September 19, 2024

Dear Reverend Clergy, Esteemed Parish Council Presidents & Valued IT/Cybersecurity Personnel of the Metropolis of Atlanta,

Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

I am pleased to provide information about an important endeavor of our Archdiocese: its Cyber Security rollout strategy. 

We are hoping that your parish Priest, President of the Parish Council & designated IT/Cybersecurity Personnel will make every effort to attend an important online meeting. Each Priest is asked to ensure that at least one of these lay individuals also attend (in addition to our Clergy): either your parish's IT-focused lay member, your Parish Council President, or ideally (if possible), both.

This effort is spearheaded by Archdiocese Cybersecurity Subcommittee, which includes Theo Nicolakis (Chief Information Officer of the Archdiocese) as well as the Chancellors of the Metropolises of Atlanta & Pittsburgh, and members of the laity who are experts in the field of CyberSecurity. 

Regardless of whether you are familiar with "phishing", or AI, technological scams are quickly becoming a major threat, as many of our churches can attest, such as when bad actors impersonate our clergy to scam parishioners out of money through "urgent" gift card purchases 

The Subcommittee will hold a meeting next week over Microsoft Teams where it will introduce its members & the Cybersecurity Rollout Strategy to better protect all our parishes.(Please join the Archdiocese Cybersecurity Committee on Microsoft Teams next Tuesday, September 24th, at 2 PM.)

So, if you're a Clergyman looking for ways to defend your parishioners or a parishioner curious to learn more about where AI is headed, please strongly consider attending this meeting, which will have time allotted for a Q&A portion.

Looking forward to a informative, productive, and stimulating conversation on this crucial topic, I remain,

Faithfully,

+Very Rev. Fr, George Tsahakis
Chancellor
  

(Click Here for the Microsoft Teams Link.)