The greatest blessing, thing that ever happened in my life is being the pastor of this church. It’s true. This church made me who I am. Excerpt from an oral history interview with Reverend John E. Hamatie, May 25, 2025.
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Part I
My name John E. Hamatie, my title is Father, I was born in Bay Ridge Brooklyn, New York on… which that year was Father’s Day and my father always told me that all the fathers of children that day got a fountain pen and that I had outlasted the fountain pen.
Is that where you grew up in Brooklyn?
I grew up in Brooklyn. I went to high school in Brooklyn. I went to college in Queens, St. John’s University and then we moved to New Jersey in 1967. We got our exit visa and migrated across the George Washington Bridge to Englewood, New Jersey. And then I got married. I got married in ’71 and my wife is from Lebanon. In fact, she’s a distant cousin of mine, but that’s another story. And we came back to New Jersey and then I was ordained to the priesthood in 1972 on October the first. And I was called if I would like to come to Orlando. And so I came to Orlando on April 15, 1973 for the first liturgy at St. George Orthodox Church.
That was a lot of information. Thank you. I do have one question about where you went to seminary?
I went to college at St. John’s University. My seminary background was St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in Crestview Tuckahoe, New York.
How was that experience? Did you like it?
Seminary, I think in the seminary, of course they are trying to educate you, but they are also trying to help you develop spiritually. My biggest memory which is really very secular, was that during Lent – in the Orthodox Church Lent is more than 40 days. Because the week before Lent begins you stop eating meat, but you can still eat fish and dairy products. And then Lent goes to the Saturday before Palm Sunday. And then you have Holy Week. In the Orthodox Church Lent for 56 days and they would serve tomato soup every night for dinner, which had a purpose. The purpose was that you didn’t really think about what you were going to eat because you knew it would be the same thing. The other result is that to this day I don’t like to eat tomato soup. But it did have a purpose to it. So the seminary gives you a theological background, but also it helps you develop spiritually.
Pastoring a Church…
But there is no better seminary, I believe, for a priest, especially an Orthodox priest, than pastoring a church in a community. That’s where you really learn the nuts and bolts so to speak, the practicalities of trying to help people come closer to Jesus Christ. A church in a community, that’s where you really learn.
You gave me a great itinerary of your life and how you came to Orlando. May I ask just a couple things about your growing up? Did you go to public school not religious school?
Public school, right.
What was your life like growing up? What was typical Sunday like?
The interesting thing about, and a lot of people find this hard to believe, I am basically an introvert. Because when I was a child I was told that I would be sitting in a room and you wouldn’t even know I was there. I just quietly listened. But I early on learned that if you didn’t express yourself, you would just kind of get rolled over. And when you grow up in a big city like New York, you need to really be careful of that. So I forced myself to become an extrovert and to talk and to get out there.
Bay Bridge, Brooklyn
When I grew up in Bay Bridge – and Bay Bridge, Brooklyn is still the best part of Brooklyn -and when I grew up in Brooklyn, one of the benefits was that I interacted with people of all different backgrounds, religious backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds. I didn’t get really too much into politics. But those were very beneficial to me because being an Orthodox priest especially at a church like St. George which is so multi – not only ethnic, multi background, multi from all over the country- you need to learn how to listen and to get along with people. So that greatly benefitted me. I don’t know how well I would have done if I had grown up in a very rural area. So I grew up with that. And also my parents were first generation because their parents came here as children with their grandparents. We’ve been in the United States for over 125 years, more like 130 years. So my parents grew up, they were born here and they were, you know, very Americanized.
Family and Community Life
But my mother was very ethnic, okay. She dealt mostly with Syrian Lebanese people. She was very involved in the community. She wrote a newspaper column for a community paper. She had a Sunday School of almost 300 children which 300 children even today in a Sunday School is large, immense. In those days she was the biggest. She was also involved in lots of charity work as was her mother. So I grew up always mingling with other people. Everybody was always auntie or uncle. We never called anybody old enough to be our parents by their first name. It just wasn’t done. I only had one actual aunt and one actual uncle because my father had no siblings and my mother just had her brother and her sister. But growing up with people like that you are constantly intermingling and learning about people, learning to listen to people. and that benefited me greatly, all right.
School Activities
So in grammar school I was like any other kid. In high school something happened interesting because like most high schools at that time, there’s a student government. And when you get to your third year, your junior year, if you’re going to run for office, that’s when you would run. And for some reason which I don’t really recall now, in my second year I decided to run for treasurer of the school which took a lot of umbrage to do that. The first time I had to give a speech, I had to give a speech to each of the classes: freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior, I was really petrified. But I did all right. The people were laughing, they were reacting, and I liked it.
New York World Telegram and Sun Trip to Hawaii
I had a little bit of that in elementary school and I got a trip to Hawaii. What it was I was delivering newspapers and the newspaper was the New York World Telegram and Sun and they had a contest, that there are five boroughs of New York, whichever people that deliver the papers had come up with the most new subscriptions. You had to come up with 50 new subscriptions to qualify, to be in the finals. In the finals, whoever sold the most new subscriptions during, I have to say Holy Week because in those days in wasn’t called Spring Break it was Holy Week, would go to Hawaii. And because of my mother’s pushing, my mother, God rest her soul, she was a very strong woman and she called all her friends, and if they didn’t take a subscription, God help them. So I got to go to Hawaii. When I came back from Hawaii I was asked at the school to give a little presentation about it. So that kind of got my taste in it.
Running for School Office
But I still had not really liked public speaking. But after I ran for that office, I really enjoyed it. It turned out I didn’t win the election because the whole senior class did not like the upstart sophomore to run against a junior. But I came very close to it. The next year In was supposed to run for president, but because of some complications that did not happen. But what these things taught me – and I was very disappointed that I didn’t get to run for president because by that time everybody knew who I was because I had already run in my second year. And they couldn’t get anybody that was going to run against me because there was a foregone conclusion that I would win. But the disappointment of that helped me. It helped me to experience what I consider to be an injustice and to get over it.
My Brother
At that time also, my brother, God bless his soul, was killed in an accident in 1962. And he was a month from being 19 years old. This was a tremendous shock not only to my family, but to the whole community because everybody knew my family because my mother was so involved in the community. I remember when I came back – he was killed in August – and when I came back to high school, my guidance counselor, I remember him very well, Mr. Kamen, his first words – he never called me mister – he said, “Mr. Hamatie, everybody feels badly about your brother, but life goes on and you need to go on.” And again, that helped to get stronger to realize that you have to go forward. You can’t just sit there and wallow in the sadness of it.
St. Johns University
But what it also had the effect that when I went to college, I had the cross of the disappointment of not being able to run for the office of president of the school. I went to college more like business. I went to St. John’s University. I remember I carried an attache case like most of them did. But I never was in a fraternity. I never was in any social activities because I’d really been burned in high school by that experience. And I just didn’t want to get involved in that again which was helpful because I probably studied better and learned more than I would have.
Roman Catholic University
But I was still in a Roman Catholic University and I’m not Roman Catholic, obviously. And I remember I had a teacher, Father Dwyer, I think, and it was Old Testament, but that’s the time of Vatican II. At that time also, the only schools in the United States – this was before the unrest at universities- that was having an unrest was UCLA and St. John’s University. And I would be in the class and they’re talking about Old Testament and I would say something like, “Well, I don’t think the pope is infallible.” It had nothing to do with the Old Testament at all. And there would be an uproar in the class. And finally, after three or four instances of this, Father Dwyer came and said, “Let me tell you something young man, I don’t really give a darn what you think about the Catholic Church. I’m here to teach you Old Testament and by golly you’ll keep it to that.” And I did. I didn’t do anything further than that.
Orthodox Church
But what was happening was, I was learning more and more about the Orthodox Church. I learned a lot about the Roman Catholic Church because I didn’t know you didn’t have to take theology if you weren’t Roman Catholic. So when I entered my fourth year, my guidance counselor said, “Why do you keep taking this?” I said, “I thought you were required.” So I figured I might as well finish the course. Again it was beneficial to me because it help me to understand people that were of the Roman Catholic faith. And things were changing in the world.
“My father’s paying money for me to go to school…”
And I remember my English professor, Dr. Galassi, and he was very, very liberal. And he’d just rant on in English class. You know he was against the Philosophy Department at the school, and it was Catholic, and yada, yada. And finally I said, “Professor Galassi, let me tell you something. My father’s paying money for me to go to school. I don’t really care what your ideas are about the Catholic Church. I’m here to learn English.” And he never did it again. Okay, now I don’t want to sound like I’m pushy, but when my dad said to me because I wasn’t doing too well in college, he said, “Why aren’t you getting better grades?” I said, “Daddy, they’re all ahead of me. They all went to parochial schools. And, you know, I don’t want to ask questions because I’ll look stupid.” He said, “I’m not paying you to go to college to remain uneducated. I’m paying for you to go to get educated.”
