BOSTON – Singer Manos Georgantakis abandoned his songs and his music and became ordained a celibate Deacon after having first been tonsured a monk. He also changed his name from Manos and today he is known as Deacon Evgenios.
His tonsure and ordination took place at the Monastery of St. Marina of Voni, Crete on November 20, 2018 by Metropolitan Andreas of Arkalohorion in Crete, who is also a professor at the Theological School of the University of Thessaloniki.
Meanwhile the Internet is full of videos which show Georgantakis prior to his ordination singing with almost-nude young women nearby dancing provocatively with inappropriate positions and movements. Out of respect for the Holy Priesthood and the Church we will not publish the photographic material from the above mentioned videos, which are accessible on the Internet.
Today Deacon Evgenios Georgantakis, who is well known to the Greek-American Community – especially in New York – as a singer, is a student at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston. On the weekends he co-celebrates the Liturgy and chants at Sts. Constantine and Helen parish in Brooklyn, NY with the recently appointed presiding priest Fr. Evagoras Constantinides, who is well-known as Director of the Ionian Village summer camp in Greece.
Many students at the School of Theology know about Georgantakis’ videos on the internet, and they informed TNH about them.
We communicated by phone with Deacon Evgenios Georgantakis at Holy Cross and told him that The National Herald will publish an article about him. He told us that “because I just became a monk and a Deacon I don’t have the blessing to talk.”
After TNH insisted on hearing the story of his decision to become a monk and to become ordained he said that “at a young age I attended the Ecclesiastical High School of the island of Tinos; I finished the Rizarios Ecclesiastical School, the Advanced Ecclesiastical School at Heraklion, Crete, the Advanced Ecclesiastical School of Athens, and I did graduate studies in Theology in Cyprus, and then in America I went to Queens College to learn English and now I am enrolled in the Master of Theology program at Holy Cross School of Theology in Boston.”
Asked why he was ordained in Crete he said, “because that is where I am from.”
TNH noted that the internet is full of videos showing him singing with virtually nude women and asked who his spiritual father is and whether the latter knows about that material. Deacon-Monk Evgenios said, “I can’t tell you my spiritual father’s name. Before I got ordained my spiritual father knew everything about me, everything.”
When he said that “I can’t give an interview,” we made clear to him that his statements will be published. Deacon Evgenios repeated that, “my spiritual father knows everything” and added that, “once someone becomes a monk, Orthodoxy says that when he goes to confession and enters the Monastery, whatever has happened in the past is the past; he becomes another person. He changes his name – today my name is Evgenios – and thus you understand that I have a different life, I am another man at this moment.”
TNH communicated by phone with Metropolitan Andreas of Arkalohorion who was teaching at the University of Thessaloniki and asked whether Deacon Evgenios Georgantakis belongs to his Metropolis or to the Archdiocese of America, he replied, “he is my clergyman. I ordained him and when he receives his diploma from Holy Cross Theological School in Boston he will come to serve at the Metropolis of Arkalohorion.”
Asked whether he knew about the videos, Metropolitan Andreas said “no, I am surprised. This boy came and met with me, we spoke, etc.”
When Metropolitan Andreas asked TNH not to publish anything about Deacon Evgenios “because” – he said – “he is a new clergyman. I don’t know what he did in the past, but of course you will decide,” he was told the newspaper certainly will make a decision.
TNH honored Metropolitan Andreas’s request that he be sent a sample video of Georgantakis, which the Metropolitan viewed.
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