Uniate Conversions to Orthodoxy

by Nicholas Maas

Mr. Maas, a former Greek Catholic, was received by Baptism into the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and attends St. John the Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.

 

 

Much has been written about the problem of Uniate conversions to the Orthodox Church, and in particular about the reception into Orthodoxy of Greek Catholics in North America and Eastern Europe at the turn of the century. The use of economy (that is, Chrismation or a confession of faith) in receiving these converts from the Unia is often cited to support the general reception of Uniate converts in this way in contemporary times. This is the result of a misrepresentation of this earlier use of economy as a precedent-setting gesture on the part of the Orthodox Church. In reality, the instances of the use of economy in receiving Uniates into the Faith were relatively rare even in the nineteenth century— instances deemed necessary because of what were then very exceptional circumstances. It can be persuasively argued that today, especially in the free world, circumstances are such that the nineteenth-century exception to the rule of conversion by Baptism should be put aside completely and that Uniates should be received into the Church only by Baptism.

During the latter half of the nineteenth century, millions of Greek Catholics were finally able to break away from the centuries-old bonds of the much-despised Unia. These were people who had been forced by circumstances beyond their control into union with the Roman Church. They never desired to be Latins, never were Latins, and never accepted the confession of the Roman Church. A few of their Hierarchs—cowardly apostates or ambitious men—allowed the Church to be enslaved by force of arms and by so-called "treaties" dictated by the interests of political expediency. Thus it is that, when no political power could impede them, these people returned to the Orthodox Church by the millions—and without hesitation, one might add.

Now, in the latter half of the twentieth century, however, there is a clear understanding among Greek Catholics of what they are: Greek Catholics. They are not Orthodox held by some political force in a false union in which they do not believe. Indeed, the Ukrainian Catholic Church, for example, is one with Rome. Ukrainian Catholics willingly embrace the Latin Church. The Melkites, too, are obviously Greek Catholics and clearly constitute an eastern rite of the Roman Church. There is no fear of persecution that keeps Uniates where they are; there is no threat of death at the hands of the Austro-Hungarian army or some other bellicose element. To claim that converts from the Greek Catholic Faith in our day are anything but converts from the Roman Church is simply to play an intellectually dishonest game.

Let us not hesitate to be honest. Greek Catholics are Greek Catholics, or Uniates, not Orthodox. This is a simple statement of fact. Unfortunately, a strange confusion with regard to this fact took root among some Uniate believers following the Second Vatican Council. The post-Vatican II changes in Latin attitudes towards the Eastern Church led many Greek Catholics—whether by a deliberate design of the Council Fathers or adventitiously, one cannot say—to think of themselves as members of an "Orthodox Church in union with Rome." This has become one of the burning convictions of the Melkite Greek Catholics, especially. Any serious Orthodox Christian—or any serious Roman Catholic, for that matter—would find that idea ludicrous, if not totally insane. Orthodox are Orthodox simply because they are not in union with Rome. Nonetheless, this idea holds forth strongly among many Greek Catholics and, worse yet, among some Orthodox modernists! Here is a clear example of the abuse of economy, that treasure of the Church, being made the source of serious harm to the Faithful and of an ecclesiology which is as wrong as it is wholly dishonest.

By abusing economy and receiving contemporary Greek Catholics by Chrismation or economy, many Greek Catholics and unlearned Orthodox come to believe that Greek Catholics are legitimately Orthodox. With such an abuse of economy, political ecumenism advances farther, denigrating and misrepresenting the Church to which the convert is supposed to be converting. For the sake of converts from the Unia, it must be made clear that conversion to Orthodoxy is to embrace the fullness of Christ in the One Church which He established. Greek Catholics are not simply changing jurisdictions. They are members of the Roman Church and outside the Greek Orthodox Church. And we Orthodox are not just Greek Catholics without a Pope. We are Orthodox Christians who consider the idea of the papacy a heresy and a distortion of the Apostolic Church.

Modernist jurisdictions are causing untold harm to their own Churches when, instead of inviting solidly converted Orthodox into their ranks, they make of their half-converted Greek Catholic guests nothing more than disgruntled Uniates on the "Orthodox side" of the Schism. How can a mere disdain for Rome be a substitute for the compelling Grace that leads a true convert humbly to enter the Orthodox Church through the salvific Grace of the waters of Holy Baptism? How can a change from one side of the "political" spectrum to another really accomplish what conversion to the fullness of Orthodox Christianity entails?

And what of the poor convert? When the novelty of being a convert—of being on the other side of the fence, no longer under the thumb of the Pope— wears off, where does he go? For all intents and purposes, he must begin anew his search for Orthodoxy, for true Orthodoxy, his soul thus in danger because of the time wasted.

Economy is, of course, not without very practical application in the Church under unusual and exceedingly rare circumstances. But prudence must guide us in its application in the contemporary Church. If we abuse economy in the name of ecumenism, in the name of misrepresenting those things which separate the Mother Church of Orthodoxy from all who have deviated from her teaching, and as a tool for fostering political attitude changes rather than true conversions, then we misuse and denigrate one of the Church's great treasures of love—her ability to relax the law for the sake of the spirit—, making of a tool of love a crude hatchet by which to cut away the image of the Faith in frenzied attempts to distort the truth which she symbolizes and embodies.

                                                                                     

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VII (1990), No. 3, p. 10.

The Law of Love: Patristic Teaching on Social Ethics

by Father James Thornton

The following essay is taken from Bather James' doctoral dissertation (S.T.T.S., '90) and provides interesting insight into a much-neglected area of Orthodox studies.