“I’m paying for you to go to college to get an education.”
So I was very fortunate because my father and mother, now they were not people of great means, but my father paid for my tuition. And my job, he told me he said, “I’m paying for you to go to college to get an education.” So I looked at college as more of a business undertaking than a social field. So I didn’t really socialize much in college at all.
Was it at that time that you became interested in becoming a priest?
Actually, excuse me, it’s an interesting story. People have always said to me, “Father John, we ask you short questions and you give very long answers.” I said, “Because you have to cover everything.” I remember in 1960, in my family, their political persuasion was Republican. Especially my mother, she was an ardent Republican. My father tried to vote for the person, but he tended more to the Republican party.
Touching President John F. Kennedy’s Hand
So in 1960 when Richard Nixon ran against JFK, I was an ardent Republican. And I remember that Kennedy, God rest his soul, came for like a parade down the Main Street of that part of Brooklyn. And, you know, I just reached out my hand and wound up touching his hand. But I still, I mean, I had Nixon buttons all over me. I was for Nixon, one hundred percent. So when Kennedy won the election, and I remember the inauguration. I sat in my room at home and I had – I remember it very clearly- a brown portable tv and I was watching the inauguration of Kennedy. And my mom, God rest her soul, walked in the room and I said, “Mom, that’s what I want to be when I grow up.” She said, “What?” I said, “President of the United States.” And she laughed. I said, “Look, Mom. Somebody’s got to be the President of the United States. Why can’t I be President?”
Pursuing the Dream of Becoming President of the United States
And I had it all mapped out, I knew where I needed to be: congressman, senator, how old did I have to be. I was very serious about it. I was never a kid that was looking to be an astronaut. I mean when I was a kid, I’m talking like in elementary school, people say, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I’d say, “A doctor.” I was serious minded which I am sure is boring, but anyhow I was. So I was very determined and I went to school with the idea of going to law school. Because practically speaking, I mean normally you’d be a lawyer and then you’d go into the political establishment. And I remained that way, but I really was losing – oh, I know what it was – I went to law school. And I was at the University of Miami and I wanted to be a criminal lawyer. And I always told people if you ever saw the movie, “My Cousin Vinnie”, that would have been me because I can be persistent and keep going and going until either you show me where I’m wrong or I’ll show you where you’re not right.
University of Miami Law School
So I was in class and I wasn’t paying attention, I’m sorry, and the professor said something and I turned to the guy next to me and I said, “What did he say?” “You have to defend your client even if you know he’s guilty.” I said, “What are you crazy? You’re an officer of the court.” I put my hand up and that’s exactly what he said. So I turned to the guy and I said, “Well, I’m out of here.” He said, “Why?” I said, “First of all, I’m a lousy liar.” I remember clearly, maybe it doesn’t sound very priestly, but I was playing penny ante poker when I was in college and I got four aces and my face lit up like a Christmas tree. I mean I couldn’t even get them to ante up. I said, “I’ll loan you the money.” Four aces. So I’m not a good liar. Plus I said, “If the man, the person that I’m defending had abused his daughter, you can have the license and I’m going to turn him in because that to me is so heinous to do that. So I knew that, because I was interested in criminal law. I would have been a defense attorney, that it wasn’t going to work for me.
“I’d like to be able to talk to people about Jesus Christ…”
When I was a child growing up in the Orthodox Church, I always loved the beauty of the church. I loved the iconography, the whole service. I thought I’d like to be able to talk to people about Jesus Christ, and what better way than to be in the priesthood. So that’s kind of what I decided that this is what I would like to do. Because I’ve always believed and I’ve given this advice to people: If you can earn a living doing what you enjoy doing, it’s not work at all.” And that’s why it’s never been work for me because I really enjoy it. But if you don’t like what you’re doing, I don’t care how much money you make. Of course, everything in America, it’s always been that way, everything’s about money. But money’s not the real object here. The object is to be happy. So to me, that was going to be what would make me happy.
You talked a little bit, briefly about the Roman Catholic faith, but for people who may be listening to this, like the general public, could you just give a brief understanding of the Orthodox faith?
An understanding, okay when I get into discussions with people, and believe it or not, I really don’t argue religion with people, I really don’t. But if you pursue something, I have to answer you, okay? So, and I’ve said this for many years. I don’t care what church they go to, if a person’s ancestors were Christians, before the 11th century, they were part of the Orthodox Church. Because the Orthodox Church came from Jerusalem from Antioch, it’s the Church of the East, it’s where Christianity came from. So when they have that basis, this is who you were, this is where you came from. The Roman Church, the Church of Rome, and the Church of Orthodoxy, were one church for a thousand years.
The Church and Secular Politics
The problem is that when the Roman Empire began to collapse in the West, in fact, I was just talking about this, this morning, when it began to collapse in the west, the only central figure in western Europe that everybody kind of related to was the Bishop of Rome or the Pope of Rome. And the Pope of Rome became, he’s not only an ecclesiastical figure, he became also a political figure. This never happened in the East. You might thin it did, but it didn’t happen in the East. Because in Rome there’s an emperor. Even when the Byzantine Empire collapsed in 1453, the Ottoman Turks came in, they had a government there so the Church was still under a government or it was under a government in Russia. So we’ve never had that situation; we’re speaking where the Church was involved in secular politics.
Charlemagne and the Frankish Mentality
So we understand what happened in the West. On top of that, the coming of Charlemagne, and the Frankish mentality really caused the separation to come. Because why? The Church of Rome was centered in Italy. The mentality of the Church of Rome was Mediterranean or Italian, if you want to say. And the Orthodox Church is Greek or Mediterranean and even the Russian Church and the other churches of Eastern Europe, they adopted that same mentality. So it has always been my feeling, my conclusion, had the Charlemagne and the Franks not overrun Italy and the control of the Roman Church, than I don’t think the Roman Church would have split off. There are theological differences which have come about that Italy has adopted mostly because of political or economic realities. Nothing was theological.
The Orthodox Church and the Roman Church
So when we look at the Orthodox Church and the Roman Church, they have many similarities. The Roman Church is the closest Western Church to the Orthodox Church. But there are very strong, glaring theological differences that have nothing to do with the truth of the Church. So when we look at the Roman Church, we can honestly say, this was a sister of ours for a thousand years. In the Roman Church, there are certain theological things that they teach, that are not based, they’re incorrect; they’re just not true.
The Filioque
One of the best ones, the original ones, what they call the Filioque which is a Latin word for “and the Son.” Because when the Nicene Creed at Constantinople, because the Nicene Creed was established over two councils, two ecumenical councils. The first was in Nicea. The second one was in Constantinople. And when they finish with, this is the faith of the universal or catholic church, the word katholikos is a Greek word which means universal, and that anyone that would change add or subtract would be anathema: they would be out. You know, that’s it, you’re done, you’re finished.
Theological Disputes
So in the ninth century, in the 800s, the church in Spain, because the people were beginning to weigh on was Jesus Christ truly equal to the Father and so on and so forth. Remember there were great theological disputes and controversies going on. There’s the formation of the theology of the Church as we could understand it as human beings. So, they, in order to kind of prop up the position of Jesus in the Trinity, they added the words “and the Son.” Where the Creed says, “I believe in the Father, I believe in the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.
“The Spirit proceeds from the Father.”
And in the Gospel of our Lord according to Saint Matthew, it clearly says, Jesus says, “The Spirit proceeds from the Father”. They added the words “and the Son” which made the processions or the movement of the Holy Spirit dependent on the relationship between the Father and the Son. The Orthodox Church rejected this. The Roman Catholic Church rejected it to such an extent that the Pope at the time had the Creed written in Latin and Greek without the Filioque, without the addition and signed it: This is the faith of the Catholic or Universal Church. But under pressure from the Franks and from that Germanic mentality, they eventually accepted it.
Spiritual Reality of Holy Communion
The problem is the Germanic mentality is very either or, black white, up or down, yes or no. There’s very little room in there for gray. And there are areas, areas of our understanding of God, that are somewhat gray. For example, Holy Communion, we do not know how the bread and wine that’s offered becomes the body and blood of Christ. But there’s not a physical change. It’s a spiritual reality. But at what time and that was very much that Germanic mentality. Is it at this precise moment? So these things really begin to break down the theology into more of a humanistic understanding. So with that, the Roman Catholic Church became captive to that and eventually that broke.
Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire
On top of that, they had tried to establish, called the Holy Roman Empire which was really a political entity and at first it went through the west and they needed something like that in the West because it was the Medieval Times, Dark Ages, people were doing anything, whatever. So they needed that. But then they tried to expand that Holy Roman Empire into the East which is where the Byzantine Empire was, there was difficulty. They couldn’t do it. So then they tried to do it through the Church. And the whole idea of papal supremacy was unheard of. And the proof of that is, according to the scripture, the apostle Peter, and I like things to be proven through scripture because why, most of our Protestant brothers they only go by what they call Sola Scripture. So you have to use the Bible.
Saint James, the step brother of Jesus
And I remember when I first came to Orlando, I had never really dealt that much with Protestants. So I knew that telling them that Saint so and so said this wasn’t going to fly. So I had to really go back to the scripture. And the idea that the Apostle Peter was head of the Church is proven in scripture not to be so. Because the first controversy or the first thing they had to deal with in the early church was did the Gentiles coming to be Christians need to be circumcised? And they had a Council in Jerusalem and Saint James who was the step brother of the Lord was the presiding bishop and Saint Peter was there, Saint Paul was there, Saint Timothy, they were all there. And each one gave their position. Saint Paul gave his position. Saint Peter gave his position. And if Saint Peter had been the head of the Church, his words would have carried the day, but they did not. The discussion went on until the local bishop who was James said, “This is my decision” and that ended the argument. So that right there shows us from scripture that Peter was not considered to be the head of the Church.
Saint Peter, Bishop of Antioch for Seven Years
Number two, Peter went first to Antioch which was a major Roman city of the Middle East and he was asked to be their bishop and he was a bishop there for seven years. Eventually he went to Rome. So the idea that the Bishop or the Pope of Rome is a successor of Saint Peter is correct. And so is the Patriarch of Antioch the successor of Saint Peter, in fact, the senior successor because they were there first. But it was never heard in the East, that Peter was the Supreme Head of the Church or the Vicar of Christ. So these things came in because of political realities. They did not come in because of anything spiritual.
Eastern Church and the Roman Church
So the Roman Church after they left in the 11th century and they were back and forth between Constantinople and Rome, basically went their own way. More of that secular Western Scholasticism and the Eastern leaned more into the spiritual. So today, and I just had this discussion this morning, we look at the Roman Church as an estranged sister, okay, an estranged sister.
Protestant Churches
Protestants, our attitude towards Protestants is that in order for their to be unity, the Protestant Churches whether they like it or not, every Protestant Church either came out from another Protestant Church, another Protestant Church, but they all came out originally from the Roman Church. They were a part of the Roman Church. They don’t like to hear that, but that’s a fact, an historical fact. So the Orthodox Church says, we know who the Romans are historically, but you need – historically speaking we don’t know who they are. So we say, you need to reconcile with your mother which is the Roman Church and then the Roman Church, you know, we can talk about them coming back.
The Orthodox Church and Infallibility
So the point I’m trying to bring out is that, we have a situation today which has gone on for almost a thousand years. The Roman Church, there are theological problems. The Filioque is one of them. The idea of papal supremacy might be beginning to be reexamined with this new pope because he came out and said “It’s not a matter of papal supremacy” and that’s a good thing. The idea of the infallibility. The Orthodox Church believes in infallibility, but it doesn’t believe that it’s invested in one man. It’s vested in a Council and then that Council – because the word infallibility means it has to be accepted – that Council cannot be called ecumenical or binding until its conclusions are tested by what has already been proven to be correct from the Lord. So we’re very careful about this. But if they say, no this Council is ecumenical, it’s infallible, that’s infallibility.
Jesus Christ the Son of God
The immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, where did that come from? In the 19th century there was a waning of devotion to the Virgin Mary in France and a woman named Margaret Mary has a vision. And I’ll go along with all that. And the Virgin Mary appears to her and she says, “I am the Immaculate Conception.” So the Roman Church said, “Ah, that means that she is the product of an immaculate conception.” The Orthodox Church said, “No, no, no, no, no. That only can be that the Immaculate Conception of our Lord took place in her womb. Not that she’s a product.” You might say, what’s the big deal? Because in conception you’re putting the conception of the Virgin Mary on the same level as the Conception of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the Orthodox Church will not accept anything that equalizes anyone to Jesus Christ. He’s the Son of God. So this is a problem, okay.
Letters to Pope Francis
I remember I wrote to Francis, Pope Francis, I sent him a letter. I said, “You know, this has been going on for almost a 1,000 years. You know, if you’re not going to do something, who’s going to do it? If not now, when? It was a general letter. And then about a month or so later, the thought came to me, you didn’t give him any methodology. So I wrote another letter – I didn’t expect to get an answer which I didn’t- of the way this could be done.
Words
I believe a lot of differences between people are words. How do you understand a word. There’s a word, I’m not going to say it because it’s a disgusting word, but the n-word came from the word for black in Spanish. And there are people who say, well, black people say it to each other. I don’t care what they say to each other. The word is insulting and nasty and therefore I don’t care what it’s original meaning was. The meaning is what it is today.
Correct Meaning
For example, a fellow came to church, I don’t know about 40 something years ago and I said to him, “Are you homosexual?” No. He said, “I’m gay. ” I said, “No, you’re not.” He looked at me and said, “No, I am.” I said, “No, you’re not. ” He said, “Sir, I know what I am.” I said, “I’m telling you, you’re not gay.” I said, “You are homosexual, but you’re not gay.” He said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “The word gay means happy, joyful. You’re miserable. How can you use it?” He said, “What?” I said, “Use the correct word for the correct meaning, okay?” So we do this with words, we change them around and we have a meaning, a reason for doing that. We want to maybe portray to people that we’re happy, but I believe in words the way, that actually, the original meaning of the word.
Gentile
Another one is Gentile. So when someone says to me Gentile. People use the word Gentile to mean non-Jew. That’s not what the word means at all. The word Gentile means: stranger to God, foreigner to God. So if somebody calls me a Gentile, I say, “Don’t you ever call me a Gentile. I’m no foreigner to God.” I mean, if you take the word, but people don’t do that. They use words, they throw them around without knowing what the word really means and that’s why there’s a lot of confusion because they’re not using words, what they actually mean. I told you I only answer with short questions.
Thank you.
This might be skipping ahead, because we are right here in the heart of Orlando, and Lake Eola is right here. This is something significant that you’re known for and you have taken a really active role through your years here in the community. You just mentioned writing to the pope, but you’ve written a lot here in the community as well for The Orlando Sentinel. You’ve had a number of My Word columns. So something that’s made the paper, over and over again is the fact that you have the Dive for the Cross at Lake Eola. You have the tradition that I believe that you started, the annual tradition of Diving for the Cross. You started that in 1976. So, would you tell us, what is the sacred meaning of that tradition, please?
The first time I believe that we dove for the cross, I could be wrong, it’s been a long time, was actually 1974. What happened was, I’d gone to Tarpon Springs a few months before because it takes place around January 6 and they told me, “Oh, you should come here for the Diving of the Cross.”
Diving for the Cross in the East River
Now let me just go back a little bit. When I was a child, a young lad living in Brooklyn, on the front page of the newspaper at that time there would be people jumping into the East River to get a cross. I had never heard of that. And my thought was these people must really love Jesus because to jump in the East River at anytime of the year, especially in January, you’ve got to really love God to do that. But that was my understanding of the Diving for the Cross.
Diving for the Cross in Lake Eola
So they said, “You should come.” And I said, “Well, who comes?” They said, “Well, the Archbishop.” The Archbishop at that time Archbishop Iakovos, God rest his soul. “And they got about 50 priests. ” I said, “50 priests? No, no, I don’t like big crowds like that.” I said, “You know what? Why can’t we have it in Orlando?” So we went to the Mayor, I think it was Mayor Langford at the time, and we asked for permission to dive into Lake Eola. And we usually use the band shell. And I remember, we didn’t have the church. We just used the bandshell. And a few times it really rained. And this one fellow who came, he was of Greek background, and I was, “Oh, my God, it is going to rain.” And he said, “No, no. God will stop the rain.” Which He did, He stopped the rain.”
Girls Diving for the Cross in Orlando
So I would look at the church, I would look at the church, which was a Christian Science Church, and I said, “You know, this should be our church. It looks like an Orthodox Church.” So we’ve been doing it now what what 53, 54 years. The only thing that we might be unique in and I credit it to my middle daughter, Anastasia, you know, women’s movement and all that: “Why can’t girls dive for the cross?” I said, “Well, the diver represents John the Baptist and the Cross represents our Lord. And it’s really like John the Baptist baptized our Lord in the Jordan River. It’s like a reliving of that. They weren’t women.” Well, she kind of nagged me. And I said, “Well, it’s more to bring people to know more about the Lord so we’ll allow that.”
“Father, just throw it!”
