John Kalomiros: A Few Thoughts on Ecumenism

Source: Επίγνωση, Issue 88, Spring 2004.

 

 

The ecumenical movement now counts behind it several decades and has produced various examples of writing, upon which certain reflections can be made. Depending on the point of view, Ecumenism has been praised, has undergone serious criticism, has created hopes or has accumulated sorrow, even division among the children of the Church. In any case, it is a subject that rightly returns and provides food for thought, so that reflection may be renewed and brought into coordination with the conscience of the Church. It is rather self-evident that the discussion concerning Christian unity cannot be confined to closed conferences of specialists, nor can the result be evaluated on the basis of the resonance of the relevant discussions among a few academic theologians, Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike. On the contrary, a crucial problem that must be addressed is the finding of theological criteria which will evaluate each result with the conscience of the broader ecclesiastical body as the standard. In order for this to be done, first the theological vigilance of the Orthodox on these matters must be secured, and secondly their trust in the overall process. These require much labor, which I think has not been done up to the present.

We shall set forth certain reflections, which we address with the criterion of our understanding of the good of the Church and with respect toward the persons involved and toward the institutions they represent.

In discussing Ecumenism at the level of basic principles, we ought to have recourse also to the very roots of the differences among the Christian traditions. Christians share a common religious framework, the common historical tradition of the first centuries. However, within this framework there arose essential theological differences, which led to different meanings and different interpretations. Thus, in the course of time, different traditions were formed regarding the very meaning of the Church, of salvation, and of the Christian life. This is the grievous reality which every effort for a true and deep, and not an external and superficial, unity must confront.

If the division of Christians were due only to historical problems and to obsessions and misunderstandings of a political nature, then it would undoubtedly be the Christian duty of all to work, at the appropriate time, so that forgiveness and repentance might come for whatever was committed mutually (or even unilaterally, it makes no difference). In this case, the ecumenical movement would have a considerably easier task to accomplish, since, by goodwill alone, it could be clarified that the differences that accumulated do not touch the deeper meaning of the faith of the Gospel. However, when behind the different traditions there is concealed a different ontological basis, a different interpretation of the meaning of the faith, which touches life itself, thought, culture, the image of God and of the world, then indeed one understands that the course which a genuine ecumenical effort worthy of Christians must undertake is long, laborious, and requires endurance and immense patience.

On the contrary, if the ecumenical movement for Christian unity is not characterized by this endurance over time, but hastens ahead, setting aside essential differences, on the altar of “coexistence within diversity,” that is, of mere cohabitation, then it sets political and not ecclesiastical, theological goals, and justly becomes the object even of severe criticism.

The root of the theological difference between the Orthodox and the Western tradition—this which leads Fyodor Dostoevsky to see in the Western teachings a crucial alteration of the Evangelical proclamation, as it was also seen by the Fathers of the East—lies in Augustinian theology, which runs like an axis through Western civilization from the first centuries until today. It is a matter of an ingenious transposition of Roman law, of the Neoplatonic ontological tradition, and perhaps also of certain Manichaean, Gnostic elements, within the framework of the Christian thought of the first centuries. This beginning had sufficient dynamism to secure for the West a theological particularity, something like a distinct identity, in contrast to the corresponding Greek and, more generally, Eastern one. At the same time, however, it introduces a closed conception of spirituality, an individualized inwardness, a mysticism. Man withdraws into an inner intuition of divine truths through the intellect, through his psychic faculties which comprehend by analogy with the divine and eternal truth. God, on the other hand, within the framework of Augustinian theology, withdraws into His thereafter characteristic for the West “Silence,” into His perfect non-participation in the affairs of the created world, since His incommunicable essence is ontologically identified with His Energy.

In this dynamic philosophical construction, there is present in seed the dogmatic tradition which constituted the basis of the differentiation between East and West. Also present in seed is the tradition of the Scholastics, as well as contemporary expressions of Western philosophy. This theological framework embraces both the Roman Catholic and the Protestant tradition, with the result that it sets certain common terms for the approach to these two great Christian currents.

The ontological theological tradition of the East was formed on entirely different foundations, through the work of saints such as Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas, whose work constitutes an essential critique of the errors of Western ontology. The center of Orthodox ontology is the evangelical demand for the renunciation of the hard shell of the “ego,” its opening to personal communion, the demand of Christian humility with the aim of the unity of creation in God, the overturning of the facts of the Fall. A theological example of writing in this direction is the use of apophatic language, which renounces objective certainties and absolute schematizations. Central is the understanding of man as the personal image of the personal God, who participates in God through the Divine uncreated Energies. At the center of Orthodox ontology stands the image of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor: an image of the deep change of fallen nature within the grace of the Divinity, which is poured forth by virtue of the Resurrection of Christ and transforms all things. God, who in Western ontology is distant from the nature of the created, in Orthodox theology participates through His Energies and becomes the Center of Creation in the person of Christ.

Thus, Christ in the Orthodox tradition is by no means a mere instrument of the divine economy for the salvation of men from “sin.” The ontologization and objectification of evil and of sin lies outside the universe of Orthodox ontology. Christ is our ontological prototype, the very root of human nature in its eschatological adoption and in its final glory, which is granted to it by God. His own Incarnation is that which makes us human; His own seal grants us human dignity; His own Resurrection and glory is our own destiny.

These differences we must bring to light; this is the proclamation which we have a duty to set forth through the ecumenical dialogue—not in a manner of self-justification, which in any case stands in radical opposition to the above ontological demands, but in the spirit of humility and offering, the spirit of love and of the Cross. It is not possible for the Orthodox to renounce the birthright of the sacred tradition, as we received it from our Fathers, under the pretext of equality in dialogue. As Metropolitan Philaret observes in the “Sorrow Epistles,” which he sent to the primates of the Orthodox Churches (1969 and 1971), the prism of ecumenical practice—where Orthodox and Westerners are equally right and equally wrong—is mistaken. Evidently, the issue here is not persistence in a secularized claim of “right,” but the unwavering decision of the Orthodox to remain within the exact framework of Tradition and to present it as the basis of unity, as a call to return—a return to the sacred tradition which, although it belongs to them historically, they too must labor to rediscover and to present not only to those opposite them, but also to the Orthodox themselves. The Orthodox also must come to know and to return to their tradition.

It is characteristic that within the framework of the ecumenical movement, even theologians who represented pro-Orthodox currents of return to the sacred tradition express views which see in the West the necessary complement of the Christian Church: “…it would be very unwise to erase Saint Augustine, if we wish to assume the whole heritage of Christianity…” Yet does the sacralization of the Augustinian tradition, through its direct or indirect acceptance by Orthodoxy, truly advance Christian reflection and assist in a turning toward the spirit of the Gospel?

Christian unity, however desirable it may be, cannot constitute an end in itself. If a long-term struggle is not undertaken that aims at a common ontological basis within the framework of the sacred tradition, the entire undertaking may prove successful, but it will lack true spiritual significance. This work cannot concern only academic theologians and scholars. It must go beyond the lecture halls and touch a critical mass, so that it may become a living experience and culture, both in the West and among us Orthodox.

Perhaps such an effort does not immediately help the matter of “unity” and may entail enormous delays. However, only when these elements of tradition permeate in a corrective manner the life and culture of East and West, only then will it be possible for a meaningful ecumenical unity to be forged, with an ontological basis, so that a common “rational” sacrifice may be offered.

