Who Does That - Locks Locks and more Locks

A priest named Fr. P was retired and locked out of the church he helped build. The locks were also changed at a bookstore in the church. Later, the locks were changed at another church due to a dispute with a tenant. The priest and others broke in and admitted to using church funds to change the locks. The police were involved and the locks were changed back. The priest and a lawyer later showed up outside the property but were confronted by others and left. The speaker questions the actions of these men and wonders if their status as religious figures gives them the right to break the law. locks, locks and more locks. Several years before the saga of St. Peter and Paul, at the other church, Christ the Savior Cathedral in Miami, Fr. P was a long-time rector there, and he was changing positions with his assistant priest, Fr. Joseph Lucas. They had finished the building of the church and the iconography, and at that point Fr. P felt it was time to take the secondary role, and so that was his plan. But lo and behold, just before the church was consecrated, Fr. P learned, to his surprise, that the bishops had retired him, and I believe that was shortly before he even turned 62. But even so, being the man that he is, Fr. P continued to serve, and he ended up becoming our family priest, while we had no priest. And for the first so many months after he was retired, he was baking prosphora for both churches, until one day he showed up at Christ the Savior to find all the locks were changed and his keys didn't work. And so, from that day on, neither he or his wife had access to the church that they were instrumental in building. And then, not too long after that, the long-time founder of the bookstore inside of Christ the Savior learned that he was also locked out of the bookstores that he started and stuck the shelves of for many, many years. He was not even allowed to go back in to give his own personal things. And so, the story of the locks begins. After our Ukrainian priest was not allowed to come and was held in an undisclosed location, and we were demanded repeatedly to illegally evict a man, which we would not do, the last criteria after this tenant agreed to leave the property was for us to change all the locks on our church, including the storage area. We were allowing this tenant to have his things until he found a permanent living situation. And we were expected, someone from the parish was expected to come to the property whenever this man might need to access his own things. Now, we complied in hopes that we would get the priest released so that he could move in and start his job. But no, he was still sent to another parish in another city far away. And we were left with the bill for changing the locks. And it didn't stop there. On sometime one day before Pascha, on a day when several people were at our church baking for Pascha, the one of the council members cornered one of the women who had keys to all the doors, got a hold up, gained the ability to enter the storage area where the former tenants things were. And while his wife stood at the bottom of the stairs, to be the lookout, I guess he looked through all of his things, open the closet and took pictures of all of his things, including his messes. He then forwarded those pictures to another council member, and very likely to Lucas himself, although Lucas claims he never saw them. That doesn't mean he doesn't have them. And a couple days later, they spoke with and attempted to show these pictures to the parish council president who refused to look at them and reprimanded them for taking such action as if they were teenagers and didn't understand. Yet, they were longtime businessmen, one of them even being a landlord, he says. So why didn't he know that that was illegal? And yet, she had to act like a mother reprimanding her naughty children. And we had a little reprieve, but not for long. Because after they were trying to coerce us to house an employee of another church at our expense, and we were refusing, we discovered on the afternoon of the same day we were having a Zoom parish council meeting, that Lucas had showed up to the property unannounced with at least one of his parish members and a locksmith, and they proceeded to change all the locks and put signs in the windows that claimed that Archbishop Alexander Golitsyn owned the property, which of course, he did not. If you look on our property search in the county, you will see that he was not the legal owner of the property. Neither was Lucas. And even if Lucas had been our priest, and even living on the property, he still would not be allowed to lock the rest of the people out. And certainly not the corporate board members. So what was he thinking? Well, that night, in what was supposed to be a parish council meeting, we were surprised to find that it was not only Lucas, but also Chancellor Marcus Birch and his secretary, Peter Robeshaw, and Archbishop Alexander Golitsyn on the call. And they admitted in their own voice to all of those on the call that they had broken in and changed all the locks. Of course, they didn't say they broke in. They said they did it because of our actions. And they had to, because of our actions. And they even admitted to using Diocesan money to do so. Now, what organization is he sent from? I thought it was the Orthodox Church. But in these actions, I was thinking it might be the KGB. That's just my thought. But little did these men know that while we were on the Zoom, we were in the church with the police who were creating a police report. And although they hesitate to get involved with church matters, and weren't quite sure what to do, they did see the legal paperwork of the ownership of the property, and told us to change the locks back, which, of course, we did. Now, two days later, Lucas, and some other gentlemen, which we assume was some kind of lawyer, showed up on the sidewalk outside the property. And some of us just happened to be heading there to say some prayers. And so a couple of the young men showed up first, and confronted them right after a police officer had shown up, talked to Lucas and this other man, and did not let them enter the property. And so Lucas and this man got in their cars and drove away, not very gracefully, either. And there's more to the story of the locks. But that'll be another episode. Now I ask you, who does that? Do these men think that because they wear a black robe and a cross, or a white collar, that they can do whatever they want, that they can take actions that are unlawful? To say the least, certainly, on Christian like would be even more important. And if they wear a white collar and a cross, does that make these actions white collar crimes? Why would anyone think that they should be able to go into somebody else's property and try to simply claim it as their own, simply because of their job title? Who does that?