Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Italo-Greek Orthodox Church


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. Spartaz Humbug! 15:10, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Italo-Greek Orthodox Church
AfDs for this article: 
 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Completing nomination found incomplete. See below for original nominator's rationale. Debresser (talk) 11:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I am unable to find reliable third party references other than those that have apparently been created by or derived from the person who maintains the web page. There is no evidence that this "church" holds regular services nor that any of the dependent parishes other than the cathedral actually exist, with the exception of one that has a contact name and number and says "in formation;" but that only gets relevant google hits for one posting on an Eastern Christian message board. The only photos on the website with people in them are from a concert. Evidence suggests that this "church" consists of one person. [I am responsble for the highly inclusive editing of the list of cathedrals in the United States and included a number of small "cathedrals" of obscure jurisdictions which showed evidence of at least having a building and one dependent congregation, so I am not being super-picky!] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zipcedric (talk • contribs) 16:13, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I vote to keep this page, not matter the status of the church today, the Italian Orthodox Christians are a historical minority, established in the US since the early 1900's. --Leonardo Alves (talk) 21:21, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps then the article should be rewritten with the historical material first and a very brief mention of the current diocese at the end, and maybe retitled to refer to the ethnic group rather than the church. I actually deleted the historical stuff because the current "jurisdiction" has no apparent real connection to the Italo-Orthodox ethnic group or history; so that can be recovered.--- zipcedric 11:28, 9 October 2009 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zipcedric (talk • contribs)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of New York-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 15:45, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. Thryduulf (talk) 15:45, 9 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Originally the article contained some information on the historial IGOC, but the content was lost amidst the many editions. And even if it is now an episcopus vagans it could still be worth keeping the article .--Leonardo Alves (talk) 16:37, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Tim Song (talk) 00:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions.  -- Joe Chill (talk) 19:11, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Weak keep -- According to the website, this is a denomination with about 20 parishes in USA and CAnada. I have not investigated what has been removed, but unless it is completely wrong (even if lacking WP:RS) it ought to be restored.  One of the parishes goes back to 1911.  Peterkingiron (talk) 23:34, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.

Strong evidence suggests that this "church" consists of one person. There is no evidence that any of the listed parishes actually exist, other than the cathedral. There are no photos or evidence of any congregation; the only photos with other people present are of a concert. There are a number of statistics given which are wildly implausible, including thousands of members, four priests, etc., but not one name other than that of the bishop is presented (and one other name, for a parish "in formation" in North Carolina, which generates only one single hit on an eastern Christian discussion board.) The weblog linked to at the bottom of the article has no entries.

Only one editor, Leonardo Alves, has contributed to the parts of the article that make substantial claims for the history and continued existence of the diocese.

My experience compiling the list of cathedrals in the united states suggests that even very small jurisdictions with a handful of parishes -- some non-canonical orthodox, some in the Old Catholic lineage, some with mostly likely a few dozen members at most, generate multiple interconnected websites, photos of congregations, etc. that indicate the actual existence of a community. The absence of this evidence for this jurisdiction is very telling, and the apparent spuriousness of some of the claims in the webiste and in the article throws into doubt all of the historical information, which was evidently added by the same user who is now defending the site (and who protested the earlier "vandalism" by an editor who inappropriately wrote into the article inflammatory but likely accurate statements about the credibility of this "organization.")

I think that there is very likely a conflict of interest issue with the user who writes, edits and defends the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zipcedric (talk • contribs) 17:31, 16 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep I'm going by IAR here a little--their page on the history   is extremely plausible, consonant with their statistics, , and does not make the extravagant claims typical of groups having no real existence. I note that the earlier versions o fthe article are much fuller than the present & should be checked also--the material on the history has been removed as not strictly relevant, bu tI'd say just the opposite.  If they were a new denomination, that had achieved a single church, then I would have my doubts, but this seems not to be the case--They are rather a remnant. This is not the type of subject which can be researched properly online, The problem is that there is an Italo-Greek Catholic church, similar, but in communion with Rome, and most of the apparent references to Italo-Greek Orthodox Church refer to that one.    DGG ( talk ) 23:10, 18 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Some of the arguments for “keep” are based on taking at face value unverified information from the website of the “organization”.

The numbers of parishes (2 or 15, depending on which source) and faithful (3,000) aren’t inherently implausible for all small ethnic jurisdictions, but they are wildly implausible for this one given the lack of evidence of a functioning community even a small fraction of that size.

This jurisdiction seems to consist of one man talking with himself. I will withdraw my suggestion for deletion if I see some concrete evidence that the Italo-Greek Orthodox Archdiocese is an actually existing jurisdiction with any kind of functioning congregation anywhere in the country. Nor is there clear evidence of any historical continuity with any previously existing church or ethnic group.

The parishes listed on the website other than the cathedral parish and, possibly, the single parish “in formation” in North Carolina are either defunct or fabricated. It is impossible to find any information about them. The “parishes” listed all have e-mail addresses at the same domain, IGOARCH.org, and have no names of individuals associated with them. They have no addresses and no evidence of a physical building, nor do they generate any hits on Google other than those from the IGOARCH web page (with the exception of one name associated with a parish “in formation” in North Carolina, which only gets one hit on Google which connected with one message on an Eastern Christian message board.)

There are no names of other priests associated with the diocese other than the “archbishop,” even though the website claims 4 priests. By digging into some of the supporting documents, I found two names of “finance council” members, but nothing verifiable or that generated any hits on Google.

Even the website for the Cathedral makes no claim of any services since Easter season 2009.

In comparison, even extremely small non-canonical ethnic or old calendar Orthodox groups, or Old Catholic or traditionalist Catholic groups in the United States will give clear evidence of at least a handful of locations, of groups of faithful including at least a handful of people, names of different priests, etc.  Some examples:

•	Holy Orthodox Church in North America •	Universal Catholic Church, •	African Orthodox Church •	Belarussian Orthodox Autocephalous Church •	Old Catholic Church in America •	Old Roman Catholic Church of North America •	Liberal Catholic Church International •	Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in North America •	Russian True Orthodox Church in Exile, •	Genuine Orthodox Church, •	Albanian Orthodox Archdiocese of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in America, •	Congregation of Mary Immaculate, •	Orthodox-Catholic Church of America
 * Reformed Catholic Church

Probably none of these groups have as many members (3,000) as the Italo-Greek Archdiocese claims, but they each have multiple verifiable locations with independent websites, in most cases photographs with at least several priests or both priests and laity. Even smaller groups, with a “cathedral” in a rented storefront or hotel chapel, or without a cathedral at all, give sufficient information to show that there are actually existing communities.

The inclusion of this apparently imaginary diocese in Wikipedia actually detracts from the various small independent orthodox and Catholic churches that have actual parishes and responsibility for the care of souls, as well as detracting from the credibility of Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Zipcedric (talk • contribs) 23:57, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, 40 some odd Google hit, and, I might point out, no stated claim of notability. Abductive  (reasoning) 04:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

 Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Cunard (talk) 06:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.


 * Delete, evidently bogus fringe group, no evidence of existence beyond the imagination of its webmaster. Zipcedric argues the case well. Incidentally, the "Genuine Orthodox Church of Hellas", by whose bishop this person claims to have been ordained, apparently doesn't exist either. Fut.Perf. ☼ 15:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Still think weak keep -- This is a small denomination. As such the article is worth having, but needs to be heavily tagged for independent WP:RS.  Peterkingiron (talk) 21:34, 25 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Merge into Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Italy for now, until more sources are presented.--Blargh29 (talk) 06:27, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.