Ray Lanier To Serve As Counsel

The Chancery Office of the Orthodox Church in America in Syosset, N.Y., has announced the appointment of Judge E. R. Lanier of Monticello as General Counsel of the Church, effective December 1, 2015.

Judge Lanier has been active over the past three decades in a variety of leadership and legal positions at the parish, diocesan, and national levels within the Orthodox Church in America, culminating more recently in his service over the past six years as Chair of the Legal Committee of the Metropolitan Council, a major policy and administrative organ within the structure of the American Orthodox Church.

In his new position as General Counsel of the Church, Judge Lanier will have oversight responsibilities for legal matters in the central administration of the Church which includes parishes and dioceses in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

The historical roots of the Orthodox Church in America stretch back to 1794 when a formal mission of the Russian Orthodox Church was established in Alaska: this missionary initiative grew with time and was ultimately recognized as an archdiocese within the Russian Church, an archdiocese which was later given its full independence and autonomy in 1970.

“I welcome this opportunity for continued legal service to my Church,” said Lanier, “particularly at this critical time in American social and political history when strong challenges are being mounted in our courts and legislatures against basic and fundamental Christian values which underpin our society, particularly with respect to the sanctity of life and the integrity of the Christian ideal of marriage as a sacramental union of one man and one woman.

“The Orthodox Church generally and the Orthodox Church in America in particular,” he continued, “has never faltered or wavered in its profound commitment to these principles or to the tenets of our faith from which they spring. For 2000 years now the Orthodox Church has preached and defended the fullness of the Christian faith, and it is a privilege for me to support the Church in its work here in North America.”

Judge Lanier – who served as Judge of the Monticello Municipal Court from 2009 until 2015 – was appointed to the Norcross Municipal Court in 2014 and was recently reappointed to an additional term on the bench of that Court. He completed a term last June as President of the Georgia Council of Municipal Court Judges, the state-wide judicial body which oversees the work of Georgia’s Municipal Courts.

Judge Lanier took his bachelor degree in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1965, and was awarded the Doctor of Law degree from Emory University in 1968. He later received the Master of Science degree in Urban Government from Georgia State University and subsequently took a Master of Arts degree in History from Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville as well as a Master of Laws degree from the University of Georgia. He is now completing additional graduate work in Orthodox theology at Balamand University in Beirut, Lebanon.

Judge Lanier is an emeritus Professor of Law at the College of Law, Georgia State University and a member of the founding faculty of that law school. He has served in academic appointments at Oxford in the United Kingdom; at the University of Bielefeld in Germany; in L’Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Paris in France; at the University of Warsaw in Poland; and at the University of Linz in Austria.

Since 2014 he has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Savannah Law School while continuing his decades-long teaching service at the GSU College of Law in Atlanta. He and his wife, the former Patti Myrene Jordan of Monticello, make their home on College Street in Monticello.