 

 

In the long history of philosophical, religious, and ethical concepts, the greatest of all revolutions was that of Christian thought. As the Roman Catholic scholar Giordani, puts it:

...[Christ] established a new moral and religious order, leaving apparently intact the old social and political order. But having wrought a change in man at the very roots of his mind and heart, he made him a member of a new order, even from the point of view of social ethics and activity. [1]

It is obvious, then, that an abstract philosophy of ethical teachings is not the raison d'etre for Christian thought. Christianity is at once a matrix of beliefs about life, the worlds seen and unseen, of the Divine Creator and Benefactor, of moral precepts, and of an existence beyond the grave. Christianity, unlike the pagan systems which preceded it, is a religion which brings to bear abstract, "otherworldly" things on practical worldly concerns:

"The Church is indeed 'not of this world,' but it has nevertheless an obvious and important mission 'in this world' precisely because it [the world] lies 'in the evil.'" [2]

No one can read the Holy Gospels thoroughly and escape this conclusion. While Christ speaks of a kingdom "not of this world," [3] He insists that those who ignore those in want will themselves be judged harshly in His kingdom. [4] Christ's words in this respect are ultimately the root of the Orthodox Church's teachings on social ethics.

The Eastern Church Fathers, who express the conscience of the Orthodox Church, were exegetes par excellence, and thus followed in the footsteps of their Divine Teacher in understanding the issues of social ethics. So it is that the Orthodox Church insists that Christianity is "integral," as Father Florovsky writes, and that "faith and charity, belief and practice, are organically linked...." [5]

But what is the source of this link?

The Eastern Church, through the Gospels and the writings of the Fathers, has always insisted that the first law of the Christian religion is the "law of love." We must love God above all else and we must love our neighbors as ourselves. [6] We must, furthermore, love all of God's creatures, including our enemies. [7] Love links all creation together.

The religion of Christ and of the Fathers, then, is one which commands love, which insists that enlightened Christians serve the members of the human community and not seek to exploit them or attain power over them. [8] As Christians, we are bound to this service. The Church, in its early centuries, strove with great zeal to impart this notion of love to mankind, to a civilization utterly ignorant of the concept. It also sought to put this notion into action at the practical level.

St. John the Theologian writes that "God is love." [9] Love is an attribute of God. "The Goodness of God extends not to some limited region in the world, which is characteristic of love in limited beings, but to the whole world and all the beings that exist in it." [10] God's love is demonstrated in many ways. He created us in His image, for example. [11] He loved humankind even more than He loved His own glory, as St. John Chrysostom writes, in that He was willing to become incarnate, to live among His creatures and serve them, and to suffer and die for them. [12] St. Gregory the Theologian speaks of this in his twenty-third homily: "If someone were to ask us what it is that we honor, and what we worship, we have a ready reply: we honor love." [13] We see, then, that love is central to Orthodox Christian theology and its notion of practical living. [14]

Let us consider a particular aspect of Eastern Church theology which has great importance and bearing on the teachings of the Eastern Fathers with respect to love. Eastern Church theology differs from that of the medieval or modern Western confessions in a number of areas. One important difference is that the Eastern Church Fathers distinguish, in their understanding of the creation narrative in the book of Genesis, between the terms "image" and "likeness." The Western Church generally ignores this distinction. [15] While all human beings are born in God's image, the Greek Fathers assert, God's likeness is something towards which we must struggle. As the Russian Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky says:

'Let us make man according to our image and likeness' (Gen 1:26). According to this design, man should not be only an image of God, his Creator, but should also bear His likeness. Yet in the description of the accomplished act of creation 'And God made man, according to the image of God he made him' (Gen 1:27), nothing is said about likeness. [16]

The image of God was given to all humankind and this, as we noted above, is proof of God's love for us. Various Fathers have emphasized various facets of the imago Dei. One of these facets is mentioned by St. John of Damascus who, because he wrote at length on the Orthodox doctrine of Icons, devoted considerable attention to this matter. He asserts that "the expression 'according to the image' indicates capacity of mind and freedom." [17] St. Gregory put it thus: "God honored man in giving him freedom, in order that goodness should properly belong to him who chooses it, no less than to Him who placed the first fruits of goodness in his nature." [18]

The image of God was retained by humankind after the Fall. However, it became obscured by evil, disobedience, discord, and pride—in a word, sin. Humans were intended for union with God, for perfect cooperation (synergia) with God, and even for eventual deification (theosis) by the Grace of God. [19] But man, in his freedom, chose another path, which involved "a rejection of the interior working of grace and a subsequent bondage to sin.... Having isolated himself from the grace of God, he became entrapped in his illusory self-worldview, which came to bear less and less resemblance either to the real world (and its corresponding potential) or to the 'image' within him...." [20]

The Fathers also teach that the individual human person is not a part of humanity, but is humanity. Just as the whole of human nature was contained in the first human being created by God, it is also contained in each of us. [21] Speaking of the first human, St. Gregory of Nyssa writes:

...The name Adam is not yet given to the man, as in the subsequent narratives. The man created has no particular name, but is universal man. Therefore by this general term for human nature, we are meant to understand that God by His providence and power, included all mankind in the first creation.... [22]

Thus, again to quote Lossky, "The divine image proper to the person of Adam is applied to the whole of mankind, to universal man." [23] Humankind, rightly seen, is united fully in this divine image which God has stamped on every individual. In the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa: "Thus man is made in the image of God, that is to say the whole human nature; it is that which bears the divine 'likeness.'" [24]

When individuals attain to perfection, they conduct themselves, in every aspect of their lives, with this unity of humankind in mind. Bonded in love to others, they act always in the interest of others, since their own self-interest is tied to that of others. When, on the other hand, humans act contrary to the manner in which all have been created, as they generally do in this fallen world, "the one nature common to all men...appears to us split up by sin, parcelled out among many individuals." [25] A person who acts in accordance with the fallen nature of the present world, instead of the image of God, becomes dominated by ego and by the worship of ego. He becomes separated from others and from his natural concern for them. The bond of love with them is broken.

