
frame of reference that differs from that of the West and which is often
described, in broad strokes, as more mystical and philosophical than
legalistic.

It includes an emphasis on the mystery of God, a high place for worship as
the joint work of the clergy and the people, and an approach that focuses
somewhat less on the sins of humanity and Christ's atonement for them and
somewhat more on the Resurrection of Christ and the possibility of the
faithful in Christ to journey toward a mystical union with God.

	These different "languages" of faith form a barrier that is being overcome
with greater East-West contact. At a more mundane level, the growing
visibility of the Orthodox at the NCC and in other settings may simply
reflect the fact that, unlike previous generations, most Orthodox in the
U.S. today are American born and have grown up speaking English.

	Such is the case in Ms. Huszagh's family. Her aunt who lived in Lowell
spoke only Greek to the end of her 85 years, while her parents taught
themselves English as young adults. She herself spoke only Greek until she
entered kindergarten. "Then I learned enough in a week" to participate fully
in learning and play, she says.

After that, the goal was to maintain her ability in Greek, which she now
speaks "reasonably well." She vividly recalls that "as a child, I went to
Greek school, which provided language instruction for many recalcitrant
young children who attended after regular public school."

	Increasing numbers of American-born members affected church life, too.
"Services were entirely in Greek when I was growing up," Ms. Huszagh says.
"However, since the late '60s and early '70s, the language issue has
evolved. Today in many parishes the services are primarily and often
entirely in English. There was no mandate for change, but each community
seems to have dealt with language in an appropriate manner>the object being
to communicate and to serve the people."

	Similar processes of assimilation have taken place among other Orthodox
communities, including those of Russian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Arabic,
Serbian and other ethnic roots. "Now all of us share the same language and
can communicate with each other," Ms. Huszagh notes. At the NCC, for
example, a caucus that includes all Orthodox delegates to the NCC General
Assembly helps to insure an effective presentation of Orthodox concerns and
perspectives to the larger body. The Assembly is the NCC's highest
policy-making body and is composed of delegations from all the member
communions.

HUSZAGH'S CONTRIBUTIONS HIGHLIGHT ROLE
OF LAITY IN THE GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH

	With Orthodoxy well established on the ecumenical scene, Ms. Huszagh is not
the first but the second Orthodox Christian to serve as NCC president. (The
Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky of the Orthodox Church in America served in that
post from 1990-1991.) She is, however, the first Orthodox layperson and the
first Orthodox woman to become NCC president and one of only five laypersons
to serve as president in the Council's history.

	Ms. Huszagh feels empowered to take on her role at the Council, and other
church-related responsibilities, because of the active place accorded the
laity in Orthodoxy. "We truly believe that we are all members of the royal
priesthood of Christ," she says, making reference to the Orthodox practice
of "chrismation," or confirmation, which immediately follows baptism and
which confers full membership in the people of God and "a share in the
priesthood of Christ."

	On another note, she says, "I feel that, as a layperson in the church, my
views may be more closely related to those of the communicants, the person
in the pew," and, thus, of value in communicating the work of the Council to
a wide audience.

	Ms. Huszagh has more than earned the description "prominent member of the
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America," and has helped expand the role of
women in her communion. In 1974, she was among five women who were the first
women ever named to the Archdiocesan Council, a body composed of clergy and
lay members that governs the temporal and financial affairs of the
Archdiocese between the communion's Biennial Clergy-Laity Congresses. It
also has an advisory role in the election of bishops and the Archbishop. She
continues as a member of that body and has served the Archdiocesan Council
in many capacities, including as vice-president from 1988-1990.

	She also has been involved in recent negotiations concerning a new charter
for the Archdiocese, which is part of the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate of Constantinople. She was among delegates who went to
Constantinople to discuss provisions of the new charter with members of the
Patriarchal Synod>a weighty and sensitive responsibility given that the
issue of the degree of autonomy of the American church has been widely
debated within the communion for decades.

	In other responsibilities, Ms. Huszagh has presided over plenary sessions
of the Clergy-Laity Congresses in 1988, 1990, 1996 and 2000. And she has
served as a senior advisor to Archbishop Iakovos (1994-1996). Among her many
commitments at the diocesan level, she is legal counsel for both the Chicago
and the San Francisco Dioceses.

	In 1996, she was awarded the Medal of St. Paul, the highest honor that the
Archdiocese bestows upon a layperson.