We are often confronted with statements and “agreed” texts which do indeed promote ecumenical “unity,” but fall short of the above presuppositions. They are rather constructed upon the basis of a scholastic, “technical” conception of the Church, which is far from the spirit of the patristic tradition, since it disregards theology and doctrine as a presupposition of unity in truth. Thus we learn that East and West preserve the same Apostolic Succession, as if succession were simply a mechanistic result of the laying on of hands, and not succession in the faith and in the sacred teaching. How is it that divergent spiritual traditions, divided for centuries, preserve the “same priesthood” and the “same mysteries,” without a long-term convergence in theology, which would ultimately also touch the sacramental life of the Churches? For the Orthodox, the mysteries are not a “technical” matter, deriving from an institutional ecclesiastical conception, but presuppose the truth of theology, since man can be found in the Spirit only in truth. And of course, no one denies the possibility of participation in the energy of the Spirit for every Christian soul that thirsts; however, common succession and a common sacramental life among traditions that subsist institutionally can take place only as a result of unity and not as a basis of dialogue with the aim of rediscovering unity.

Often, again, the demand for Christian unity collapses into an appeal for tolerance within diversity. This observation is sorrowful, not because tolerance and the acceptance of diversity are wrong, but because they ought simply to be self-evident! Although the acceptance of diversity ought to be a given in the pluralistic society of today’s world, this oversimplification is of a political nature and does not belong to the spiritual order. Spiritual unity is accomplished upon the basis of a common meaning and inevitably has a theological, ontological dimension. There, dogmas play a role not as mere formulations, but with respect to the meaning of life which they reveal or perhaps conceal.

Dogmas, therefore, are judged on the basis of the measure and the fullness of life that has been handed down from the Apostles and the Fathers, and agreement in them—even in their detail—precedes every declaration or even simple manifestation of unity.

The rediscovery of this common measure of life is also the only true meaning that the ecumenical effort can have, without which unity in Christ proves to be an unattainable chimera.

The Race of Adam, the Race of Man: On the Nature of the Church

by the Very Reverend Dr. Michael Azkoul [1]

 

 

An old adage has it that, “All religions may be wrong, but only one religion can be right.” In other words, where the doctrines of religions conflict, religions clash. If God is the author of a religion, however, there is no incongruity. As St. Paul says, “God is not the author of confusion” (I Corinthians 14:33). He will not teach Christians one thing, the Jews another, the Moslems another, the Hindus another, and so on. Nor will He will reveal to Roman Catholic Christians that the Pope is the head of the Church, while to the Orthodox and Protestants He does not. He will not teach the Roman Catholics that the Filioque is correct, yet to the Orthodox that it is false. He will not disclose to the Calvinists the doctrine of Predestination, while to others He does not. To cite again the words of the Apostle Paul, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all...” (Ephesians 4:4-6).

The Orthodox hold, therefore, that the Church is one and that She has one exclusive nature. She is not shattered into various denominations (“churches”) with a diversity of doctrines. Were that so, there would be no unity of faith, and we would be compelled to believe that God has deliberately divulged to us false doctrines—unless, of course, we espouse the idea that God has no concern for Truth and that He does not care what we believe or whether we worship Him with erroneous teachings. Were these things true, the Church would lose Her place in the Divine Economy as the organ of salvation. There would be no need for the Prophets, Apostles, and Fathers of the Church. Meaningless would be the declaration of St. Peter: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God...” (I St. Peter 2:9-10).

There is something more to what we might call “Christian exclusivism” than is commonly recognized. The Church is far more than an historical organization. She is not simply the temple on the comer. She is an organism and, as St. Irenaeus and St. Justin Martyr called Her, a “New Race.” She is a new beginning. We know that the human race began with the first man, Adam, who was also “the figure of Him that was to come” (Romans 5:14). Christ is the second Adam. In order to be joined to the second Adam, it is necessary to be born again. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemos, who asked Jesus about salvation. Jesus said to him: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” He must be “bom of water and of the Spirit...” (St. John 3:1-6). The Lord is referring, here, to Baptism, a Mystery that leads children and adults into the Church, which is the figure of the Kingdom of God. Baptism, then, is the first step in the process of salvation.

Adam could not conquer death or exculpate sin; hence, the reason for the Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection of Christ. Christ did what Adam could not: He made possible the rebirth of the body and soul of those who are joined to Christ in His Church, which is His Body. In other words, Baptism is rebirth, regeneration, and membership in the race of Christ. Born of the “earthy” first man, we have no access to the Divine Life. “Reborn” of the heavenly Second Man, Jesus Christ, we enter the New Race and adopt the one immutable Faith.

Adam was formed from the virgin earth, while Christ was born of the Virgin Mary. The Church is, in turn, bom of Christ, emerging from His side while He suffered on the Cross. The Church is also the New Eve, the Mother of all those baptized into the Church, the Body of Christ. Too many theological scholars ignore the witness of the Holy Fathers to this typology. Instead, they stress the idea that the Virgin Mary’s virginity served to protect Christ against “original sin,” which would have been transmitted to Her Son if She had given birth to Him in an ordinary way. This notion of “original sin” is largely the product of fifth-century religious disputations. [2] Also, some scholars argue that, largely because of the influence of monasticism, the dogma concerning Christ’s virginal birth, was spawned by the Church’s abhorrence of sex. [3] Patristic typology does not posit a connection between the Virgin Mary’s virginity and “original sin” or sex, but establishes the parallel between Christ (the New Adam) and the Old Adam through the Virgin Birth. Let it be understood, as an important “aside,” that if Christ had been born in a normal way, He would have inherited mortality, not “original sin” and guilt, from Adam.

There is something else that explains the Theotokos’ virginity and Her central place in the life of the Church. The Fathers describe Her as the second Eve. In other words, Christ is betrothed to the Church, which unites the baptized into an ekklesia, the Body of Christ, “the Great Mystery,” as St Paul proclaimed. He is “the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:29): the first to overcome the Devil, death, and sin, something that is achieved by the faithful through Baptism into the Church, which is also the New Eve. Let me underscore that the Theotokos is the New Eve, untouched, in the Incarnation, by normal birth-giving and the travail thereof. In the words of St. Irenaeus of Lyons, “What the virgin Eve had bound in unbelief, the Virgin Mary loosed by faith.” [4] She is, indeed, the Church. Thus, there would be no salvation without the role played therein by the New or Second Eve; for, to quote Father Georges Florovsky, “the Church is salvation.”

A few more important concepts help us to understand the nature of the Church. Let me turn to the profound theological nomenclature of the Church’s Christology. If the Church is the Body of Christ, a proper understanding of the One (Christ) cannot be separated from the other (the Church). What characterizes the Lord characterizes Her. He is visible and invisible. So is She. He is human and Divine. So is She. The Synod of Chalcedon (451) declares that the Lord’s Humanity and Divinity are united without confusion and without separation. Likewise, the Church’s human dimension is united to Her Divine dimension, and this without confusion or assimilation. Everything in the Church is understood in this same way. Thus, the water of Baptism welcomes the Holy Spirit without absorbing Him. The Eucharist, in the form of bread and wine, becomes the Body and Blood of Christ, without the bread and wine becoming the very substance of the Holy Spirit. As the Incarnation of the Lord is a Mystery, so, in like manner, is the Church.

In consequence of what I have said about the formulations of Chalcedon, if we alter them, we simultaneously lose a true grasp of the nature of the Church. That is to say, if we alter the relationship of the human to the Divine in Christ, we alter the composition of the Church. Thus, if, as many Protestants teach, the Humanity and Divinity of Christ are separated, so are the humanity and Divinity of the Church. The Church in Heaven and on earth become partitioned. Moreover, She becomes invisible and the Mysteries are deprived of deifying Grace. Hence, the true believer is known only to God. He is a member of the invisible Church. If Protestantism does not generally speak of deification or sanctification as we Orthodox understand it, it is because of a subtle Christological bifurcation, expressed in the notion that the earthly “church” is invisible. This is precisely the heresy of Docetism. [5] This is also not unlike the Christology of the Nestorians, who say that the Divinity of Christ flows through His body as “water through a pipe.” [6]

If the mortal cannot put on the immortal and the incorruptible, since the Divinity of Christ has not been joined wholly and perfectly to His humanity, according to the non-Chalcedonian Christological heresies, the mission of the Church, which is to restore, deify, and sanctify man, is nullified. Let me illustrate this point with the example of extreme Monophysitism, which teaches that the Divinity of Christ absorbed His humanity and He thus has but one nature. If this is so, then the Church is also only Divine. All the Mysteries (Sacraments) of the Church, therefore, have no created side. This suggests that the members of the Church are eventually swallowed up into the Divine Nature. This is essentially the monophysitic notion of deification. It is far from the Orthodox view of Christ and the Church.