One year it made the paper because we threw the cross – and you know in Tarpon they use a wooden cross so it floats. And they do it at a bayou which is clear water. Lake Eola is anything but clear water. So I would tie a fishing line on the cross not to lose it. And one time my assistant forgot the fishing line. He said, “Father, just throw it. You don’t throw it that far anyhow.” Well, I don’t know what projected my throw, but that cross went so far out into the lake and they couldn’t find it. And I was beside myself. I felt so badly. And the next day, a fellow showed up, his name was Jorges, which is George in Spanish. And he wanted to dive. But I said, “Well, if you find it, it’s not salvage. You have to bring it back to us.” He said he would. And he went like, I’d say maybe 45 feet from where I saw it hit the water. I said, “It’s not there.” He went right down and he got it and he brought it back up again. Well, obviously, to this day we try, we have a fishing line connected to it.
The Faith of the Young People…
But the faith of the young people. They’re love for the Lord, whoever brings the cross back receives – I think they all receive a special blessing. And a lot of these traditions that the Church has, what’s really neat about it is it’s things that people remember as they grow up.
Basil’s Bread or Vasilopitia
There’s another tradition which is not very well known, it’s called Basil’s Bread or Vasilopitia in Greek and it’s a tradition at the New Year because the first, on January 1, the liturgy is dedicated to Saint Basil. Vasili in Greek is Basil and pita is bread. So it’s Basil’s Bread. And they bake a coin into it. And they cut up the slices for everybody and give little slivers. And then whoever gets the coin, as they say, has good luck for the year. Well, this year we had two of them. And one person got it and nobody else got the other one. And I really didn’t pay much attention. I said, “I’ll take a piece home.” And actually, I got it. I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t believe it. I got the other coin.
Faith Traditions
But these are the things that children remember as they grow up and they adhere to them. There’s an expression that says train up a child in a way that he should go and even though he may depart from the path, he will return to it. And children remember these things. There are so many traditions, for example, Epiphany in the Spanish culture has nothing to do with the Baptism of Jesus. It has to do with the coming of the Wise Men, all right. So, there are two things on the same day and they’re 30 years apart, okay. The Baptismal Jesus and the Coming of the Wise Men. But they’re both beautiful traditions.
A Manifestation of God
The Orthodox Church actually call it Theophany, Theophania, which means a manifestation of God. Theo is Greek for God. Epiphany is manifestation. But again, we incorporate all these things. So we have a lot of the Spanish people in our Church and if they want to celebrate Epiphany as the coming, it’s fine. Sometimes we get so bogged down in little details that we lose the meaning and the beauty of it. So, yeah, we are known for that: the Diving of the Cross. In fact, one time Mayor Langford, God bless him, he said, “You know, Father Hamatie’s the only man that I know that I can make him happy by telling him to go jump in the lake,”
I understand Mayor Langford also did a proclamation for the church, it was Saint George Orthodox Church Day on July 4, 1976 when you had your first service here, right?
I planned it because it was the bicentennial. When we first came into the church, we did not own the church. What happened is we had been using a Methodist Church, First United Methodist Church in Winter Park. Shortly after I came here, we moved there and they were very nice to us. They let us use their chapel to have services and we could leave everything set up. They were very kind. I really always appreciated that. But then they needed the building, so we began looking for a church. This was not a church in ’68, so this is now ’76, so eight years. And I remember I was driving with my sister, I was driving all over. And I was supposed to go look at a place in College Park. And we’re coming down Central and I said, “Listen, make a right. I’d like to look at that church. We can still get to College Park.” And we see there’s a sign that says, not for sale but that the Christian Scientists had moved out of it.
Negotiating with Maguire, Voorhis and Wells Law Firm
So we went next door, at that time it was the Fishback law firm on Washington and Rosalind. And they said, “No, I think you need to ask-“, which was the firm behind it – was Maguire, Voorhis, and Wells. So we went there and they said, they had bought the building because, in case they needed to expand. All right, fine. So, “Would you be willing to sell the building?” “No, we’re not going to sell the building.” All right. So then I said, “Would you be willing to lease the building?” And my cousin who was with me at the time, God rest his soul, and they said, “Well, how much would you be willing to pay?” I said, “$500.00 a month.” And he kicked me underneath the front – the guy couldn’t see. And he said, “Well, I will let you know.” So we went to have a – at that time it was the Harley Hotel – so we went to have a cup of coffee. He said, “Are you crazy? We don’t have $500.00 .” I said, “Listen, they’re not going to rent it for $500.00 anyhow.” Sure enough, they said, “Okay.” Now I have to come up with the $500.00, which was difficult.
A Library Visit
In the interim of trying to, you know, trying to work on the inside to make it conducive to the Orthodox Church service I had to make a phone call. And there was no phone in the building. So I went to the Library next door. At that time the lobby was just on Rosalind and part of Central. And I walk in there to the desk to see if I could find a phone and there’s a model in front of the desk and it’s Library Expansion. I look at that and I look at the Library that’s there and I don’t see Saint George. I don’t see the church. I said to the woman, “What is this?” She said, “That’s our dream.” And I thought, well, that’s my nightmare.
The Library Expansion
So, I called up the owners and they said, “Oh, don’t worry about that’s a dead issue. The Library Expansion, it’s not going to happen.” Okay, so we had our first service and I don’t know, a few months later there was on the evening news, that the Orange County… they were going to be voting on a bond issue to expand the Library. Oh, my God, please forgive me if I get emotional. My heart just sank at that thought. So there was a meeting, and I went to the meeting. And they talked about everything. And then somebody, in fact, the guy on the news he said, “Library is like mothers and apple pie, it always passes.” So they brought it up, “Any comment?” And in those days the news, the TVs used to be at the meetings, in case anything was news worthy. It was a very, it was a very small town at that time, Orlando.
“We will defend our Church until the blood is up to our knees!”
So I put my hand up. “Yes, sir. I’m Father John Hamatie from Saint George Orthodox Church and I want to know how they’re going to vote to throw a congregation to the street in order for a library expansion.” Oh, my God… we will defend our Church until the blood is up to our knees.” It was very inflammatory, okay. Well, the news, the TVs picked it up – who the heck is this guy? They didn’t know who this guy was. As far as they knew, the building was empty. So they tabled it. I went outside, the TV cameras were there and I just went along that same, you know, how can you do this?
Radio Talk Shows
And in those days, they used to have a lot of talk shows, radio talk shows in Orlando and people would call in about whatever. Well, you just start that ball rolling about how this is terrible and on and on and on. And Christian Scientists had moved out of the building, and somebody from their community had called in and said, “Oh, that building is going to fall down itself. These people are crazy.” And I heard it and I called back and I said, “I have the blueprints to that building and that building will be standing when the Library is dust.”
One Year Lease
Well, come the following week, we went back to the meeting and they decided to table it and leave it alone. But what had happened unknown to me is we had made an enemy of the owners of the building. Because we had just a one year lease on this building. And toed the line, every month we had paid the rent. And then one of the partners was in a terrible boating accident. He lost his arm. Another partner was up in the hospital and I went to see him in Gainesville.
God Provides
The story short, they turned around and they called me and they said, “We never thought we were going to tell you this, but if you like, we’d be willing to sell the building.” I said, “Well, come tomorrow and we’ll talk terms.” He came the next day and my assistant said, “Father John, we’re not going to be able to get a mortgage. We don’t have any record of that, we’re not going to be able to get a mortgage.” I said, “Look, God provides. We’ll leave it to God.” He walks in his office and he says, “We know you probably couldn’t get a mortgage. But, if you like we would be willing to hold it for eight percent.” Which was a good rate in those days. “But we have to have $50,000 down payment.”
$50,000.00 Down Payment
Where are we going to get $50,000 down payment? I remember how much we had in the savings account was $23,000. So now I have to come up with $27,000. And I went to everybody I knew: can’t, can’t, can’t, can’t. Well, my father had passed away in March. It was now like, I believe, July, yeah. So I went to my mother and I said, “Mom, I know Daddy left you money.” I said, “You have to loan the Church the money.” She said, “Your father would never do it.” I said, “Mom, we’ve come too far.” So my mother, loaned the Church $27,000. for five years without taking interest. We paid my mother back 22 years later. 22 years later and never took interest. And I told the people, “You would not have this building if it wasn’t for Jesus Christ and that woman.”
“I have seen Miracles.”
So this has happened over, in 52 years when I tell you – and I’m not a person that uses the word miracle haphazardly – when I said: I have seen miracles. I have seen miracles. That we have this building, that we’re located where we’re located. The growth of the Church in the last couple of years. It’s all been like, oh, my God. You just have to sit there and watch the Lord move. Because I remember that I knelt in this office before we went over to buy the building and I said, “Lord, I don’t know if you want this building. I know I want the building. I don’t know if you do.”
“Through the grace of God we got the building.”