	While her record has demonstrated the important role that lay women can
play in Orthodoxy, Ms. Huszagh is among those pressing for the ordination of
deaconesses. Advocates point out that, if such a development were to occur,
it would re-institute a long discontinued practice of the Early Church. "It
is interesting to note," Ms. Huszagh says, "that writings on the subject of
the role of women in Orthodoxy have evolved over the years and that the
pressure to ordain women deaconesses -  as is historically correct - is
increasing throughout the Orthodox world."

GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCH TAPS MS. HUSZAGH FOR ECUMENICAL SERVICE

	Ms. Huszagh is a longtime member of the Greek Orthodox delegation to the
NCC General Assembly (and its predecessors, the Governing Board and General
Board), but says that when first appointed in 1979, "I knew little about the
ecumenical world. The opportunity to extend education about my communion
appealed to me greatly, but I soon learned that it's not enough to come only
with our agenda. We need to come with a vision broad enough to be concerned
about the whole constituency and their issues. I got better at it!"

	Recalling those early years, when she was the only woman on her delegation
and when the issue of women's ordination was high profile in other circles,
she says jokingly, "I was very popular with other delegates in terms of
people asking questions about women's ordination and the Orthodox. A bargain
of sorts was struck. I would tell them why the Orthodox do not ordain women
and they would tell me about ecumenism."

	That Ms. Huszagh had already become a seasoned ecumenist by 1984 was
reflected in her election as an NCC officer -  to the position of recording
secretary - for a 1985-1988 term of office. Over the past two decades, she has
been called upon to serve many NCC committees and task groups, including the
Nominations Committee (1996 - 1999), Constitution and Bylaws Committee
(1983-1985), and the NCC committee that from 1986-1987 helped resolve a
conflict between the Campbell Soup Company and the Farm Labor Organizing
Committee, which represented farm workers in the tomato and cucumber fields
of the Mid-West.

	By 1988, "I felt it was time for someone else - perhaps a younger person  - to
have the experience of being a delegate," she says, and she stepped down for
five years. Persuaded to return in 1993 by her close friend, the Greek
Orthodox ecumenical officer Bishop Dimitrios of Xanthos, Ms. Huszagh still
felt "I had given everything I had to offer," and was surprised to learn, in
1999, that her name was being put forward as a possible president of the
Council. She accepted the nomination after thorough discussion with her
family, including husband Richard, also an attorney, and their grown son,
Peter, a commercial real estate broker.

	In 1999, the General Assembly unanimously made her NCC president-elect. In
that capacity, she has functioned as an officer of the Council,
participating in key Council decisions, and has presided over the NCC
General Assembly and Executive Board on occasions when the current
president, Ambassador Andrew Young, was obliged to be absent.

MS. HUSZAGH SAYS NCC HAS A "FAR-REACHING" ROLE

	Ms. Huszagh points to many examples of "how far-reaching" the work of the
Council can be and lifts them up as the kind of action that continues to be
needed in today's world.

	She cites the NCC's intervention in 1983 on behalf of Pope Shenouda III,
head of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt, who was then under house arrest
when the government withdrew recognition of him as head of communion. At the
urging of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of North America, an NCC member
communion, the Council sent a delegation to Egypt that met with Pope
Shenouda, President Hosni Mubarak and other government officials. "The Copts
educated us about this issue and the Council's response helped secure the
release of Pope Shenouda," Ms. Huszagh says.

	In 1985, she participated in a groundbreaking NCC trip that took nearly 300
U.S. Christians on a study tour of the former Soviet Union at the time when
US-USSR relations were thawing. The trip was a natural outgrowth of decades
of NCC effort to keep in contact with the Russian Orthodox Church and the
numerically smaller Protestant churches in the Soviet Union during the Cold
War - a consistent demonstration of Christian unity across geo-political
barriers. "We witnessed what happened to religious tradition in a state of
oppression, how the churches survived it and how they came out of it," Ms.
Huszagh notes.

	And in 1986, Ms. Huszagh was part of an official NCC delegation that
visited religious and political leaders in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria,
Jordan, Israel and Cyprus.

The group returned with a message that had prescient parallels with today's
struggle against terrorism. The delegation said that greater interfaith
cooperation could show that Middle East tensions were essentially political
in nature rather than religious - despite the fact that religious passions
were being drawn into situations of conflict.