Humans, while born in God's image, are not so born with God's likeness; rather, they have only the potential for the likeness of God in them. This likeness is something for which they must strive, for which they must indeed struggle more greatly. This likeness, St. John of Damascus states, "...means likeness to God in virtues (perfection)." [26]

Those who succeed in this struggle acquire, among other attributes proper to God's likeness, a facility for the utterly selfless love of all humankind:

In the love of our neighbor, philia, we come to see God in others. In community love, agape, we see ourselves in others and are united to our fellow men in the Energies of God. Being one with Christ, we are made one with all mankind. [27]

Such love must not only crown individual human efforts, but must be part of the effort from the very beginning:

If we begin the life lived in pursuit of virtue by cultivating in ourselves a love of our fellow man, we reach success in that life by dwelling in the love of God, which God has cultivated in the human heart; 'for,' writes the divine [St. John] Chrysostomos, 'the beginning and the end of virtue is love.' [28]

All charitable acts, all philanthropy, if they are not merely self-serving, are necessarily based on love. This love, in its highest degree, is acquired in the struggle for the likeness of God; or, rather, it fulfills this struggle. "For love is the 'union of all perfection.'" [29] The human being who is pure, who has acquired the Holy Spirit, who shines with God's likeness, possesses, as St. Issac the Syrian writes:

...a burning of the heart for all creation, for men, birds, beasts, demons and all creatures. And from remembrance of them and contemplation of them such a man's eyes shed tears: because of a great and strong compassion which possesses his heart and its great constancy, he is overwhelmed with tender pity and he cannot bear, or hear of, or see any harm or any even small sorrow which creatures suffer. [30]

The history of the Eastern Church is adorned with the stories of the lives of holy women and men who exemplify the teachings of the Fathers on social ethics and our responsibilities towards others. The early monastic Fathers and Mothers of the desert, in particular, have much to tell us about the love of God and of fellow humans, about charity, about equality, and, by their forthright renunciation of material things, about the true import of wealth and poverty.

As many historians have noted, with the rise of Christianity to official favor in the fourth century, the Church was inundated with nominal believers. Before the Peace of the Church under St. Constantine, Christians "...were bound to resist any attempt at their 'integration' into the fabric of the Empire." [31] With the great changes set in motion by the Emperor Constantine, another revolution of sorts appeared, spreading with tremendous rapidity throughout the Empire: monasticism. The monastic movement embodied a continued resistance to the world: "...Monks...[left]...the world in order to build, on the virginal soil of the Desert, a New Society, to organize there, on the Evangelical pattern, the true Christian Community." [32]

This "New Society" did not stand in opposition to the established Church authorities. It remained wholly a part of the Church and within Her organizational structure. This early monasticism became the ideal, the "barometer" of life for all members of the Church. In numerous battles with secular authority in the course of the centuries after St. Constantine (during the reign of the Arian Emperors of the fourth century, for example, or the Iconoclasts in the eighth century), the Church looked to the monasteries [33] for the embodiment, preservation, and protection of Christian doctrine and teaching.

One must note, in fact, that the Fathers of the Church, who insisted on faithfulness in both theoria and praxis, have nearly always been monastic saints. Thus in their adherence to the requirements of a theoretical life of renunciation and asceticism, they believed that monastics must, in practice, work. "Man was created for work. But work should not be selfish. One had to work for common purpose and benefit, and especially to be able to help the needy....Labor was to be, as it were, an expression of social solidarity, as well as a basis of social service and charity." [34] Even in their work, monastics expressed the care for their fellow man that is pivotal to Christian love.

Moreover, monasteries, by their very nature, insisted on the essential equality of all human beings, both in a spiritual sense and a material sense. Monks were enthusiastic practitioners of Christ's "law of love," and their example stands before the eyes of pious Orthodox Christians, monastics and non-monastics alike, as a genuine ideal and as a benchmark by which we might judge our own spiritual health. This "law of love" is extended to everyone. An historian, referring to the earliest monastics, writes that they were

...fathers of the people. Let disease or misfortune come: the holy man was at hand. Let land- owner oppress or bureaucrat extort: the champion of the poor was waiting. For what could an anchorite suffer at the hands of authority? The world could lose him nothing. He stood, rather, to gain a martyr's crown. [35]

For fifteen centuries, the lives of the desert monastics have inspired the Church faithful. Precisely because the Church insists that "we must find a goal and a view of life which can serve to guide human action and that can release us from a cycle of gratification that derides, belittles, and compromises our humanity," [36] it turned to the example of the Desert Fathers. As we have learned from these holy men and women the standard of many Christian virtues, so, too, we have learned from them the standard of Christian love, by which we form our social consciences as contemporary Orthodox Christians. A single excerpt from the Evergetinos gives us insight into this standard of the desert—into the standard set by those transformed in God, conformed to his image, and made like Him by Grace:

Abba Agathon was asked how sincere love for one's neighbor might be made manifest, and this blessed man, who had attained to the queen of the virtues to a perfect degree, responded: 'Love is to find a leper, to take his body, and gladly to give him your own.' [37]

 

Notes

1. Igino Giordani, The Social Message of Jesus, trans. Alba Zizzamia (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1977), 45.

2. Georges Florovsky, "The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church," chap, in Christianity and Culture, vol 2, The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Co., 1974), 142.

3. Jn 18:36.

4. Mt 25:31-46.

5. Georges Florovsky, "St. John Chrysostom: The Prophet of Charity," chap, in Aspects of Church History, Vol. 4, The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1975), 87.

6. Mt 23:37-39.

7. Mt 5:44.

8. Giordani, 47.

9. 1 Jn 4:16.

10. Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology: A Concise Exposition (Platina, CA: St. Herman Press, 1984), 63.

11. "All of the Fathers of the Church, both of East and West, are agreed in seeing a certain co-ordination, a primordial correspondence between the being of man and the being of God in the fact of the creation of man in the image and likeness of God." Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976), 114.

12. Pomazansky, 64.

13. Ibid., 63.

14. Nicholas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, trans. Carmino J. de Catanzaro (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974), 172-3.