I recall that the eminent Orthodox theologian, Father Georges Florovsky, in several of his writings, notes that Roman Catholicism is also marked by a certain crypto-Nestorianism, evidenced by the fact that it places very little emphasis on deification in its soteriology. If it (along with Protestantism) has no developed theology of deification, it is largely because of the idea that Grace is created, an idea that also involves an errant Christology. Clearly, the claim that the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, is the head of the Church and a source of created Grace in that role, means that he is the single head of a single organism. In effect, the Holy Spirit passes through him to the faithful. But the Spirit of God and Uncreated Grace belong to the whole Church, and the Orthodox episcopate, for us Orthodox, is a confederacy in which each bishop and his flock constitute the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church in a specific place.

For us Orthodox, our faithful are of “the Race of Christ.” The rest of the world is of “the Race of Adam.” Protestants generally have a subjective view of the Church, centered on some “personal relationship with the Lord.” Their Christology is drawn from the Scriptures alone, tainted by such things as Schweitzer’s quest for the “historical Jesus.” This Christology produces their ecclesiology. Roman Catholicism draws on its theological tradition, but focuses on Scholasticism. Neither Protestantism nor Roman Catholicism rests its beliefs on the Biblical-Patristic tradition of the Prophets and Apostles. St. Cyprian’s remark that none can be saved outside the Church, just as none were saved among those outside of Noah’s Ark, is a stark reminder of the exclusiveness of Christ’s Church. No wonder that the saintly Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky) once declared that membership in the Orthodox Church was more crucial than merely proclaiming the right Faith. Naturally, in defining the nature of the Church, we do not, at the same time, dismiss the mercy of God, which is inexplicable, unfathomable, and in all ways aimed at the salvation of all mankind.

 

NOTES

1. Protoptesbyter Father Michael Azkoul holds a B.A. degree in philosophy from Calvin College, a B.D. degree in theology from St. Vladimir's Seminary, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Michigan State University. He has taught at Michigan State University, St. Louis University, and Washington University. Among his more recent books is God, Immortality and Freedom of the Will According to the Church Fathers: A Philosophy of Spiritual Cognition (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2006). Still active at eighty-five years of age, Father Michael serves in the jurisdiction of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece.

2. The Orthodox understanding of man’s fall and the introduction of sin and death into the human condition is properly described as “the ancestral curse,” by which we become subject to the “disease” of sin and death, which are healed by the Divine Mysteries of the Church, beginning with Baptism, and by which the image of God in man is cleansed and restored.

3. In actuality, abstention from sex in monasticism has nothing at all to do with contempt for procreation. Celibacy in monasticism is the prefigurement of the life to come, where there is no marriage and no birth-giving. Christ and St. John the Baptist were both virgins, for example, as a commitment to the advent of God’s Kingdom. They set the example for monastics.

4. Adv. Haer., Ill, 22.4.

5. A heresy of Gnostic origin that contended that Christ’s Human Nature was not truly human, but either illusory or “pure spirit’’ appearing as a phantasm.

6. This Christology is ordinarily called “Dyophysitism” or a Christology of “two distinct natures.” Unlike Monophysitism, it does not overtly deny the Perfect Human Nature of Christ, but, in granting a certain relationship between Christ’s (Perfect) Human and (Perfect) Divine Natures, it does not acknowledge that they are inextricably bound together.

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. XXXIV (2017), No. 2, pp. 20-24.

Is There a Sacred Significance to the Old Calendar?

 

In the pages of Orthodox Tradition, we have often reminded our readers that the Old Calendar movements in the Church of Greece and the Church of Romania were not undertaken to worship a calendar or to preserve the "thirteen days" that separate the Orthodox festal calendar from the Papal calendar (that of Pope Gregory) which is used universally today among Western Christians. They began as sober reactions against the uncanonical adoption of the Roman Catholic festal calendar by several national Churches, plans to adopt the Western date for Pascha (Easter) —in direct violation of the dictates of the First Oecumenical Synod in Nicea—, and against the political ecumenism which prompted this rupture in the unity of the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church.

It is utterly amazing to see that many New Calendarists today are unaware that they, not the Old Calendarists, are part of an uncanonical movement and that they, not the traditionalists, have made a fetish out of something so mundane as the accuracy of a calendar. It is the New Calendarists who justify their innovation in the name of astronomical accuracy. Even some of the more traditional-minded Hierarchs in Greece, such as the much-respected Metropolitan Augustinos of Florina, still fail to understand that the Old Calendar movement is not a resistance based on the calendar as such, but is primarily a resistance against the anti-Orthodox spirit of the modernist Hierarchs whom they too oppose.

On the other hand, while the Old Calendar resistance movement is primarily focused on the issue of Holy Tradition and the primacy of the Orthodox Church, this does not mean that the Church calendar is without significance. It is, after all, part of the traditions which we strive to protect and to preserve. Moreover, the celebration of Pascha, upon which the whole liturgical year is based, is calculated by the Julian Calendar and determines the course of the Church's festal year. Attached to the Feast of Feasts, that event in time when eternity comes down to transform and glorify time itself, the Julian Calendar takes on a significance which is of no small import.

Our Church is not a Church that denies time and history. It is a Church in which time and history come to serve the eternal. The Church year infuses time with a certain holiness and brings to earth an image of timeless Heaven. The time of the timeless realm gives new meaning to our hours, our days, and our years. A link is made between time and the timeless that is mysterious and holy, and those who would tamper with this link court spiritual harm.

Let us look at an example of the link between the Church calendar and the heavenly realm in the life of a recent Greek Saint, St. Savvas the New. When St. Savvas reposed, one of the nuns present at his deathbed saw his soul rise to Heaven. As he ascended in a "golden cloud," the nun heard him singing "with a most sweet voice," "Announce, O earth, great joy." Though with the New Calendar this hymn might have had no significance, by the Old Calendar it did. He reposed on the Eve of the Feast of the Annunciation of the Theotokos —to whom he was deeply dedicated— according to the Old Calendar. Thus, though he belonged to the State Church of Greece, St. Savvas entered into the Divine realm singing the hymn of the Annunciation with the Old Calendarists. Heaven and earth, his repose avers, are joined in an ineffable way, in time, according to the calendar established by the Church and defended by repeated Church Synods and Councils. (See Constantine Cavarnos, Modern Orthodox Saints, Vol. VIII, St. Savvas the New, Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1985, pp. 77- 78.)

Those who condemn the Old Calendarists as silly fanatics who have split the Church over the issue of thirteen days wholly misunderstand, as we have said, the nature of the Old Calendarist resistance. Our struggle for Church tradition is not an argument over days as such, but over the foreign elements which have entered into the Church through political ecumenism. At the same time, however, there is a reality to our struggle which stems from the internal, mystical significance of the Old Calendar, too. The very power of our resistance movement is drawn from the timeless power of the Faith, which is manifested in time and space in a mysterious way and partly through the Church calendar itself. No one should ignore this fact!

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VII (1990), No. 1, p. 10.

Praying to Saints

Protopresbyter Panagiotes Carras

 

 

Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, has taught us that through Holy Baptism we are made members of His Holy Body, the Church: (Jn. 17:21-23; 15:5). This is the goal of the Christian; to abide in the Lord forever. For this reason, God became man, was crucified and resurrected.