And, through the grace of God we got the building. And because, I mean, all these years, they’ve been beautiful years. You know when you get to be, I’m going to be – God willing, God willing, I’ll turn 79 next month. And when you get to this age, or even when you’re in your sixties, people will say things like, “Oh, it went so fast.” I never thought it went fast, because I enjoyed it. I enjoyed every single day. And I try to enjoy every single day. I have five children. I have four grandchildren. I love them dearly. But I will say honestly that for me, and my children, hopefully my children will know that I love them, but the greatest blessing thing that ever happened in my life is being the pastor of this church. It’s true. This church made me who I am. What else?
LISTEN: Part II
Well, speaking of this beautiful church, you know it’s magnificent. It has this splendid, sublime religious art. So would you tell us a little bit about the role of religious art in the Orthodox faith and the experience in the sacred liturgy and prayer?
We have a joke in this church because every time I go to Europe and the Middle East every year and I seem to always come back with something new. We do this or we do that. And my assistant now Deacon Charles Hill, a wonderful man, he says, “Father, I almost fear you when you’re coming back that you’re going to bring something new.” And actually last year I didn’t bring back anything new and he said, “Glory, Hallelujah.” But the point is that I’ve traveled, I’ve seen and I’m always trying to make it more real.
“We do not see icons as graven images.”
Well, one of the problems that people have, especially from a Protestant background is the icons. Okay, like they say, “a graven image.” Again, people not understanding what the word means. And I use the analogy of the film “Ten Commandments” because I’m a big movie person. And, in the “Ten Commandments”, there’s a seen where Pharaoh’s son has been killed and there’s the “Angel of Death”. And he goes up to this big black marble bird which is the god of the underworld: “If you stole my son….” I said, “The thing is that he believed that black marble bird is the god of the underworld. A graven image is something that you feel has life to it. We do not see icons as graven images. Well, that still doesn’t convince people. I say, okay. Let me give me an example. Is your grandmother alive?
No.
Did you love your grandmother?
Of course.
Do you have a picture of your grandmother some place?
Yes.
So if my dog did his business on the carpet and the only thing to pick it up with was your grandmother’s picture and I took and wrapped – see how your face is now. But the point is, if I said to you, “But it’s not your grandmother.” And you say, but it’s my picture. When I look at the picture I think of my grandmother. It’s not your grandmother, okay. So the icon is what is reminding us of who we are devoted to whether it be Jesus Christ, or the saints or the Virgin Mary.
“An icon is a devotional tool.”
Number two, I had a friend of mine, I don’t know if he’s around anymore, he was a Baptist minister. And he asked me about icons. I said, “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is physically a man. He received a material body?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Then you must have an icon.” He said, “Why?” I said, “Because the icon is not only venerated because it represents the Son of God, but also it’s an acceptance and a reality that He became flesh.” So an icon is a devotional tool. One could say, it’s a visual aid. We love the icons because of who they represent. So I have a picture of my mother before she passed away, God rest her soul, and I have it in my home. And I don’t leave my house without looking at the picture and asking my mother to pray for me. I know the picture is not my mother, but she reminds me of my mother. So the icons are great aids.
Venerating the Flag
I remember somebody went to a nondenominational church about 20 years ago, it was a very big one and they said, “There wasn’t a cross in the whole church.” And I knew the pastor, and I said, “Is it true you don’t have any crosses in the whole church?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Well, it kind of disturbs people to think about Jesus on the cross.” I said, “Are you serious?” And he was. My point is that we need these aids. We venerate the flag. If somebody burns the flag we get very upset. The flag is not the country, but it represents the country. So, burning the flag is like burning the country. We understand this. So the icons are not only meant to be beautiful, but they also are meant to put us into a mental and spiritual reality. I know when I first came to Orlando, somebody on the Parish Council said, “You know the trouble with you Father-” This is before we had a church. “The trouble with you Father is you want a cathedral.” I said, “I want whatever the Lord gives us. But if he gives us a cathedral, what would be the problem with that?”
Story of Saint Vladimir
There’s a story of Saint Vladimir when he was the Prince of Kiev and he was trying to formulate a country for his people. And they went to him and they said, “Your Highness, you will never have a country. You have to have a religion to unite the people.” You know that goes back to the Roman Empire, his idea of uniting the people. So he sent emissaries, one went to Constantinople, one went to Rome, one went to Mecca, another to Arabia, and one went to Jerusalem. The one who went to Jerusalem, he came back and said, “These people” – he was talking about the Jewish people – he said, these people are looking for a messiah that the rest of the world basically thinks has already come. The Muslims, he said, these people, first of all, it’s culturally very far from the Russian culture. Secondly, they don’t allow drinking. So it’s not going to work for us. Came back from Rome, which at that time the Roman and the Orthodox Church were one church. Came back from Rome and said, well, the difficulty here is that they have a pope and you’d be kind of subject under him.
Hagia Sofia Church
Came back from Constantinople – now in Constantinople, it’s still there, but they’ve regretfully made it into a mosque. The Hagia Sofia Church at that time was the largest church in the world. It was built by Saint Justinian and when he built it, he was supposed to have said, “Oh, Solomon I have outdone you as far as the temple.” So that when they went to the church of the Orthodox or the Greeks as they called it, the service was so moving that they did not know if they were still on earth or if they had entered the heavenly kingdom.
Entering the Kingdom of God
So I would tell people that’s what I want. I want a place that when people big or small, when they come into it they know that they have entered somewhat into the kingdom of God. So the iconography, the layout of the Church very much lends itself to that. To this point, even to this day, because we video the service every week, I watch that video to see if we can improve something or if we made a mistake. The only thing that’s perfect is God. But to me, when we’re worshipping God it’s a very serious undertaking.
Orthodox Church Worship
The Orthodox Church’s worship is based on scripture. How? If you read the book of Leviticus, God very clearly points out: This is how you will worship me. I want the table of oblation here. I want the candlesticks here. I want the incense there. So much so that if they didn’t get it right, according to scripture, sometimes they were struck dead. This is what you call serious worship. So when the Church came, at first in the beginning in the first century of Christianity they were being persecuted by the Romans. And also by the Jewish authority, but mostly by the Romans. So that’s why they went to what are called catacombs or graveyards, to get away from being persecuted. The simplest thing they could do, was that they would sing songs, which is like hymns. They would read scripture. And they would break bread which was Communion. That was all they could do.
Christianized Temple Worship
So if a Protestant or a person said let me see what worship was like in the New Testament, that’s what they would see. If you stop any understanding of the history of the Church with Revelations, that’s all you’re going to get. But if you study, the history of the Church goes on. So when the Roman Empire decided to stop persecuting the Church, the heads of the Church, said, listen, we need to go back to temple worship which is based on Leviticus. Only we no longer have animal sacrifice. Jesus is the sacrifice. So the Orthodox liturgy is based on Christianized temple worship.
The Mystical Beauty of the Orthodox Church
So, when you’re talking about 21st century, are we dragging people back to something? No, we’re trying to make it as real for people as possible. And it should be done with a seriousness. Too often, whatever church, even the Orthodox Church, if the priest or the minister or whatever is zipping through the service to get it done, people aren’t going to go back to that. If people are really praying, you really feel the presence of God, that is the mystical beauty of the Orthodox Church.
“We Baptized Over a Hundred People…”
And that’s why in the last two years, we baptized over a hundred people, almost all of them were between 18 and 32 and they were almost all Protestants. I would have never seen this coming. I mean I would have thought maybe Catholic because there’s so many similarities. But the reason for the Protestant movement is Protestants appreciate scripture. So when they’re reading the Bible, they’re saying wait a minute, where’s this, where’s that, what happened to this? Where’d that go? And now, they’re discovering it in the Orthodox Church which is like amazing to me. I mean 52 years, I didn’t see that one coming.
So I read that you started the first weekly Orthodox television series in the United States. So how did that happen?
You got to be the Energizer bunny from Brooklyn. You know, if there’s an opening, I’m going to find it. So it really started with years ago, before they had the Internet and all that, tv stations would end at a certain time. And then they would open, maybe 5:30 in the morning and they would have an opening prayer. And, I think, it was Channel 6. So I would be invited to do that along with a lot of other clergy and I liked that. Then I remember I knew somebody in the Roman Church and they had, they may still have a weekly Mass. And I said, “Could I do an Orthodox service?” And they said, “Yeah.” So we did that. But I wanted more. So I went to Channel 6 and it was Ben Aycrigg who was with Channel 6. He was the Program Director. And I said, “Could we -” It was something new to them. But it was free. That is one of my signature words is free and cheap. I will tell you that.
“The Orthodox Word”
So we had a program, it was called: “The Orthodox Word”. And what we would do, we would interview people on a particular subject. And the person was always in the shadows because maybe they wanted anonymity. And we did it for a good amount of time, at least 26 weeks.
