Orthodox group wants say on public board policy

Richard Leitner
5/12/2011

The head of a local coalition of orthodox churches says meetings with Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board officials have left him hopeful his group “will make some inroads” on concerns about a draft religious accommodation policy.

But Father Geoffrey Korz, general secretary of the Pan-Orthodox Association of Greater Hamilton, said he’s less reassured the board will change a bullying policy to specifically address students who are picked on for their Christian beliefs.

He said a 2011 Statistics Canada report shows hate crimes against religious groups — most often targeting Jews — are on the rise and his association’s churches have reported eight hate crimes to police in the past year and a half.

Korz said he’s not sure how this trend translates into bullying at school, but he questions whether incidents are taken as seriously as those against visible minorities or gays and lesbians.

“We want to work with the board and put in measures to solve problems before they happen,” he said.

Korz said his group’s concerns about the religious accommodation policy, including the need to broaden representation on an interfaith advisory committee needs, were better received.

He said there was also recognition the draft policy may leave too much discretion, citing examples where principals denied staff religious holidays, and students weren’t allowed to leave the class when discussion “flew in the face of their faith.”

“They were being sort of shouted down because of what they believed, and then they asked to leave, and they were told no,” he said.

Korz said his group wants the board to honour such requests and also include the study of contributions by traditional-minded Christians in Canadian history, such as Egerton Ryerson, a Methodist minister who helped found Ontario’s public school system.

They would also like students to learn about mass persecutions of Christians elsewhere over the past 200 years, including in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany.

“There is a lot of attention given to the Holocaust of the Jews during the Second World War, which is a model kind of approach, and that’s the kind of approach that should be applied to larger holocausts, I think, like the Soviets and the Nazis and Armenia.”

In an email response to a request for comment, board chair Judith Bishop, who stepped down from her role Monday (Dec. 5), said she was awaiting the response of staff to their meeting with Korz.

Hamilton Community News

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