This same teaching has been passed down to us by Saint Paul:

“So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” (Rom. 12:5, 1 Cor. 12:27). The Church is one body, the body of Christ and although we are unworthy, our Lord is the Head of the Church and allows us to be members of His Body (Eph. 1:22-23). As members of the Body of Christ, we abide in the Lord and we partake of eternal life; “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? “The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ? For we being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one bread” (1 Cor. 10:16-17).

The union within the Body of Christ is indivisible. Nothing can separate us from Christ and the other members of the Body of Christ, unless we ourselves choose to abandon Christ. Not even death separates us from the Body of Christ (Mat. 16:20). The mutual love of those who are members of the Body of Christ is in no wise severed or broken by death (Rom. 14:8).

In the Body of Christ all the members who have been granted the grace to abide in Him are united to our Saviour even though there is a difference in the grace imparted to each (2 Tim. 2:20). All those who by their sins are not cut off and separated from the Body of Christ, remain vessels in the House of the Lord. They remain united to the Saviour and to each other as members of the same Body.

Through our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, we are united to each other and to the Saints who are the vessels of gold and silver.

Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph. 2:19-22).

Saint Paul tells us that the Saints are the foundation of the Church and that we are eternally united to them in Christ through the bond of love.

This bond of love is the realization of our Lord’s commandment (Jn. 13:34-35). This bond of love led Saint Paul and all the other Saints to minister to those entrusted to their care (2 Cor. 6:4-6). The ministry of Saint Peter was founded on the bond of love; And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep (Jn. 21:17).

It is this bond of love that keeps the members of the Body of Christ; the members of His Church together: From whom the whole body fitly joined together, and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love (Eph. 4:16). When Saint Paul speaks of every joint and every part he does not exclude those who have reposed in the Lord. Every joint and every part means every member. It is in this context of the bond of love that we pray for each other (James 5:16). When we pray to the Saints, we are asking the righteous to pray for us because we know that it “availeth much”. From the very Apostolic days of the Church we see Christians praying for each other and asking for each other’s prayers (Col. 1:9; Thes. 5:25).

There are those who believe that these Saints cannot pray for us because they are dead. Throughout the Holy Scriptures, however, we find the belief that in Christ all are alive and united to each other. It is for this reason that the Holy Disciples, Peter, John and James, were able to behold the Holy Prophets Elijah and Moses conversing with our Lord on the Mount of Transfiguration. It is for this reason that our Lord refers to the Kingdom of Heaven as it were an abiding in Abraham’s bosom (Luke 16:22), abiding with the Saints.

The Kingdom of Heaven is referred to as “Abraham’s bosom” because Patriarch Abraham is the father of the children of faith (Rom. 4:13-16; Gal. 3:7). As we see in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:23), Patriarch Abraham is alive and aware of our spiritual condition (Luke 16:31).

If we are to believe that there is no bond between those who have not yet reposed in the Lord and those who are in the Kingdom of Heaven how do we explain the sending of angels to reveal the word of the Lord. When the Holy Prophets such as Moses and Isaiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and Saint Paul saw the Lord, were they in the flesh and in the Kingdom of Heaven, the Seventh Heaven, at the same time? When Saint John entered the Kingdom of Heaven and received the Word of God which he wrote in the Book of Revelation, he was still in the flesh (Rev. 1:1).

Let us look at how Saint John described the Kingdom of Heaven:

And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold (Rev. 4:4).

These elders described by Saint John are our spiritual fathers and brothers who have gone before us to the Kingdom of Heaven and were placed on the right side of the Lord. As spiritual fathers and brothers who love us, they comfort us with the assurance that they pray to the Lord for our salvation, just as we pray for each other. The great difference is that as Saint James tells us, their prayer, the prayer of the righteous, availeth much (James 5:16). Saint John confirms the love of the Saints when he reveals to us the words of comfort uttered by these Saints (Rev. 5:5).

In his description of the Kingdom of Heaven, Saint John informs us of the countless multitudes that are there along with the Elders (Rev. 6:9-10). This great multitude of Holy Martyrs in the Kingdom of Heaven were aware of the continuing persecution and were praying to the Lord for an end to the tribulations of their persecuted brethren still in the flesh.

From the description of Saint John, we see different Saints:

Evangelists, Elders, Martyrs, Virgins: “And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: And they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins. These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the first fruits unto God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no guile: for they are without fault before the throne of God” (cf. Rev. 7:9; Rev. 14:1-5).

With the Resurrection of our Lord the barrier of Death was overcome and we cannot refer to the Saints as dead: Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him (Luke 20:37). They, as well as we, are members of the Household of God; Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God (Eph. 2:19). The Saints are our older brothers and sisters who love us and it is for this reason that when our Lord comes again He will bring all these Saints with Him so that they can receive us into the Kingdom of Heaven: To the end he may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints (1 Thes. 3:13); And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints (Jude 14).

We who are members of the Church of Christ are aware of their living presence. Just as we pray for each other, we ask those who are before the Throne of God, to pray for us. We pray that our Saviour will keep us as members of His Body, forever numbered among the Saints.

A Few Things on Repentance

Bishop Klemes of Gardikion

(Now Metropolitan of Larissa and Platamon)

 

 

Repentance is the beginning of the path of perfection according to Christ, the “gate of Grace,” a continuous course and stance of life, and not merely a transitional moment of turning away from sin and a temporary step of ascent to virtue.

It constitutes the firm and unshakable foundation for purification and perfection, so that the will of man may be freed and liberated from the passions, in order to be attuned to the divine Will and to acquire Love, the Fullness of Grace and of the divine Life.

Repentance, as a continual state, characterizes those who truly desire their union with God and strive sincerely for the overcoming of their egoism and, in general, of the fulfillment of their passionate and sinful wills. It is a power which effects the transformation of our nature and safeguards against the spiritual delusion of considering ourselves as justified or at rest in some supposedly good and God-pleasing state of sufficiency. And this precisely is its “mystery” and its “secret”: it is found and flourishes where there is no sense of security, self-sufficiency, and bold self-assurance:

“He has boldness who does not think that he has boldness; whereas he who thinks that he has boldness has lost boldness, just as the Pharisee; but he who considers himself cast off and without boldness—this one will especially be heard, just as the Publican” (St. John Chrysostom).

The man who has awareness of his weakness and love of sin, of his many and various—manifest and hidden, in knowledge and in ignorance, voluntary and involuntary—falls and sins, is not able to trust his freedom and to boast of his virtue or of his good works, but hastens, like the Publican, to seek the divine Mercy: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner”!...

Repentance is regarded as an endless course and ascent toward God: “Repentance is higher than all the virtues, whose work cannot be completed except at the hour of death; therefore repentance is required of all and at all times, and no limit of the completion of repentance exists; for even the perfection of the perfect is imperfect; and therefore repentance is not confined to appointed times, nor to defined acts, until the hour of death” (Abba Isaac the Syrian).

It is known that the more we approach God, the more we come to know His transcendence, and the more we advance in inner purity, the more we come to know our imperfection in relation to His inaccessible divine infinite perfection.

When the soul of man does not move toward repentance, it means that it has become estranged from Divine Grace. The cessation of spiritual ascent is a symptom of spiritual insensibility, hardness of heart, or even spiritual deadening.

True Repentance constitutes a divine fruit of the Grace of Baptism, which exists within the baptized, but awaits its personal appropriation by him, so that it may be manifested in practice. Since Repentance is not a simple regret for certain acts, but essentially a state of Grace, it comes as a divine Gift where strenuous effort is made. Mourning and tears are expressions of pain for the loss of divine beauty, for the lack of the divine garment, for the experience of one’s personal Hades.

For this reason, the true tears of Repentance constitute a great gift of Grace and demonstrate that the heart of man has been wounded by divine Love and, sensing the divine Majesty and perceiving its unworthiness and poverty before God and men, is dissolved into bitter lamentation. In this way, however, a radical change of mindset takes place and a return from loss to the divine Life occurs.