15. Typical of the Western view is that expressed in a popular Protestant theological manual: "The terms 'image and likeness'...do not distinguish different aspects of the imago, but state intensively the fact that man uniquely reflects God. Instead of suggested distinctions within the image, the juxtaposition vigorously declares that by creation man bears an image actually corresponding to the divine original." Baker's Dictionary of Theology, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1960), s.v. "Man."

16. Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky, The Meaning of Icons (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1983), 34.

17. Ibid.

18. Lossky, Mystical, 124.

19. John S. Romanides, Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1981), 46, and Lossky, Mystical, 196-216.

20. Hieromonk Auxentios, "Notes on the Nature of God, the Cosmos, and Novus Homo: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective," chap. in Contemporary Traditionalist Orthodox Thought (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1986), 11.

21. Lossky, Mystical, 120.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid., and Lossky, Vladimir, "The Theology of the Image," chap.in In the Image and Likeness of God (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974), 125-39.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., 121.

26. Ouspensky, Icons, 34.

27. Bishop Chrysostomos and The Reverend James Thornton, Love (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1990), 54.

28. Ibid., 61-2.

29. Georges Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, vol. 3, The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Company, 1976), 206.

30. Ibid. Cf. John S. Romanides, "Jesus Christ-The Light of the World." In Xenia Ecumenica (Helsinki: n.p., 1983), 244-52.

31. Georges Florovsky, "Antinomies of Christian History: Empire and Desert," chap in Christianity and Culture, vol. 2, The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky (Belmont, MA: Nordland Publishing Co., 1974), 72.

32. Ibid., 86.

33. In Eastern Church usage, the words "monastery" and "monk" are entirely inclusive terms.

34. Florovsky, "Antinomies," 87.

35. Robert Byron, The Byzantine Achievement: An Historical Perspective (NY: Russell and Russell, 1964), 158.

36. Bishop Chrysostomos, The Ancient Fathers of the Desert: A Second Volume (Brookline, MA: Hellenic College Press, 1986), 13.

37. A complete translation of this work is now in process, the first volume of which appeared recently. Bishop Chrysostomos, trans., The Evergetinos: A Complete Text, vol. 1 (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1988).

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VII (1990), No. 3, pp. 11, 16.

“The More Deeply It Is Buried, the More Brilliantly the Truth Will Rise Again”

An Interview of Bishop Xenophon with the American Serb newspaper Sloboda (Part 1)

Source: Слобода, no. 2273, July 10, 2026, p. 12.

Interview conducted by Dobrana Komnenić and Jelena Tasić.

 

 

In the following lines, we present the first part of the interview given by His Grace Xenophon, Bishop of Raška and Prizren in Exile, to the newspaper of the American Serbs Sloboda. The interview was published on July 10, 2026.

The Editorial Board

 

In June, sixteen years passed since the establishment of the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren in Exile, which arose from a portion of the monastic community that, following the expulsion of the late Bishop Artemije (Radosavljević) from Kosovo and Metohija, left the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren. Today, the Eparchy in Exile has more than forty catacomb institutions, around 150 monks and nuns, fifteen non-monastic priests, and a large number of faithful. Bishop Xenophon (Tomašević) of Raška and Prizren in Exile speaks to Sloboda about the reasons for the establishment of the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren in Exile, the life of its catacomb monasteries, and the state of affairs in the Serbian Orthodox Church, Orthodoxy, Serbia, and its southern province. We are publishing the interview in two installments.

* * *

How well informed is the public today about the expulsion of the late Bishop Artemije from the see of the Bishop of Raška and Prizren and Kosovo and Metohija in 2010, and how did the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren in Exile come into being?

It was precisely in June of this year that sixteen full years had passed since that tear which Bishop Artemije shed as he bade farewell to the faithful people and monastic community in the refectory of Gračanica Monastery on June 8, 2010, and since his moving homily in which he said that one day we would gather at Gračanica Monastery and bury him in the monastery cemetery, as was fitting and proper. But the providence, will, and permission of God ordained otherwise.

Neither our Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church nor our Elder had any plans as to what would come next after he was assigned exile to northern Serbia, to Šišatovac Monastery. This persecution was unjust, unsupported by any evidence, and carried out contrary to all the canons and the Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church. He was uncanonically retired and relieved of the administration of the eparchy. He was not even permitted to remain and live in one of the monasteries of the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren, which he had governed.

To those who possessed even a modicum of sound reason and who were not bound to Christ and His Church by any day-to-day political, ecclesio-political, or ecclesio-economic interests, it was clear from the very beginning that this was a religious persecution as well, and not merely a politically motivated one.

The late Bishop held clear, well-argued, and concrete positions, which he put into practice through decisive actions that our Elder carried out with foresight and courage from the very moment he ascended the throne of the Bishop of Raška and Prizren in 1991, and especially after the occupation of Kosovo and Metohija in 1999. His struggle against the outrages committed by the Šiptars against the Serbian people, under the lethargic and approving gaze of the international community and the purported peacekeeping forces sent to Kosovo and Metohija to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which remains internationally valid and legally binding, was widely noted. His religious and national work was closely monitored not only by domestic powerbrokers but also by foreign ones. Thus, in 2010, the then U.S. Ambassador Mary Warlick drew the attention of the then Patriarch Irinej to the “harmful” work of Bishop Artemije. Patriarch Irinej soon carried out this important intelligence and logistical assignment.

What was he reproached for?

In addition to his efforts to preserve Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia and to ensure the survival of the Serbian people, Bishop Artemije and his clergy were waging another great battle: the preservation of the faith and the holy things of the Orthodox Church from the heresy of Ecumenism. I would say with the utmost certainty that the struggle against Ecumenism was the principal factor behind Bishop Artemije’s being so brutally removed from his episcopal throne and, following his removal, a more “cooperative” and “peaceable” bishop being placed upon the throne of the eparchy—one who would not constitute a disruptive factor in establishing the rosy fairy tale of an independent Kosovo, if we are speaking of the national and state-political aspect, and of the Ecumenist heresy, if we are speaking of the spiritual and ecclesiastical aspect.