Interview with My Mother
Well, funny thing is that the person I was supposed to interview one time didn’t show up. And I was, you know, up the creek without a paddle. And my mom had driven me to the station. And I said, “Mom, I’m going to have to interview you.” She said, “What?” I said, “Look, what can we talk about?” Well, the problem that I was looking at was alcoholism. My mother was definitely not, my mother was a teetotaler. I said, “You’ll be in the shadows, and I’ll just ask you questions. If you’ve met people, so on and so forth.” She agreed.
Orthodox Television Program
So we’re filming, taping it and she says, “Well, I knew a man in Brooklyn who was just a lush.” She said, “Lush.” I’m trying not to laugh. The cameraman is laughing. The director in the booth is laughing. And I’m trying so hard, I’m biting the inside of my cheek not to laugh. And she’s oblivious to what’s going on. And finally I said, “Cut the tape.” They did that. I said, “How could you say lush?” She said, “But he’s a lush.” I said, “I know, Mom, but you don’t say lush. It’s television. You can’t say that.” But she said, “He’s a lush.” I said, “I know that, but you don’t say that.” Well, we had to go to a different topic. But that program, and to my knowledge it might be still the only regularly scheduled Orthodox television program in the U.S. I haven’t heard of anybody else. Maybe they have, I don’t know.
Radio Program
Going down that vein, we had a radio program. I also wrote a column, there was a newspaper years ago… and I wrote a column for them. Then we had a radio program and the radio program was in Kissimmee. It was a – you call in – okay. And, we weren’t getting any response. Week after week, no response. I said, “Gee, maybe nobody’s listening. So they said, “Well, Father.” And they always advertised what the topic was going to be. So I’m trying to think, what kind of topic, can we come up with that if we don’t get any response nobody’s listening. So I came up with a topic, I said the topic is: “Why -“. This is nothing against Jewish people – but I figured this would get somebody’s attention. “Why the Jews Are Not God’s People.” And they advertised it. Nobody called in. I said, “This is the end of this program because if that topic which is incendiary didn’t get any response, nobody’s listening to the program. Let’s get it over with.”
Communication
But, the newspaper, all these things I believe in communication. I believe that we should be willing to discuss things on all sides. I never shied away from interreligious. The only thing I don’t like about politics today is it used to be that you make your point and I would listen and you go back and forth. Maybe you agree, maybe you don’t agree. But today, we no longer have any social intercourse at all. Because it’s either my way or the highway. When I encounter that with people, I say, you know, I really, I have to do something else. Because it’s a waste of time. Because they don’t want to listen. I have learned many things.
Jewish
For example, this is unusual to say it, but I will say it. I’ve told Jewish groups, I know why you didn’t accept Jesus. You know most Christians would never say that. They say, why? Because He wasn’t what you were looking for. You were looking for someone to did get rid of the Romans, to restore the kingdom. You’re not looking for someone to tell you to turn the other cheek. Okay, you were not prepared for Jesus because they didn’t see it. When they read the Old Testament, they didn’t see it at all.
Muslims
Second one, Muslims, can’t stand the cross. You say, how could you not? Investigate why. Because the Muslims, don’t feel that Jesus was actually crucified. They believe that somebody who looked like Jesus was crucified and died. They don’t believe that Jesus was crucified because the Muslims believe that Jesus is the Messiah. They don’t believe that He is the Son of God. So to them if you have a cross which is the symbol of the crucifixion, it’s like a face of your wall that he was crucified. I am just trying to find out, there are way to bridge things with people. How do we come to an understanding so that we can better live in this world?
“God is Love.”
I’m a very simple man. Jesus said, “God is love.” You want to be godly, than be loving. If you’re not being loving, you’re not being godly. I not meaning loving in the sense of sexual relations, I’m talking about really loving people. Even when you talk about the word like making love. I had a class one time and I said to this woman, “Just put your hand along my arm in a very genteel manner not really rubbing it.” She did. I said, “You just made love to me.” And she looked at me like what? I said, “Listen to me. Making love is showing love.” It has nothing to do with sex. It has to do with really showing love.” So if we’re going to the cause of the problem, I don’t want to preach, but I do believe this. I believe in going to what is the cause of the problem.
Reconciliation
We talk all about illegal immigrants, okay. To me, I would say let’s go down to Honduras, let’s go down to Guatemala, let’s find out why these people are leaving these countries and coming here. No, we’re just going to throw them out. But understand, you’re never going to stop it if you don’t go and take care of what the cause and effect is. So that’s the person I am, I want to find out what is the problem. When we’re doing marital counseling, I mean, I have couples that come in that bring things up from before they got married, screaming and yelling. That I learned in law school. My best thing I learned in law school is to learn how to analyze information without emotion. Could we get through all the emotion, what’s the real problem here? And when you do that, you have the possibility of reconciliation. But as long as you keep throwing bombs at each other, you’re never going to find any reconciliation.
You mentioned about hearing other people’s viewpoints and dialogue, and I understand that you have a future hope of establishing a multiethnic cultural center here in Central Florida. Can you tell us about that? What would it be like?
Believe me I’ve had this on my mind for years. What is a multiethnic cultural center? You have maybe eight or nine, maybe more, large ethnic groups in Orlando. And you may have another ten or twelve smaller groups. Xenophobia is a problem because people don’t understand other people. Okay, why? They look funny or they dress funny or they eat funny. America is not a melting pot. America is a salad bowl. Tomatoes are still tomatoes, onions are onions, carrots are carrots, they still are that, okay. They can blend together, but when you talk about a melting pot, that means that they all melt down to something and they’re not what they were. So we need to learn to understand people and what they value. And, we don’t.
Xenophobia
People say for example, the browning of America. I could care less about the browning of America. I’m interested in people. So I don’t care where they come from. So the point is, to get over that xenophobia, the fear – oh, they’re different -they do this, they do this.
A Food Court
I remember when Kennedy ran for President. And they had all this anti-Catholic stuff because he was the first Catholic that might be come President. Even though Al Smith ran before him, but he didn’t become President. Anyhow, there’s, oh, he’ll be subservient to the pope. He’ll be kissing the pope. This is ridiculous because they didn’t want to lose the election. So, the sooner we get past, and we get to know each other, now the heart of this multiethnic culture actually is a food court. You might think, food court? Yeah. Because people when they eat each other’s food, they begin to break down barriers. Oh, this is not so bad. So, that was the heart of it.
Permanent Exhibition
The idea was then, that although I’m just saying eight major groups, they would have a permanent exhibition and learning from that particular ethnic background. Then the others would rotate every three months. Okay, it’s an expensive proposition. But it’s interesting that one of my parishioners is a very dear friend of mine, he’s a professor at UCF – because the Church is so multi everything, not just ethnicity and political background, everything – everybody comes to this Church, okay. He said, “Father John, you already got your multiethnic cultural center in the Hall.
So what this ministry, I think the value of this ministry, I know the value of this ministry, is that it is accepting. For example, I’m going to go a little bit further, if you don’t mind. Everything in our society relates back to sex: drugs, alcohol, power, money, position. it always breaks down to sex. So, the real problem is, how do you look at sex and the control it has, on us as people. Now we’re getting down to the real nitty gritty. Because I’ve told people, I hear this in confession all the time: “Well, I went to a porn site.” I said, “Brother let me tell you something. If you go to a porn site, you know what you’re going to do. It’s impossible that you’re not going to do something because you’re looking at it. So the thing is, you’re not going to the porn site.” All right, now if you sit and you think about it, and I did this for a fellow one time, who was homosexual, nice young man. And I said, “Let me ask you a question. When you do the deed and you finish, how many minutes are you finishing? Ten minutes?” He said, “What?” “Five minutes?” He said, “Five minutes?” I said, “Two minutes?” He said, “Two minutes?” I said, “30 seconds?” He said, “30 seconds.” Now, if this action is interfering with your relationship to God which is a continuing relationship, it seems to me it’s a pretty bad bargain.
Now again, I’m annoyingly analytical, but I’m sitting here thinking, for example, because I’m always watching my weight. There’s a piece of cheesecake there. I look at that piece of cheesecake and I say, I’m not going to get on the scale in the morning and look at that piece, that’s going to be on you. So, I’ll take a very small, smallest, so that when I eat that cheesecake, I’m going to really savor it because I know the conclusion. So when we look at sex in this country, not just this country, in the world today, we are really beholden, we’re held hostage of it. If you sit and really put it into a perspective, this is rightly not the biggest thing in the world. There are much more important things than this in the world. But if I’m doing something that interferes with my relationship, why do men let go if they’re married? If your relationship to your wife is that important to you and you really loved her and she really loves you, you wouldn’t be doing this. It’s because the guy – you see it sometimes with the gal in the movie, they say, “You’re going to have the same woman for the next 40 years?” Yeah, if you really love her and she loves you.