When divine Grace touches in such a way the sensitive soul of man, then divine Consolation springs forth; the tears of Repentance purify human nature in depth, so that the whole man may be transformed in Grace.

Through Repentance, there comes about imperceptibly the healing of the infirm nature of man: “Repentance is the return from that which is contrary to nature to that which is according to nature, and from the devil to God, through ascetic struggle and labors” (Saint John of Damascus).

This blessed process opens the way for the growth and perfection of man according to God, until he attains “unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”!

 

Greek source:

https://www.ecclesiagoc.gr/index.php/%E1%BC%84%CF%81%CE%B8%CF%81%CE%B1/%CF%80%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%BD%CE%B5%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AC/997-peri-metanoias

 

On the Decline of Uniates in America: “The Sad Collapse of the Byzantine Catholic Church”

While the Byzantine Catholic Church in America endures as a witness to a lost era, statistics point to its certain demise unless something drastic changes.

D.P. Curtin | March 16, 2026

 

 

On the far end of South Philadelphia, at the end of its seemingly endless labyrinth of tight, narrow streets, is a small, gold-capped, domed church with its crumbling stairs facing the public sidewalks along 24th Street. Its cornerstone commemorates the construction of the new church in 1923, under the jurisdiction of the “Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church.” The narthex is fairly mundane, with commemorations to donors from the 1960s and ’70s and salient members of the parish prominently displayed on wall mountings. 

However, going into the basement reveals much older ghosts. Hung on the fading beadboards are pictures of the late Austro-Hungarian Empire, with photos of long-forgotten Christmas pageants flanking various old newsprints that have been mounted. Kaiser Franz Josef, dead since 1916, stands sentinel at the end of the room over the community coffee pots. The parish itself dates from 1891, when 600 Carpatho-Rusyns settled the local neighborhoods, pooling their money to retain their ethnic heritage for the next generation. 

Today, the local parish bulletin publishes liturgy attendance. Sometimes it goes as high as 20, but most Sundays it averages around a dozen or so, including the priest and cantor. Part of the dome over the nave sags into the roof, a side chapel is rough and partially collapsed, and the celestial ceiling with the vision of Christ Pantocrator on it is marked with holes and water stains. The state of Holy Ghost is not anomalous. It is the material manifestation of the state of the whole of the Ruthenian Catholic Church, which is in heavy, if not potentially terminal, decline.

For the unfamiliar, the Ruthenian Catholic Church is an autonomous Eastern Catholic Church in union with Rome since the 16th century. In its history, it was under the protection of the King of Poland-Lithuania until that polity collapsed in the late 18th century. The eastern lands came under the jurisdiction of the Russian Empire and would become the Ukrainian Catholic Church. The western lands were tied to the Catholic Habsburg monarchy under Austria-Hungary. Despite the collapse of the latter in 1918, and the fact that Ruthenia is now part of Ukraine, these historic distinctions are still held to this day. 

Ruthenia’s history in the 20th century has been stormy, passing from Austria-Hungary to Czechoslovakia; from Czechoslovakia to Romania; from Romania to the Soviet Union; and, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, to the modern Ukrainian Republic. Like many Eastern European groups, the height of their immigration was between 1890 and 1940 and would inform the state of the Ruthenian Church in the United States, which would flourish for some time in Pennsylvania and Ohio. However, the last three decades have seen a dramatic shift in the constitution of the Ruthenian Catholic Church (also known as the Byzantine Catholic Church).

To understand the contraction of the Byzantine Catholic presence in the United States, it is necessary to look squarely at the number of parishioners. In the mid-1990s, the Ruthenian Catholic Church in the United States reported roughly 190,000–200,000 faithful on its rolls, filling their pews weekly. However, by the late 2010s, after internal audits and demographic decline, that number of the faithful had fallen dramatically. 

Recent editions of the Official Catholic Directory list total membership closer to 55,000–60,000 nationwide. That is to say, within roughly 25 years, the Church has lost well over two-thirds of its recorded membership. This decline is not merely statistical housekeeping. Average Sunday attendance in many parishes now consists of a handful of very elderly parishioners who were brought up in the faith by their immigrant parents but were ultimately unable to transmit the rite to a new generation detached from the memory of Ruthenian heritage. Entire regions once dense with Carpatho-Rusyn and Slovak immigrants no longer sustain the vast parish networks they did in the 20th century.

What is more, the contraction in ordained clergy mirrors the drastic fall in church membership. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Ruthenian Church in America could rely on well over 300 priests across its four major eparchies (the Eastern equivalent of dioceses). Today, that number is closer to 100–120 active priests, many of them well past retirement age. In some larger parishes, there is no resident clergy. They are granted a deacon or must share a priest between multiple parishes. 

In addition to this, the median age of Byzantine clergy continues to rise. While the Byzantine tradition permits married priests, vocations have not kept pace with attrition. In recent years, the Byzantine Catholic Church has been importing priests from Ukraine to cover its clerical shortage. Of course, the foreign priests only heighten the attrition of parishioners, who are now multiple generations removed from the “old country” and have no cultural or linguistic ties to Ruthenia.

In the past two decades, Byzantine parish closures and consolidations have accelerated as the financial apparatus that has supported these churches has collapsed. At its height, the Byzantine Church maintained over 200 parishes across the United States, most of them in the Atlantic Northeast. That number has fallen to roughly 80–90 canonical parishes and missions, with many church communities merged, reduced to mission status, or shuttered entirely. In industrial towns in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, once-vibrant domed churches now stand sold, repurposed, or demolished.

The financial dimension compounds the expanding demographic crisis. Small congregations struggle to maintain large, aging buildings constructed for immigrant congregations multiple times their current size. Insurance, heating, salaries, upkeep, and structural repairs alone often exceed annual offertory income, and fundraising is a challenge with an aging population. Several eparchies have quietly undertaken property sales to stabilize their freefalling budgets. 

While the Byzantine Church has not faced the high-profile bankruptcy proceedings famously seen in some Latin dioceses, it carries the structural burden of shrinking revenue streams against fixed institutional costs. The result is not an overnight collapse but a slow institutional corrosion. A church that once functioned as the religious and cultural heart of a thriving Carpatho-Rusyn immigrant population now exists as a relic of another time and place—faithful, liturgically rich, but increasingly fragile.

The larger question is not sociological but ecclesial: How does a church preserve a theological and liturgical patrimony when its identity has eroded? Should it even try? The Ruthenian experience may prove emblematic of a broader phenomenon in American Catholicism, where identity, assimilation, and secularization converge to hollow out communities that were founded to be permanent institutions. 

The golden onion domes still stand in some American cities. The Divine Liturgy is still celebrated. But the statistics tell a sobering story: the Byzantine Catholic Church in America is no longer a vibrant, thriving, immigrant church. It is a contracting inheritance that will soon fade into oblivion, saved only by the efforts of its clergy and administration. 

Perhaps this will not happen within this decade, or even within this generation, but it is likely to happen soon, even if we “do not know the day or the hour” (Matthew 24:36). Until then, the great golden Byzantine domes will remain standing over the old neighborhood streets, bearing witness to a people, a faith, and a world that once filled them with life.

 

Source: https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/the-sad-collapse-of-the-byzantine-catholic-church

A Significant Interview with Archimandrite Efthymios Bardakas, Editor of "Ecclesiastical Tradition" (2015)

  

 

1. Dear Fr. Efthymios, in 1982 the first issue of the historical journal “Ecclesiastical Tradition” was published. What were the expectations from such a publication, and to what extent do you believe they were achieved?