The Serbian people have largely seen and understood this, for otherwise the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren in Exile would not, throughout all these years, have led an ever more active liturgical and spiritual life, preaching in a missionary manner the Gospel of the Church of God and of Saint Sava’s “Serbian Christ.” This is also confirmed by the large number of faithful in each of our approximately forty holy places—catacombs, monasteries, and parish places of worship—which today are found not only in Serbia and Europe.

The truth cannot be hidden and buried. For, as our holy Elder often said, the more deeply it is buried, the more brilliantly it will rise again.

After sixteen years, are the political and ecclesiastical motives behind the persecution of Bishop Artemije clearer, motives also attested by documents from WikiLeaks, even though he was officially punished by the Church for the alleged misuse of eparchial finances, for which he was also tried before a secular court, while after his repose his associates were sentenced to prison terms and fines, which were subsequently upheld?

From the very beginning of those tragicomic proceedings conducted before the Belgrade court, we requested that the trial be open to the public, and many of us monks and faithful attended every hearing. We did not want our Elder and his associates to be tried in secret and behind closed doors in that joint proceeding. None of those who attended as observers could escape the impression that the entire farce had been rigged through collusion between the regime and the ecclesiastical leadership—by “the regime,” I should note, I mean not only the present one, but also the previous one, Tadić’s—with such clumsy and wretched arguments and such enormous procedural failings, concerning which legal experts could speak in greater detail and, I am certain, will speak; experts who, I believe, will one day study and explain that tragic legal mockery. I say “mockery” because that is what the trial looked like: incompetent judges; scandalous police failures in losing the seized registers—the so-called evidence, which could no longer be traced; prosecution witnesses who did not indicate, by a single word or even the most elementary piece of evidence, that any misuse had occurred; and the transparent and obvious collusion between the prosecutors and the judge…

It was moving to watch our eighty-five-year-old Elder, our spiritual father, answer every question put to him calmly and with well-founded arguments. One day, it will be very useful to read and publish those court records, provided that they are not somehow mislaid and disappear, like those notorious registers that could not be traced throughout the entire trial.

With the Bishop’s death, that tragicomic proceeding was brought to an end—to the great relief, I would say, of both the prosecutors and the judges. Of course, sentences had to be imposed upon the remaining defendants, so that at least some semblance of legality might be displayed before the public. Particularly shameful was the sentence imposed upon Jelena Šubarević, who, in her professional capacity as an architect, took part in the restoration of and work on Serbian holy sites within the territory of the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren—a wonderful Serbian woman and a zealous Orthodox Christian—who was sentenced, though entirely innocent, to house arrest, which she is still serving. We wish her, trusting in Christ, the dishonored Founder of the spiritual contest, to endure all that injustice and the humiliation and persecution inflicted upon her on earth; and we remind all the unjust persecutors, prosecutors, and judges of the innocent that no one will escape the justice of God and the righteous right hand of Saint Sava.

The case of Bishop Artemije marked the beginning of canonically questionable removals of bishops in the Serbian Orthodox Church. The most recent removal took place at this year’s May Assembly, at which Metropolitan Justin was removed from the Eparchy of Žiča. He is Bishop Artemije’s longest-standing spiritual child. How do you comment on the fact that these indictments concern only financial matters, even though in the case of Bishop Justin, as in that of Bishop Artemije, there are clear elements of political persecution?

You see, stories about money, abuses, and stealing from innocent people are the easiest to promote and justify before our tormented, long-suffering, and impoverished people. It is much more difficult to promote a narrative or an indictment concerning the faith, the canons, the dogmas, and the truths of Orthodoxy, because in these stories about the misuse of money you can always find something and present it in whatever way suits you, especially in this insane age of an enormous quantity of all manner of information and disinformation.

Thus, on one occasion, an unfortunate metropolitan, a fellow hierarch and persecutor of Bishop Artemije, declared amid sobs that “Artemije is building villas throughout Serbia with money he took from the slaughtered people of Kosovo and Metohija.” Some unworthy ecclesiastical powerbrokers who, regrettably, for several decades have governed the Serbian Orthodox Church not pastorally in the name of Christ, but in the name of those from whom they received pectoral crosses, episcopal rings, and other comforts and privileges of life—some of those ecclesiastical powerbrokers of ours—have “gone before God to answer for the truth.” Bishop Irinej (Bulović) of Bačka still remains, known for his “charism” that no one who has ever crossed him will go unpunished.

I would by no means equate the persecution and removal of Bishop Justin of Žiča, certainly uncanonical and, in all likelihood, based on false accusations, with the relentless persecution of Bishop Artemije. Unlike the perpetual “swimmer against the current” that Bishop Artemije was—a defender of the Kosovo Covenant and of the truth of the Orthodox Church—Bishop Justin, apart from his venture of receiving and supporting Serbian students and farmers during the protests, did not enrich his life’s record with any particular ascetic struggles in opposing Serbian ecclesiastical innovators and Ecumenists. On the contrary, he very much swam downstream together with the others at the heretical robber council of Crete in 2016 as a member of the Serbian delegation: he demonstrated his agreement and cooperation, participated in prayer services with the heterodox, and abandoned his spiritual father Artemije to be carried away by the turbulent sea into which they had thrown him from the synodal deck in 2010.

