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A strong movement of laity in the Archdiocese has been engaged in the tensions with Constantinople, as well, especially a particular group known as [[Orthodox Christian Laity]] (OCL), which includes some of the wealthiest members of the Archdiocese. In 2004, 35 plaintiffs unsuccessfully sued Archbishop [[Demetrios (Trakatellis) of America|Demetrios]] and the Greek Archdiocese in an attempt to force it to invalidate the 2003 charter granted by Constantinople; their lawsuit stated that the Greek hierarchy had imposed the rewritten charter without approval from delegates at the national Clergy-Laity Congress, violating the terms of the 1978 charter. The main aim of the suit was to attempt to gain more autonomy from the [[Church of Constantinople]], especially regarding the choice of the American Archdiocese's primate.
The suit met with condemnation by the Greek hierarchy in America, which stated that the plaintiffs had "sued Christ Himself" (a quote from Metropolitan [[Iakovos (KrinisGarmatis) of Chicago|Iakovos of Chicago]]). It was eventually dismissed by the Supreme Court of the State of New York, on grounds that the Greek Archdiocese was hierarchical and therefore acting within its proper bounds, that the courts did not have the authority to intervene in such matters.
This conflict is far from over, and OCL continues to organize resistance to what it regards as papal pretensions on the part of Ecumenical Patriarch [[Bartholomew I (Archontonis) of Constantinople|Bartholomew]].