In addition to visiting with partners in the Middle East Council of
Churches, who represent a beleaguered Christian minority in the region, the
group responded to a heretofore unprecedented invitation from the World
Muslim League, with whom it developed a memorandum of understanding for
continued Christian-Muslim dialogue.

	Recalling the Middle East tour as "distressing and enlightening," Ms.
Huszagh says it is sometimes hard for Americans "to understand at a distance
why passions in the Middle East are so intense. But when you come face to
face with the extreme views that are to be found in every group and that are
lived 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and when you see the poverty and
the despair, you understand why these things are possible."

	Now, in the period following terrorist attacks on America and the worldwide
ripple effect they are having, the challenge will be to work effectively
with international partners in these and other regions "when we are at the
beginning of something we don't truly comprehend," Ms. Huszagh says. What is
clear is that "the condition of the minority Christian community in the
Middle East, Indonesia and elsewhere is a concern," she says, adding, "My
hope is that we as a Council will examine their situation and speak to it
over the next two years. How can we be most helpful?"

	On the domestic scene, she welcomes NCC efforts to educate Americans "about
what is and what is not Islam," noting that "we should also assist in
efforts in the Islamic community to educate their people about Christianity
and American pluralism>make it truly a two-way street."

	In addition to a heightened level of interfaith work, the Council continues
to develop two interrelated emphases that the General Assembly adopted in
November 2000: a ten-year effort to reduce poverty in the United States that
is being carried out collaboratively with many faith groups and other
non-profit partners, and efforts with many of these same partners toward a
larger, more inclusive vision for Christian unity in the United States.

	"In the process of working toward these goals, we must not lose the most
important aspect of the NCC: its prophetic witness to the public life of
America," Ms. Huszagh says. "We must not diminish that role in order to
expand."

	Although the Council's prophetic voice "is a great contribution to American
society," she says, "how often the NCC has been vilified, castigated for
being ahead of its time. I think of issues such as relations with mainland
China, with the Russian Orthodox Church during the Cold War, with North and
South Koreans working for the reunification of Korea ... the list goes on
... situations where we were 'prophetically correct.' "

	No matter what controversial issues may come before the Council in the next
two years, the NCC's role, in her view, is to bring the perspectives of all
the Council's members to bear on them. "In effect," she says, "to deal with
the Council is to deal with all 36 communions and their churches" in all
their diversity of experience and history.

	Even when the members do not agree, "issues that are important to us ought
to be out on the table," she says. "We owe it to ourselves and our faith.
Excessive courtesy and politeness is not always the best way to go," she
says, acknowledging that "I tend to be direct, even a little blunt, if you
will."

A LAWYER IN THE LEAD

	Ms. Huszagh says that as an attorney, she hopes to bring to her new NCC
duties "analytical skills -- the ability to focus quickly on what the issue
really are and to understand our alternatives."  Until 1999, Ms. Huszagh
maintained a legal practice in Chicago, where she specialized in matters of
bankruptcy and commercial litigation.

	Among international work in which she has engaged, she is legal counsel to
the World Council of Hellenes Abroad, an international entity created by act
of the Greek Parliament and comprised of representatives of Hellenic
organizations throughout the world outside of Greece. She is a founding
member of the Hellenic-American Chamber of Commerce, Inc., established in
Chicago.

As attorney for the Ukrainian Federal Credit Union in Chicago, she provided
recommendations for the development of business in Ukraine and consulted on
the establishment of credit unions in that country. And, in 1991, she
consulted with government leaders in the former Yugoslavia, regarding legal
(technical) services related to many aspects of a proposed commercial legal
framework for the country.

	Earlier in her career, she was a partner at Robins, Kaplan, Miller and
Ciresi (1990-1992) and Boorstein & Huszagh (1986-1990), both based in
Chicago.  She was a founding partner at Miller, Forest, Downing & Huszagh,
Ltd., in Glenview, Ill., where she practiced from 1970-1986, serving as
managing partner from 1970 -1982. From 1963-1970, she was an associate
attorney in Chicago.

	A graduate of Chicago's John Marshall Law School with a juris doctor
degree, Ms. Huszagh has been admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court,
the 7th and 9th Districts of the U.S. Court of Appeals, U.S. District Court,
Northern District of Illinois and the Supreme Court of Illinois.

	Before entering law school, Ms Huszagh received the bachelor of arts degree
from the University of Chicago, where, at age 16, she was an early entrant
and which she attended as a Ford Foundation Scholar.

-end-