Of course, the Bishop of Bačka could not forgive Justin for being the first monastic tonsure of Crna Reka, for having sprung from the nursery of Serbian monasticism established by Bishop Artemije, the restorer of that monasticism, for which Elder Justin of Ćelije blessed and commended him shortly before his death. This, it appears, was decisive in the persecution of Bishop Justin, for the powerbroker of Bačka will exert every effort to eradicate any mention whatsoever of Bishop Artemije from the Serbian Church. If this is so—and I believe that it is—then let the other spiritual children of Bishop Artemije, who beat their breasts declaring that they would “not obey Artemije, but the Church,” prepare themselves as well. Are they now next on the agenda?

Despite the depositions and excommunications pronounced against Bishop Artemije and the monastic community that followed him out of the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren in 2010, how are we to understand your words that the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren in Exile is “the purest and healthiest part of the Serbian Orthodox Church”? Are there examples in the history of Orthodoxy of one man or a smaller religious group, such as yours, succeeding in preserving and strengthening the faith?

Persecutions, anathemas, and depositions inflicted upon the right-believing by heretics never have any effect or grace-bearing efficacy before God and the Church of God, regardless of how much power those heretics possess within the Church and regardless of the support they receive from state authorities and foreign powerbrokers. This is what the history of the Church teaches us, for it is replete with such examples.

Let us mention only a few Saints and God-pleasers who found themselves in similarly difficult circumstances at various times and in various places: Saint John Chrysostom, one of the most beloved Fathers of the Church, was twice exiled and unjustly deposed, although he was Bishop of Constantinople. Employing various intrigues, they accused him of causing a schism, which he did not acknowledge, and he asked his followers not to recognize his deposition.

Then there was Saint Maximus the Confessor, a Byzantine theologian who upheld the teaching upon which the Orthodox Church rests today: that Christ has a human and a Divine nature. Because of this teaching, the Byzantine emperor and patriarch banished him into exile, where he died. The Sixth Ecumenical Council accepted Maximus’s teaching and proclaimed him a Saint.

Let us also mention Saint Theodore the Studite, who was twice exiled because he opposed the uncanonical decisions of the Patriarch of Constantinople. He was tortured and exiled for a third time because of Iconoclasm—his struggle against those who were destroying the icons. Today, all Orthodox churches are adorned with icons. And then there was Saint Mark of Ephesus, who fought against the decision to unite with the Latins.

There are many other inspiring examples from sacred Church history, down to the most recent example of the Russian Church Abroad, which brought forth Saints after separating itself from communion with the Sergianist, state-subservient, and Ecumenist Moscow Patriarchate.

Therefore, to answer your question directly: the Orthodox Church has many individuals who preserved our holy Orthodox faith. Our example is neither unique nor isolated, but is simply a following of the holy and sacred examples of the Fathers of the Church, the confessors of the Orthodox faith.

Such faith and such a sacred disposition are, glory be to God, seen and recognized by a multitude of Orthodox people, both in Serbia and throughout the inhabited world, who joyfully place themselves beneath this sacred banner, which was raised so high and held so firmly by our predecessor upon the confessional throne of the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren, our Father and Elder of blessed and eternal memory, Bishop Artemije. We, his spiritual children, strive to continue confessing that Truth and steadfastly serving God and His Church according to our strength and by the grace of God, by which, in the words of the Apostle Paul, we are what we are. We pray to God and Saint Sava that He may strengthen and bless this path of ours, to the glory of God and the triumph of Orthodoxy and the Saint-Sava tradition.

More than one-third of the monastic community left the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren in 2010. What is the structure of the Eparchy in Exile today: how many catacomb monasteries are there in Serbia and outside it, how many monks and priests does it have, and how is the Eparchy in Exile governed, having, in addition to you as Bishop Artemije’s successor, three chorepiscopi?

A large number of monastics left the nursery of monasticism, the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren—that is, the territory of the eparchy as it had existed until then—when Bishop Artemije was persecuted, because they neither consented to nor agreed with the uncanonical decisions concerning his persecution. The Bishop himself, warning against the unscrupulous and unjust members of the Synod, the usurpers of ecclesiastical authority, commented in these words: “You have dropped an atomic bomb on the Eparchy of Raška and Prizren!”

We followed the Bishop without any plan or program whatsoever, with only the awareness that we did not wish to consent to those uncanonical and unecclesiastical decisions concerning our Elder, whom they not only uncanonically deposed but also forbade to be our spiritual father, parent, and guide.

The uncanonical decisions did not cease even after the Elder’s exile to Šišatovac Monastery. There too, after several months, in September 2010, they forbade him to conduct any divine service whatsoever. And why did they forbid him? Only because the people had begun coming in great numbers to the Divine Liturgies at the monastery where our blessed Elder served. Realizing that there would be no end to the uncanonical measures, that he could no longer submit to any uncanonical decisions—to which, as he said, he had until then submitted solely for the sake of peace in the Church—and seeing that he would not be summoned to the autumn session of the Assembly that year, the Bishop returned to the territory of Kosovo and Metohija and celebrated the well-known Divine Liturgy at Duboki Potok Monastery. Thereafter followed events familiar to many: for the first time in Serbian history, through a joint operation of the Šiptar and Serbian police in Kosovo and Metohija, the monks and the Bishop were forcibly expelled from Duboki Potok Monastery and driven from the territory of Kosovo and Metohija. In fact, it was from that time, from the Feast of the Holy Archangel Michael in 2010, that the exile began.

The construction of so many catacombs and monasteries is truly a miracle of God. The Eparchy in Exile is a highly functional eparchy, with its own missionary and publishing activities. We have more than forty catacombs, around 150 monks and nuns, fifteen non-monastic priests, and thousands upon thousands of faithful, through whose selfless assistance, sacrifice, effort, and labor we have accomplished what we have accomplished, with the blessing of God and through the prayers of Saint Sava and the other Serbian Saints and Saints of all Orthodoxy.