But we take it, this thing has become so big in our society, and nobody really addresses the problem. Okay, we want to make gay people heterosexual, and whatever. The problem is you need to learn how to control this and say, you know what, it’s not going to control me. Whether it be eating, or drinking that’s controlling us. People that are obese, the food is controlling them. I’m including alcoholics, most people who are alcoholics, it’s not a defective gene. It’s controlling you. So whatever is controlling you, you need to really look at it and see, how do I control it? I have a bad temper. I’ve always had a bad temper. How do I learn to control the temper? I can’t just say well, you all know I got a bad temper that’s why I just beat the daylights out of a bunch of people. That’s ridiculous.
So, the multiethnic cultural center was, what is your problem? Why does it bother you, quote, unquote, to use that expression: “the browning of America”? I just would like people that come to this country, that can add to the country; that can help make it better than what it was before. Does it have to always be the same way? Even in the Church. So we are, that’s how a multiethnic cultural center begins to break down the barriers that we ourselves or others have put up in front of us. You are raised to dislike or to be against this group or that group. Why? Why should I feel like that?
You know I was raised in certain ways. I’ll give you an example, my parents, they grew up in the Depression,, my parents never got over Pearl Harbor. Never. Every year: Do you know what today is, son? Yeah, Dad, it’s Pearl Harbor Day. I mean, I grew up with all that stuff, okay. On top of that, in 1959, before they ever built that memorial on the Arizona, I went with a group of people to Hawaii, to Honolulu. I stood on the actual deck of what was still protruding out of the water of the Arizona. On top of that, I read a book about the Bataan Death March. So guess what I am, I’m not a Japanesephile, I don’t like the Japanese. And then I started to think about it. Analyzing. And slowly, I had to get over that and understand this is keeping me back. This is making me dislike a group of people, for what? And that to me is when a multiethnic begins to break down barriers. That we’re all people. We’re all human beings. So you speak funny. You speak a different language. You wear different clothes. Learn about it. That’s what that’s intended for. Whether or not it will happen, I don’t know. It will probably take a lot of money. I don’t have that money, so it’s up to God.
But it may take place here.
Oh, yes, it’s for Orlando. We need this. Because we have a large population from other places. I was, where was I? I go to the gym. I was at the gym last Saturday, this guy was obviously Hispanic, I think he was Puerto Rican. “How you doing, bro? I love the Lord. I love the Lord.” I says, “Well, you know what, if you love the Lord, and I gave him something, come down to the Church.” Now the point is, he said to me, “Do they let people, are we allowed to come in?” I said, “Are you kidding me?” I said to him, “The homeless people come to church here. The homeless people come to church here.” Because why? Because we don’t look at them as homeless. We look at them as people and that was the whole idea of the multiethnic center or the country will continue to divide and to subdivide like tribes attacking each other and hating each other. I mean , that’s ridiculous.
Speaking of the homeless, you do have a long community history of feeding the homeless in the church parking lot. So how did that come about? I know about the Ephraim Project. So were there members of your community who made the food? Were there businesses that donated the food or both?
It started about, I’m going to guess, 14 years ago. And it was on tv, on the news, that the City of Orlando, was cracking down on feeding homeless people in public parks. And I got a call from a wonderful woman named, Rachelle Hood, and she was with, she called it The Ephraim Project. Rachel Hood is one of the most committed Christians, I ever met. She used to work at Denny’s in their HR Department, Human Relations. She used to make a million dollars a year as her salary. She at one time before I knew her, she gave all that up to go to Ethiopia to dig wells for people. I mean this woman is really a Christian person. So, her daughter contacted me, you know, could we find some way, whatever. That’s how they – the Ephraim Project was feeding the homeless down by the Post Office and they were getting run off.
So we met and I said first of all you shouldn’t be feeding people in the public park. I’m against that. And, she was like what am I meeting with this guy for? She said, “Why?” I said, “Because if you give people chicken, and the guy throws a chicken bone and my dog is walking in Lake Eola Park and eats a chicken bone, the dog is dead. You need to find a place where you can feed them. Two, you can’t be defying the government like that.” I said, “You can use the parking lot at church. It’s private property.” So they came. They made the food. And then it extended to other groups. It became seven days a week. I will honestly tell you, it was one of the highlights of my ministry was feeding of the homeless. Not just feeding them, but getting to know them. I have heard more stupid conclusions, that the homeless just don’t want to work. that’s not true. Yeah, there are homeless people that don’t want to work and there are also people with homes that don’t want to work. And there are a lot of homeless people that have psychological and physical disabilities. I understand that.
So one day, she had an assistant named Suzanne, who was an older lady from Haiti. Suzanne could be very disarming. So somebody had come to church and we had people bring food to provide a little lunch. And this person had come, but they hadn’t come to the service. I said, “Sir, this meal is for the people that came to church.” Suzanne comes up and says, “But Father, they’re hungry. Are you going to let them eat?” She nailed me. She just nailed me. I said, “You’re right. You’re 100 percent right.”
Saint Nicholas Food for Hungry People
In fact, even before the Ephraim Project, I’m going back 47 years ago. We had a thing called, Saint Nicholas Food for Hungry People. And we would have brown bags with a soda and a sandwich and we would give it out to people who would come to the side door on Wall Street on Sunday. We even had a program where we were giving people five dollars. Until I remember one time, we gave this guy five dollars and he cursed us out that was all we had. And the Council said, “Father, you need to stop doing this because you’re endangering the people here.”
Living the Hymn of Saint George
But Saint George is really, in fact, the hymn of Saint George one of the things it refers to him as “Defender of the poor.” So I told the guys, this homeless feeding is helping us to actually live this hymn of Saint George. Before the City didn’t allow people to sleep on the streets. During and after the pandemic you would still find homeless people sleeping around Saint George’s for protection. And I thought this is such a beautiful thing that it really enlivens.
What I like about Saint George is it doesn’t talk the talk, it really does walk the walk. So the homeless feeding has been to get to understand homeless people. And one of the things that they said to me that always stuck with me is that one of the worst things that happens to homeless people is that people don’t even see them. They walk right by them like they’re not even there. That’s tragic. Now, in fact, one of the things that we’re required as Christians to do even if we hate the person, we have to greet them. When you walk be people as if they don’t even exist, this is really un-Christian.
You just talked about something that’s very meaningful to you in terms of your experience here, your life vocation… You also lead pilgrimages to other parts of the world and you’ve produced all the Sunday liturgical Gospels in phonetic Arabic. In terms of your life path, did you ever imagine that all of this was going to take place?
Honestly, I’m not being unduly humble, I don’t think I’ve accomplished a lot at all. What I did is I had a front row seat to watching – seriously, I mean this literally- what God accomplished. Because there were things that I said, oh, my God. That we got this building, blew me away. Because we never had the right to have this building. We never had the right to be in the center of Orlando. In fact, years ago, or brothers over at the Presbyterian Church would answer the phone, “Heart of the City”. And I called up one day and I said, “You know if you’re the heart, we’re the aorta because this is right on Lake Eola.” But what I’ve watched the Lord do, it just flabbergasts me. And that’s one thing that’s helped my faith through the grace of God that I realize, it’s not what I did. I really didn’t do it and again I’m not being unduly humble. I just sat there and watched. And anytime the Lord gave me an opportunity, yes, I did take advantage of the opportunity.
And I went to the inaugurations of two Reagan and Bush. And I remember the first inauguration of Ronald Reagan, I sat up there and I’m in the center and who sat behind me was Coretta Scott King. And I was like, man you’re in front of, here’s a little pipsqueak in front of Coretta Scott King. My point is that the Lord open things for me to go to see and to know people. I’m a great believer in that. I think that when people wall themselves off you don’t get anywhere. Anything that has been accomplished, seriously speaking it really is the Lord. Again, forget all this false humility, I’m being honest. I mean, yeah, if you want to take credit for something, maybe if I made some food, that would be good, that would be different. But I’m just telling you that I see that.
So what I’ve seen and why I’m thankful to be in Orlando, I will tell you honestly speaking, I pray everyday that God keep me here until I die. In fact, because I’m such a movie buff, one of my favorite movies is “A Christmas Carol” especially the one made in ’51. It’s considered a classic. But in this story, Scrooge is being led around by the angel of Christmas to come. And he takes him to the stock exchange because he was a buyer and seller of wheat. And he’s looking at the clock inside the room and he says, well that’s my space why am I not there? Not really of course that he’s died. That’s what I’ve come to feel in the heart of my hearts that this is where I’m supposed to be. I don’t care about somebody’s got a bigger church, a bigger community. Like I said about the President of the United States, I am blessed to be able to do what I love doing. This is where I belong. And that’s why I never really aspired to leadership positions, to go up the ladder so to speak of the Church.