The aims of our journal “Ecclesiastical Tradition” were the immediate communication with the flock which “thirsted” (as indeed it still does today) for information on ecclesiological matters, on matters touching upon questions of which I was becoming the recipient, the provision of certain advice and moral support to its readers, within the framework of the possibilities that the continuous communication with the faithful of our parish afforded us, but also with subscribers from all parts of Greece and abroad, where many Greeks thirst for Orthodoxy and language and have enclosed within their hearts the Greek Orthodox Tradition.

Therefore, its purpose was (and is) the communication with the Orthodox within Greece, but also those of the diaspora, who are deprived of churches, clergy, sermons, information on ecclesiological matters, etc., but nevertheless remain faithful to our Sacred Tradition and to the Faith of our Fathers.

Another mission of our Journal was the informing of Greeks everywhere, by means of a multitude of special “columns,” such as our communication with the young children, through a special column “Our Youth’s Column,” dedicated to correspondence with them. The “Anti-Heretical Column,” “Current Affairs,” “News,” “Opinions,” “Report to our Readers,” “Comments and Critique” (always in good faith, full of love, although quite often it could be characterized as “harsh,” yet always constructive and with concord as its guiding principle), “News from the Movement of our Catechetical Schools Operating in our Parishes,” “News on Ecclesiastical Developments,” etc.

Great and very useful was the response, the interest, and the participation of our readers in its “Correspondence” Column.

Beyond all our expectations was the response of our readers—of young age, adolescents, but also older readers—to the relevant column.

With the problems, the concerns, the questions also on contemporary issues of our pious Youth, which constitutes the hope of us all for our future as Orthodox Greeks, through the provision of “antibodies” of defense against foreign-imported and soul-corrupting ways of life; and for this reason, we are studying the possibility of restoring it in the new form of our Journal.

The fact that we struggled, through the columns of this Journal, for the unity of the Church and did not hesitate to speak truths which perhaps did not satisfy everyone, and nevertheless the Journal continues to “be published” (even if only online for financial reasons) and to be studied by a sufficient number of readers, proves that, at least, it did not fail in its mission.

And we must emphasize in particular that our positions on serious ecclesiastical and ecclesiological matters have been steadfast and always inspired by the life, the wondrous work, and the positions of the great, unique contemporary theologian and orator, the former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos Kavouridis…!

2. Of the people whom you came to know in your life and who are now reposed, whom do you consider to have touched you, and would you dare to characterize them as saintly figures?

In the many years during which I have served as a priest, I encountered clergy and laity who proved themselves most worthy in the areas of faith, morality, and a militant spirit, and whose fervent—indeed, I could say ardent—presence in the realm of Orthodoxy was literally impressive.

I must note that the use of the word “saint” for any mortal (clergy or layman) must be done with the greatest caution.

When in our unsurpassable ecclesiastical hymnography we chant, “…there is no one holy but You, O Lord…,” it is necessary that this form of address be made with the greatest caution; and beyond the “ceremonial” form of address, by means of which some clergyman is so addressed (which does not touch the essence of the title), there must exist the presuppositions which have been established by Ecclesiastical Tradition, so that the inviolable ecclesiastical and canonical factors and institutions which exist be observed—matters which, of course, cannot be analyzed within the framework of this interview.

Nevertheless, irrespective of the use of the term “saint,” with which today we address bishops and priests (“Holy Father,” etc.), I encountered persons who remain deeply engraved in my soul and who give me the example and the support to struggle with my humble powers.

I could mention a lengthy list of worthy, conscientious faithful—clergy and laity—but on the one hand I would certainly forget some, and on the other, I do not think it is appropriate at present to present some kind of “list” of the good in contrast to the rest, whom thus, indirectly, I would characterize as lacking in faith or “lax.”

However, this question constitutes a “challenge,” because I cannot but mention certain names which, in my personal opinion, stand out.

The Priest Ioannis Floros, the celebrant of the chapel of Saint John the Theologian at the foothills of Hymettus, above which the Sign of the Cross shone in the sky, precisely above the Church, in which the Genuine Orthodox had taken refuge, being persecuted, on the night of the 14th of September 1925 (it was published and exists in the newspaper of that time, “Script”).

Elder Gideon, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Konstamonitou [Mount Athos], President of the Sacred Association of Zealous Athonite Fathers (+1969).

The Monk Markos Chaniotis, a learned monk, fervent preacher, and author.

Archimandrite Athanasios, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou (1930–1975).

Hieromonk Modestos, Kerasia, Mount Athos.

Priest Michael Savvopoulos, parish priest of the Holy Church of the Three Hierarchs of Drama.

And because many pages would be required to record all the names which I personally consider to stand out over the course of time from 1924 until today, I will mention next, by way of indication only, three names, among those which, in my opinion, I believe ought to be canonized for their Confession of Faith, for the exiles and persecutions which they endured, for their sacrifices, and for the awe which their life inspires.

And these are:

1. The former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos, who endured countless torments of conscience, having borne until the end insults, persecutions, and exiles.

2. Ieronymos of Aegina.

3. Eugenios Lemonis [of Piraeus].

And I do not continue, because, as I said before, the list of the truly worthy is long.

3. Since 1924, the Greeks have been divided into Old Calendarists and New Calendarists. What do you believe must be done in order for the much-desired union to come about, so that, united as one fist, we may confront the difficult years that are coming?

The division of the Greeks into “Old Calendarists” and “New Calendarists” was the work of ill-intentioned people, who did not wish to follow what Ecclesiastical Tradition prescribes, but also the relevant Legislative Decree of the time, signed by the entire State leadership, which explicitly and unequivocally provides that “…for the Greek State, the new calendar shall be in force for our coordination with the rest of the world, but the religious feats remain unaltered…”

Apart from the issue of the erroneous manner of determining the Feasts among those who follow the new calendar, there also exist other matters of a dogmatic nature, which are the result of human ill-intentioned and corrupting actions in the years that have passed…

The “Plan of God”—no one knows it.

We, however, have the duty to do everything possible so that our Church may be united, and we pray, at every Divine Liturgy, “…for the unity of the Holy Churches of God…,” and likewise the Symbol of our Faith explicitly says, “…I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church…,” and by the term “Catholic” it does not, of course, mean the papal “Church,” but the One Church which is the will of God and which will include all Orthodox Christians..!

The moment will come when Orthodoxy will triumph, and we shall be those whom God has been well-pleased to have keep the spark of Orthodoxy burning for that day.

We must not overlook the fact that “Orthodoxy and Hellenism, the more they are persecuted, the more they triumph.”

We must take an interest in our unity and pray!

On our part, there is need for prayer, faith, struggle, suffering, humility, patience, and hope.

4. In the face of the ever-increasing decline of the ecumenists from among the Orthodox, how should the, unfortunately still divided, Genuine Orthodox (despite the blessed union of 2014, when their two largest Synods in Greece were united) proceed, so that the resurgence of Orthodoxy may be achieved?

This question is almost identical with the previous one.

We are not justified in turning against anyone who has been led astray in an un-Christian manner, with malice, etc.

We are not speaking about “Satanists,” etc., but about persons who have taken a wrong path with regard to the Orthodox springs and have fallen into heresies and schisms, for which, certainly, some leaders are responsible—and indeed most heavily—who became servants of the antichrist aims of accursed Ecumenism, drawing along those persons who follow them. These will render account in a manner which today they do not imagine.

We must remain faithful to our traditions and to our faith, without “concessions,” “compromises,” and “laxities,” and we must pray continually that the Lord may both enlighten and forgive all those who have been led astray, regarding their return to the right path of our Orthodoxy.

I am speaking about the specific ecumenist Patriarchs and Bishops who, the unfortunate ones, believe in a mixture of heresies, religions, and every kind of delusion, and do not believe in our Lord Jesus Christ as the sole Savior and Redeemer.