 

 

Serbian source online:

https://www.eparhija-prizren.org/sto-se-dublje-zakopava-istina-ce-sjajnije-vaskrsnuti-intervju-episkopa-ksenofonta-listu-americkih-srba-sloboda-i-deo/

 

One Non-Commemorator’s Opinion: “Comments on a post about Synodal Walling-off”

Protopresbyter Dimitrios Athanasiou | July 14, 2026

 

 

At the link https://katakomviki-ecclesia.blogspot.com/2026/07/1000_0625701760.html, a short article was published under the title: “They themselves admit that they are falsely walled off. Furthermore, although they invalidate their own beliefs, they nevertheless vindicate the G.O.C.”

[Translation of the original article: https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2026/07/concerning-errors-of-old-calendarists.html]

Regarding the views of Fr. Th. Z[isis] published in the article, we note the following:

A. On the one hand, Fr. Th. Z. says, “we will not make bishops of our own,” but on the other hand, he expresses the hope “that Orthodox Bishops may be found who will wall themselves off” (A GLARING CONTRADICTION). If the latter were to occur—if active bishops were to wall themselves off—then, from the perspective of those who have walled themselves off, this would not constitute the “founding of a new church” (as the G.O.C. are accused of doing), but rather the “healthy portion” of the already existing hierarchy reacting. In practice, however, the administrative outcome would be exactly the same: the creation of a separate, outside-of-communion synod.

B. The case of Artemije (formerly of Raška and Prizren).

Since Fr. Theodore and those with him wanted a bishop to lead the walling off, why did they not recognize Metropolitan Artemije, who had been deposed by the Serbian Patriarchate and who did exactly that? Fr. Theodore and other walled-off theologians maintain that Artemije proceeded with “uncanonical ordinations” (he ordained “chorepiscopi” without the approval of a synod), thereby creating de facto his own parallel hierarchy (a schism) in Serbia. The reality, however, is otherwise. Their refusal to “bow their heads” to Artemije demonstrates the impasse of their theory. Fearing that they might be characterized as schismatics by the official Church, they isolate themselves even from those bishops who took the very step that they themselves proclaim. IN THE END, WHO IS CAUSING THE SCHISM? THOSE WHO HAVE WALLED THEMSELVES OFF, or the [Ecumenist] PSEUDO-BISHOPS?

C. How can a “Church” exist without a Bishop? In Orthodox ecclesiology, the Bishop is the head of the local Church (“wherever the bishop is, there let the multitude also be,” Saint Ignatius the God-bearer). If the priests who have walled themselves off do not have a bishop of their own to ordain new priests, their movement is condemned to die out naturally with the death of the present priests. Consequently, their position—“we are within the Church, but we are not in communion with its bishops”—appears ecclesiologically untenable.

D. The view that a mere protest can move or convert a hierarchy whom those who have walled themselves off accuse of “Ecumenism, Freemasonry, sodomy, etc.” strains the bounds of realism: Historically, no governing Church has retreated or changed course because a small group of priests and laypeople ceased commemoration. On the contrary, the official Church usually proceeds with depositions, marginalizing the protesters. The heresy must be officially diagnosed and condemned by a Synod.

If, from the perspective of those who have walled themselves off, the leadership of the Church has fallen so deeply into heresy and moral disrepute, the hope that “they will repent because of a protest” seems utopian.

Fr. Theodore’s attempt to maintain a middle position (“both walled off, and without bishops of our own, and within the Church”) lacks practical viability and any historical precedent that would vindicate its effectiveness.

E. A walling off that remains “in limbo” (without a bishop) has an expiration date.

From a purely practical and structural standpoint, joining Artemije’s Synod (the so-called Administration of the “Diocese of Raska-Prizren in Exile”) would be the only consistent way forward for anyone who wishes to remain walled off without “returning” to the Patriarchate, for the following reasons:

1. It provides bishops for the ordination of new priests, ensuring that the Holy Mysteries will continue in future generations as well.

2. Both the Greek clergy who have walled themselves off and Artemije’s Serbs began from the same point of departure: the rejection of Ecumenism and of the decisions of the Council of Crete (2016).

3. They would no longer be isolated “islands” of priests, but members of an organized ecclesiastical structure.

F. From the standpoint of those who have walled themselves off, the answer is clear: the schism is caused by the heretical bishops. According to the Holy Fathers (such as Saint Maximus the Confessor and Saint Theodore the Studite), whoever preaches heresy “with bared head” (publicly and officially) places himself outside the Church, even if he retains his throne. Canon 15 of the First-Second Council expressly states that those who cease the commemoration of a bishop who publicly preaches heresy before a synodal determination:

“not only are they not subject to the canonical penalty... but they are worthy of the honor befitting the Orthodox, because they condemned not a bishop, but a pseudo-bishop and pseudo-teacher, and they did not rend the unity of the Church by schism, but hastened to deliver the Church from schisms and divisions.”

The bishops who accept Ecumenism, pray together with heretics, or signed the decisions of the Council of Crete (2016) have fallen away from the Faith. Consequently, it is they who have cut themselves off from the Body of Christ, regardless of whether they retain the administrative reins and the buildings. The faithful people and the clergy who wall themselves off merely safeguard Orthodoxy.

G. If we approach the issue in terms of absolute theological and practical consistency, it becomes clear that the only realistic and honorable way forward for those who have walled themselves off is their full incorporation into the Synod of Artemije and his successors. Every other intermediate solution merely prolongs their ecclesiological state of suspension. This choice of incorporation, despite the undoubtedly enormous personal and social cost that it entails, offers three decisive advantages that establish the viability of their struggle.

1. Ecclesiological Fullness. The Orthodox Church cannot exist as a “headless” body of faithful and priests, since the presence of the Bishop is an organic and inseparable element of ecclesiastical life. Incorporation into this particular Synod fully restores the necessary hierarchical structure (Bishop–Presbyters–Deacons) and guarantees the continuity of Apostolic Succession through future ordinations, preventing spiritual decline and a biological impasse.