I belong in Orlando. My job is to try to help the people here in Orlando. What goes on in New York or Chicago is fine. But this is where I’m at. So when I look back over the 50 years, I’ve tried to speak the truth. When I saw injustice, in a loving manner I tried to reconcile people. Let’s sit down and talk. I’m very proud of the fact that I have some testimonies, again I’m not taking credit for them, but I’m just being honest about it from Jewish communities, from the Muslim community. This is a great sense of joy for me because if they like me it’s because – I didn’t cut any ice with them. I was straight out but in a loving manner. You believe what you believe, I understand what you believe. This is what I believe. If that works for your life God bless you and keep you. This whole idea of wishing people to hell, this is a terrible thing.
So now our situation in the country today, for example, if I don’t like the President of the United States, but he does something and I say that’s a good thing. I’ll come out and say, look, I don’t like the guy, but I’ve got to give him credit for this. It’s being willing to question yourself that you’re not always going to be right. That there’s things you don’t know. For example, going back to Pearl Harbor, most people do not know this, and, of course, the Japanese were very aggressive and doing terrible things to China. I understand that. But the United States embargoed oil and steel shipments or metal to Japan, which an embargo is considered an act of war. When Kennedy quarantined Cuba for the missiles, he specifically did not use the word embargo. He said, a quarantine because an embargo is an act of war. So in the Japanese’s mind, to justify the attack, they said, well, the United States has already declared war. Now, I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. I’m just saying where their thinking is coming from. So that’s really important to people, to understand where their thinking is coming from.
You mentioned that your congregation is growing and particularly among young people. So are you optimistic about the vitality of church life in the United States?
I think that, okay when people come and they say, “Father, I want to go out and talk to people.” I say, “All right, but do me a favor and don’t talk about Jesus.” In their eyes they say, “What?” I say, “Don’t talk about Jesus.” They say, “What do you mean?” I say, “Listen to me. Most people have an idea or a preconceived idea of who Jesus is that is either incorrect or incomplete. It would be better to bring them to the church.” One of my favorite scriptural quotes is where Phillip meets Nathaniel and tells him about Jesus of Nazareth. And Nathaniel says, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Phillip does not argue with him. He doesn’t try to convince him. He tells him, “Come and see.“
“Our new god in America is Technology.”
So what’s happening in America is, our new god in America is technology. It’s a fact. Like this young man I know, he loves to play games. So, I said, “Well, you don’t go to church?” He said, “Well, it’s the same thing every Sunday.” I said, “Well, there’s some differences, but yeah.” I asked him, “Do you play games?” “Yeah.” “It’s the same thing.” He said, “No.” I said, “It’s the same thing. You may change the names of the people you are killing, you may change the background, but it’s the same thing. It’s just a matter of killing people, game after game, after game. What is the sense of this?” He said, “I won.” I said, “What did you win? Did you win money?” “No. What did you win?” “I won.” “You didn’t win anything.”
Video Games
Going back, why are people – it’s fantasy. But it’s a dangerous fantasy. It is a fact that after the first Gulf War, a lot of our soldiers that were in tanks, to them it was like playing a video game. When they got out and they show them the dead bodies, they’re like oh, my God, this is reality. So we are, we are duping ourselves, into a fantasy world which does not exist. Regretfully speaking, most people now with the Internet, the Internet has some very good points to it. A lot of people call me up and say, “Such and such.” I say, “Do you have Google?” They say, “Yes.” “Well, Google it. If you didn’t get satisfied by Google, then call me. But you have Google. Check it out.” There are some good things there. But people need to ask themselves, like I said to the Jewish guy, “I understand why you didn’t accept Jesus.” A lot of people said to me, “I understand why you didn’t accept Jesus? How could you say such a thing?”
Seventh Day Adventist
Another one, about Seventh Day Adventist. And I have a friend of mine from the gym, his brother is a Seventh Day Adventist Minister. And he said, “The sabbath is Saturday.” I said, “You’re right.” He said, “What?” I said, “You’re right. The sabbath day is -” He said, ” What? I never heard any Christian minister admit that.” And I said, “Well, then they’re just ignorant.” I said, “The fact is Saturday is the Sabbath. Sunday is the Lord’s Day. It’s not the same thing.” Now, because people could only get one day off, over a period of time they ascribed many of the facets or things about the Sabbath to Sunday. Sunday is not a day of rest. Sunday is a day to go to church and going to church is work. The liturgy is work. Afterwards maybe you go to visit people who are shut ins, do some charity. That’s all work. You rest on Saturday to do the work on Sunday. But when you’re going to make Sunday a day of rest, people say why am I supposed to go to church? I’m supposed to be resting. You see the problem?
The Sabbath
So, this is where, ask people specifically about the Seventh Day Adventists, God Bless them, they go to church on Saturday – which right there is breaking the Sabbath. Because on the Sabbath you’re not supposed to – how do you get there? Are you walking? No, you’re taking a car there. I’m not picking on them in particular, I’m just saying ask and look at the reality of what’s being said and done.
The Youth of America
In America, the American people are hungry, especially the youth. God bless the youth. The young people will not be shut up. They are looking, in fact, people say to me, I had this happen a couple days ago, somebody said, “I’m going on a mission trip to South America.” I said, “Why?” They said, “To tell them about Jesus.” I said, “I think they know about Jesus in South America.” This is a true story. This guy was Jewish, his wife is from Columbia. Going to the gym, da da da. I said, “Well, your wife’s Christian.” He said, “No, she’s Catholic.” I said, “Catholics are Christians.” He said, “No, Catholics are Catholic and Christians are Bible thumpers.” I said, “Listen, bro, I’m telling you Catholics are Christians.” Turns around and says, “Babe, are you Catholic or Christian?” She says, “I’m both.” I says, “What the heck do you know? I’m in the business.” I said, “I’m telling you, Catholics are Christians.
Orange Avenue
So, you want to go on a mission? You don’t have to go to South America. You can go up to Orange Avenue on Friday and Saturday night, there’s teems of young people up there. You want to talk about Jesus? You don’t even have to go and ask them anything, just stand there and you’ll see people walking by this one is crying, this one is upset. Can I help you? Are you okay? Show some love to people. You want to bring people to God, then act godly.”
The Resurrection of Religion in America
So I think America is coming to more and more realization that the things that we value, that we’ve been taught to value, we are a consumer economy. We are taught to not be satisfied. We have to buy a bigger car, a better car, a newer this. I come back from the days where they had, you’re too young, they had hot combs back in the sixties, you know, for your hair. Then they came up with blow dryer. First it was a 500 watt. Then a 1000 watt. Then they came up with 5000 watt. 5000 watt, you could blow dry a horse with 5000 watt. Because if we keep teaching people to be not satisfied, they keep buying and that’s what are economy is, consumer. Consume more and more. So people are getting to a point of saying there’s got to be – that’s what happened in the pandemic. The pandemic as bad as it was, people died. I know that. But in a sense it was a blessing because a lot of the young people that were stuck at home, they started to look deeper. Am I going to get over this? Am I going to go back to the same thing I was doing before? No, they were looking for more. That’s where the resurrection of religion in America will come from.
Thank you so much for speaking with me today. Your outstanding dedication to people and professional accomplishments to this purpose are a brilliant example for community life. All good wishes to you in your future endeavors here in Central Florida and as you radiate on your trips in the world we wish you the very best.
Thank you for this. I appreciate it.
Interview: Reverend John E. Hamatie
Interviewer: Jane Tracy
Date: May 23, 2025
Place: Saint George Orthodox Church, 24 North Rosalind Ave, Orlando, FL 32801.
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Oral History Interview with Reverend John E. Hamatie of Saint George Orthodox Church
Oral History Interview with Reverend John E. Hamatie of Saint George Orthodox Church, photographed on July 6, 2025. Photo courtesy of Reverend Hamatie.
Interview: Reverend John E. Hamatie
Interviewer: Jane Tracy
Date: May 23, 2025
Place: Orlando Public Library
Oral History Interview with Reverend John E. Hamatie, Part II
Interview: John E. Hamatie
Interviewer: Jane Tracy
Date: May 23, 2025
Place: Orlando Public Library
I grew up in Orlando and we lived in Azalea Park and went to Howard Junior High School. I played football there. After school I would often walk to Colonial Town to visit my mother, Ulberdina (Deanie) King who worked for a dentist (Dr. Cantrel) My family eventually moved to Gainesville, Florida.
Greetings Richard! Thank you for sharing your memories of growing up in Orlando and attending St. George Orthodox Church. We hope you will continue to explore the posts on Orlando Memory and share your thoughts with us all. THE ORLANDO MEMORY TEAM