And it must not escape us that our time will be difficult, full of persecutions and hardships, through which, however, the truly worthy strugglers will be distinguished, while the “lax” and the “lukewarm,” the money-loving, the materialists, the vainglorious, and the clergy with personality-centered Monasteries and Churches (even from within the “Little Flock” itself) will be rejected by the Lord. For all these, apart from the fact that they themselves will be condemned, constitute a negative image outwardly (toward the flock that awaits the good example), thus destroying the necessary foundation for unity, but also preventing the entry into Genuine Orthodoxy of prominent names and respected figures of the New Calendar, who would wish to join, but our domain must be “clean” and without discouraging examples, for the worthy, acting with pure intentions, will hesitate to follow us.

Therefore, caution and prayer.

Above all, however, discernment…!

5. If, hypothetically speaking, you had a private meeting with the Archbishop of the New Calendarist Church of Greece, what would you say to him?

It is not possible for us to know what any interlocutor has in his heart, and certainly the same applies also to the hypothetical discussion to which you refer.

Consequently, it is not possible for me to “guess” the level around which this hypothetical discussion could move.

It is quite possible that I might encounter good faith and a good disposition, in which case the entire discussion would perhaps have good results and some gradual, even if partial, rapprochement; or that I might encounter intransigence, stubbornness, and “papal-minded subservience,” in which case there could not be even a basic, minimal rapprochement.

I would put to him directly also the question of whether he believes that the “Latins” are a Church and whether the Pope has Priesthood and valid Mysteries. At this point, I believe, the discussion would come to an end, because, as I know, Archbishop Ieronymos, on the level of social work, both as Metropolitan of Thebes and Livadeia and as Archbishop, has proven that he is worthy of many praises; however, in matters of Faith he has surpassed the late Christodoulos to the point of servility toward the person of the Beast of the Apocalypse (according to the Saints) which is called the Pope.

6. A hidden desire of many Orthodox, chiefly family men, is the establishment of a private school with genuine Christian principles. How do you believe such a desire could be realized?

I do not know, personally, nor have I even heard that such thoughts have been expressed for the establishment of a “special school.”

The Catechetical School is in operation, and when there is proper organization, it is more than sufficient.

Parents who desire, as you say, the creation of a school can and must themselves teach their children by their example, lead them on Sundays and feasts to the Church (not with coercion but in a good manner and with discernment), guide them so that they may understand the value of Confession and Holy Communion, as well as our other Sacred Mysteries, and lead them to the Catechetical School, so that their Faith and their love for our Holy Church may be firmly established.

In my opinion, there is neither the possibility nor even the thought of creating such “schools,” and we cannot say that we possess the required spiritual and financial resources.

It does not escape us that, worldwide, matters related to religiosity are gradually being removed from schools and from the education of young people in general; and for this reason, the burden falls first of all upon the shoulders of the parents and, of course, of the Church—not, however, through the creation of “schools,” which, among other things, I cannot understand whether we even have the required infrastructure for them to be able to function without creating even greater problems.

If all the educators of the Patristic Calendar would agree to “sacrifice” hours from their time, through a well-organized cooperation, I believe that our youth could be helped to a great extent, both in covering their learning gaps (a kind of “tutoring”) and in the moral and dogmatic teaching of the Gospel.

The Catechetical School does not constitute an “educational institution”; it does not oppose the schools of the State, but simply complements the effort of the parents for the purely spiritual support of the children, especially within the atheistic and often satanic manner in which modern human societies have been structured.

I must note that requests from parents, as you say, for the creation of such “schools” have not reached me.

The family and the Catechetical School, which simply provides certain “antibodies” of defense to our youth for confronting foreign-imported and heretical doctrines, are sufficient.

7. Holy Church of Panagia Prousiotissa – Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine. Tell us a few words about these holy places in which you serve and which many brethren visit and benefit from.

Both the Holy Church of Panagia Prousiotissa and the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine are two places whose establishment began with very limited means and progressed to the point at which they stand today, with the clear help of our Lord and the divine support of efforts which at first appeared to be unrealizable.

The love and support of faithful Orthodox came to sustain the hard struggle that was required for the stone-by-stone construction and, ultimately, the functional completion of the Holy Churches.

They are the result of tireless efforts, hard labor, but above all Divine Help.

The Holy Church of Panagia Prousiotissa began from the strenuous efforts of the ever-memorable Nun Gregoria, who purchased the plot of land and, alone, began to build, stone by stone, a small church (1941), which, with the help of the Most Holy Theotokos, progressed and gradually became what it is today.

A majestic Holy Church, but also a place which the ever-memorable Nun Gregoria was deemed worthy to enjoy during her lifetime, she who struggled more than most for her vision.

The Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine is yet another place which continues to be built and brought to completion with the help of the Saint.

Many Orthodox faithful, men and women, have helped and continue to help with personal labor, for the ministry that is required so that visitors may be able to feel that they are in a familiar place and to pray while attending the Divine Liturgy.

I invite you also to both of these holy churches, where we shall be able to say more and for you to be more fully informed about the history that these places of divine worship conceal.

8. What advice do you give to the youth of our time in order to confront the great temptations (fornication, drugs, indifference, etc.)?

Today, we see multiplying in a manner that was never expected, both the “astrologers” and the [secular] “psychoanalysts.”

Unfortunately, the youth today, being led astray by the folly of their elders and by the continual severance of communication with our Holy Faith, are led into a lack of moral supports, which in turn lead them to the door of some psychoanalyst or some… “medium.”

Under no circumstances do we seek to downgrade scientific psychoanalysts. They can help to a very great extent with problems which are also created by our age, filled with anxieties and cares.

It is a great mistake to consider that science is in “opposition” to our Faith.

Science also is one of the many gifts of God to man (through the capacities of our brain with which our Creator has endowed us), and consequently, its rational use—when it operates within the moral rules that must govern it—constitutes an aid to man (without, of course, there being absent also cases of its irrational and morally unregulated use, in which case from a blessing it is transformed into a curse).

Of course, I firmly believe that a tremendous “share” of the responsibility for the creation of this anxious condition lies with “xenomania,” “imitation,” the over-consumerist disposition, and the severance of modern man from his communion with God and his distancing from the Church.

Many say that they do not accept to open their heart to a Spiritual Father and to confess, at the very moment when they go and recount their entire life to some psychoanalyst, in the same way that they refuse to fast and at the same time undertake a… “strict diet” in order to lose weight…!

In any case, so as not to be long-winded, my basic advice to every well-intentioned reader of the present is: prayer, attendance at church, conscious participation in the Holy Mysteries of our Church, confession, faith and love toward God, a pure heart, hope, and love toward our neighbor.

Our youth especially, who, unfortunately, do not have models and “antibodies” from their elders, can find the support which today they seek in vain in countless “methods” (from substances to … “yoga,” “meditation,” etc.), which become soul-corrupting because of the purposes which their instigators serve through them; and they can find true peace and a path for their life which leads to inner balance, within the bosom of our Church and of our Greek Orthodox, Genuine Faith.

This is my advice, which, however, cannot be supported as it should and to the extent it should within the narrow limits of an interview.

9. Thank you for the interview. We would like you to close with one final message to our readers.

A message to our readers could be: “Try to ‘filter’ what reaches you in the form of ‘Divine Texts’ through the various publications which circulate in an uncontrolled manner and which can distort the truth through improper ‘translations,’ teaching a thousand and two false doctrines, because…‘some’ have cut off Greek children from the learning of the unsurpassable Greek language and have made them almost incapable of understanding what our Sacred Texts say.”

Rely on what your Spiritual Fathers convey to you and, as much as it is possible for you, learn our language. Its “simplification” was not accidental. It concealed purposes, one of which—the most basic, in my opinion—is the non-understanding of the texts that come to us from the pens of our wise but also God-inspired ancestors.

They even subtly teach us to write with Latin characters…!