2. This choice puts an end to the internal contradiction that afflicts the walling off movement in Greece. If someone truly believes and preaches that the bishops of the official Church are “pseudo-bishops” because of their acceptance of Ecumenism, then, by precisely the same logic, he is obliged to regard the depositions imposed by them as invalid, null and void, and devoid of divine grace. The refusal of communion with Artemije because of the “official” sanctions imposed upon him constitutes a glaring inconsistency. Incorporation into his Synod is the only position that brings actions into complete alignment with their professed beliefs.

3. Instead of a formless, isolated, and geographically dispersed group of priests that will inevitably slide into withdrawal into private life, discouragement, or, ultimately, tacit capitulation and return, incorporation creates a clear, cohesive, and organized ecclesiastical structure. This structure can withstand the pressure of time, organize parishes, catechize the faithful, and bequeath the anti-Ecumenist witness to future generations.

The theory of the “middle way” has exhausted its limits. For anyone who rejects a compromising return, joining forces with an existing anti-Ecumenist hierarchy, such as that of Artemije, is not merely an option, but the only path that preserves dogmatic and ecclesiological consistency in practice.

 

Greek source: https://fdathanasiou-parakatathiki.blogspot.com/2026/07/blog-post_65.html

Concerning the “Errors” of the Old Calendarists and the “Non-Errors” of Those Who Have Walled Themselves Off

Ioannis N. Paparrigas | July 14, 2026

 

 

I was sent a video in which the speakers are Fr. Theodore Zisis and his son [Monk Seraphim].

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMzZyd8j9do]

Honestly, it is completely unacceptable for people who supposedly possess academic knowledge to appear so ignorant of history in ecclesiastical matters that have not only been answered, but analyzed hundreds of times. They truly disappointed me. I understand that they wish to support their own position. But when this is attempted through historical inaccuracies, then the well-known saying applies: “What is good is not good unless it be done well.”

Fr. Theodore states:

“From the beginning of the walling off, we said that we would not make the mistake made by the Old Calendarists: having bishops of our own.”

And a little further on, note the complete contradiction:

“Unless Orthodox bishops are found who will undertake it. If some Orthodox bishops were found who would undertake the walling off and wall themselves off, the matter would be different.”

But excuse me, what did the Orthodox Bishops who led the struggle of the Old Calendarists do differently? Is it possible that Fr. Theodore is unaware that in 1935, a full eleven years after the unilateral and uncanonical change of the festal calendar in 1924, Orthodox Bishops undertook the struggle of the Old Calendarists?

For a full eleven years, the Old Calendarists had no Bishops. Subsequently, when, with the passage of time, they were once again left without Bishops—some reposed, some lost courage, and others were indeed led into schism—the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) proceeded to ordain new Bishops for them.

Do they perhaps not accept the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia? Of course they do.

What, after all, does Fr. Seraphim Zisis state in the same video?

“They [the New Calendarists] even regarded ROCOR, the Russians of the diaspora, as a schism. My professors at the university taught me that ROCOR, the Russians of the diaspora, was a schism. And from there came Saint John Maximovitch, Elder Seraphim Rose, and Saint Philaret, whose body was found incorrupt. According to them, it is a schism.”

Fr. Theodore continues:

“But now, as presbyters, we do not have the ability to have bishops of our own. We will therefore not make Bishops of our own, so that they may characterize us as a schism. We will remain within the Church and protest, resist, react, and struggle for the Church to return to Orthodoxy.”

But that is self-evident. What presbyter can ordain Bishops?

Either Orthodox bishops will wall themselves off and undertake the struggle, exactly as occurred in the case of the Old Calendarists, or, once they have undertaken it, they themselves will proceed to ordain new Bishops.

I assume, of course, that what Fr. Theodore wishes to say here is that he considers only the first case to be the correct solution, namely, that an already existing Orthodox bishop should wall himself off and lead the struggle. It would be well, however, for him not to be so absolute. For precisely what he now considers self-evident—that Orthodox bishops should wall themselves off and undertake the struggle—was something that, several years ago, they would not even discuss. Today, however, they accept it. Therefore, let them not be so certain and so categorical concerning the next step of history as well.

And he concludes with the celebrated statement:

“We are in Orthodoxy and in the Church; they are outside the Church.”

Who exactly are the “we”? All those who have walled themselves off, or only this particular group?

If he means all those who have walled themselves off, then why is there no ecclesiastical communion with the other groups that have walled themselves off?

Yet another question arises here. Were they not the very ones who, for years, wrote that they did not wish to resemble the Old Calendarists, invoking the existence of factions as their argument?

How, then, is it possible that those who have walled themselves off now have various groups, which moreover are not in ecclesiastical communion with one another—and all this in an era when they have neither the rifle butts (batons) of the gendarmes to face, as the Old Calendarists did, nor the violent persecutions which, as they themselves acknowledge in the video above, the Old Calendarists suffered?

We shall conclude with a well-known saying of our own.

The more they try to prove that they are not “Old Calendarists,” the more they will receive the very same characterizations that for decades were applied to the Old Calendarists, namely, “schismatics,” “outside the Church,” and so many others. And in this, the existence or non-existence of bishops is not to blame......

God does not bless struggles founded upon mutual accusations.

The same, of course, also applies to the Old Calendarists themselves, who have paid dearly for it to this day, reaching the point where churches of different factions stand side by side on the same street. And if one asks each of them separately why this is so, one will almost always receive the same answer:

“It is not our fault; it is the others...”

Let us all therefore take heed, for the history of the Church teaches that when a struggle is accompanied by humility and discernment, it is blessed. But when it is accompanied by mutual accusations, characterizations from both sides, and intransigent attitudes, the outcome rarely vindicates those who believe that they possess the truth exclusively.

P.S. Let our brethren who have walled themselves off study the following article continually:

[English translation: https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2025/06/disciples-at-infallible-school-of-holy.html]

 

Greek source: https://entoytwnika1.blogspot.com/2026/07/blog-post_14.html