 

Greek source: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2015/06/blog-post_10.html

For reference - Conclusions of the Conference with the theme: “The 15th Canon of the First-Second Council and the cessation of ecclesiastical communion.”

November 27, 2014 | Piraeus

 

 

The Sacred [New Calendar] Metropolis of Piraeus, with the blessing of our Most Reverend Metropolitan Seraphim, in cooperation with the Office on Heresies and Para-Religions, organized and held on Thursday, November 27, 2014, at 4:00 p.m., in the hall of the “Piraeus Association” in Piraeus, a Theological Conference with the theme: “The 15th Canon of the First-Second Council and the cessation of ecclesiastical communion,” in which a multitude of clergy and the faithful people of the Church of Piraeus participated.

The opening of the proceedings of the conference was declared by our Most Reverend Metropolitan, Mr. Seraphim.

Thereafter the subject was developed in detail by three distinguished speakers:

a) His Eminence the Metropolitan of Piraeus, Mr. Seraphim, who developed the topic: “Walling off in the light of the life and struggles of the Venerable Theodore the Studite.”

b) Archimandrite Fr. Basil Papadakis, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Saint Anastasia the Roman in Rethymno, who developed the topic: “The cessation of ecclesiastical communion according to Orthodox Theology and the Tradition of the Church.”

c) Protopresbyter Fr. Ioannis Fotopoulos, Lawyer and Theologian, who developed the topic: “Non-communion and walling off according to the teaching and the life of the Holy Fathers.”

After the completion of the presentations and following an extensive discussion on them, the conference reached the following conclusions:

CONCLUSIONS

1. In Orthodoxy, the commemoration of the bishop of each local Church is important, as the guarantor and guardian of the Orthodox faith, but also as the one who expresses the unity of the ecclesiastical body, which unity is realized and preserved in the Divine Eucharist. When the faith is violated through heresies, the Church, through her holy and God-bearing Fathers, points out the deviant heretical teachings and then, following the long-standing Canonical and Synodal Tradition, proceeds to the condemnation of the heresy as well as of those heretics who persist unrepentantly in heretical teachings, through the convocation of Orthodox Synods at the local or even at the ecumenical level.

2. The rapid spread of the pan-heresy of Ecumenism throughout the entire course of the twentieth century up to our own days created the need among groups of clergy and laity to seek support in the Sacred Canons and in the holy Fathers of the Church, in order to base upon them their avoidance of every communication with the heresy, by cutting off every ecclesiastical communion with bishops who promote heresy. Thus, for yet another time in recent years, the 15th Canon of the First-Second Council, convened during the days of the great Photius in 861, has come again to the forefront of ecclesiastical discussion.

3. The Sacred Canon in question (and more precisely the second part, or paragraph, of this Canon) permits the cessation of commemoration (walling off) of a subordinate cleric from his superior even before his synodal judgment, only on the condition that the latter publicly preaches a heresy “condemned by the holy Councils or Fathers.” This condition is very important, because it obliges us to proceed “following the Holy Fathers” and to rely upon the diagnosis which they made, with the power and illumination of the Holy Spirit, concerning the said heresy, following and not preceding the Holy Fathers and pre-empting their judgment regarding the heresy. And this is so because it is not the competence of each member of the Church to point out and diagnose a heresy with certainty, since he does not possess the corresponding spiritual prerequisites. With the above phrase, “condemned by the holy Councils or Fathers,” the compilers of this Sacred Canon also seek to emphasize respect for the synodal institution of the Church, as well as the authority of the holy Fathers.

4. The Sacred Canon in question must be interpreted in the spirit and in the context of the two preceding canons, the 13th and 14th, with which it constitutes a thematic unity. Just as the two above-mentioned canons (the 13th and 14th), as well as the first part of the 15th, consider the synodal judgment and examination of the moral transgressions or other offenses of the bishop to be necessary before the cessation of his commemoration, so also—and even more so now, when it concerns the most serious offense of falling into some heretical teaching—the synodal judgment and examination of the heretical bishop is considered necessary, because this is required both by the connection with the two preceding Sacred Canons and by the entire Synodal Tradition of our Church. The only difference in relation to the two preceding Sacred Canons lies in the fact that, when the cause of walling off is the falling into a “condemned” heresy, then walling off is permitted even before the synodal judgment of the fallen heretical bishop. The separation from the body of the Church does not take place in an invisible and automatic manner by itself—immediately when the heretic falls into heresy—but by means of a specific condemning synodal decision. If the separation of the heretic occurred automatically and of itself, the synodal condemnation of him would be unnecessary.

5. The Fathers who composed the 15th Sacred Canon did not make walling off from heretical bishops obligatory. This Canon does not legislate an obligation, but simply grants a right. While it praises those who wall themselves off from the heretical bishop “before his synodal judgment,” it does not impose any penalty upon those who, without accepting his teachings, nevertheless continue to commemorate him, while at the same time censuring his false teachings and seeking the intervention and secure synodal diagnosis and condemnation of him by the competent synodal authority. If the Sacred Canon had a mandatory character, there would necessarily have been a corresponding formulation concerning all those who continue to maintain ecclesiastical communion with the heretical bishop before his synodal condemnation, and in that formulation the prescribed penalty would have been included, especially since the matter involved is so serious as heresy. Moreover, if the Church considered it the duty of a cleric to separate immediately from a bishop who had fallen into heresy, it would have established specific canons on this fundamental issue, and indeed very strict ones. It would not have been satisfied to speak about this matter as if in passing, that is, it would not have sufficed simply to insert an exception into Sacred Canons which were enacted in order to discourage and punish schisms.

6. In the confrontation of heresies, the contribution of the holy Fathers is decisive and pivotal, as is evident from the Acts of the Councils, the Lives of the Saints, the ecclesiastical literature, and the Sacred Canons. The holy Fathers do not improvise; rather, being illumined by God and moved by God, they refute heresy through their theological discourse and guide the people of God in their stance toward it and toward the heretics, as is shown by the life and struggles of the Venerable Theodore the Studite.

7. Sure guides of the ecclesiastical body in its stance toward the contemporary pan-heresy of Ecumenism are the recently illustrious venerable Fathers, such as Venerable Justin Popović, Saint Elder Paisios the Athonite, Saint Elder Philotheos Zervakos, the Venerable Elder and great Russian Athonite ascetic, founder of the Holy Monastery of the Honorable Forerunner in Essex, England, Sophrony Sakharov, and others. These indeed pointed out Ecumenism, but did not wall themselves off from their local bishops, while at the same time indicating the necessity of the synodal condemnation of this heresy, as well as of those who promote it. The preference for our own improvisations against false teaching, in contrast to the God-illumined stance of the contemporary holy Fathers, and the claim that divine illumination and the synodal condemnation of the heresy are unnecessary in the matter of walling off, remove us from the spirit of the holy Fathers. Moreover, the manifold insults directed against the saints of our time by certain brethren who have walled themselves off not only wall them off from the bishops who promote heresy, but also separate them from the Orthodox Church.

8. The fact that within the contemporary pan-heresy of Ecumenism there exist elements of older heresies, which have been synodically condemned by the Church, does not remove the necessity of its contemporary synodal condemnation, in accordance with the spirit and proposal of Venerable Justin Popović. For this purpose, the clergy and the faithful people of God must direct their struggle and activate themselves in a more dynamic anti-heretical struggle, until our Hierarchy, pressed by clergy and people, addresses this pan-heresy, condemns it synodically, names its adherents, and calls them to repentance. If they persist in their errors, it should cut them off from the Church.

9. The theology of the holy and God-bearing Fathers and their God-illumined pastoral ministry has as its ontological foundation the Church as the Body of the living Lord Jesus Christ. It aims at the safeguarding of the unity of the ecclesiastical body, the integrity of the faith, and the experience of the Church, but also at the essential presentation and application of the true provisions of the divine Law and the Sacred Canons, through which the incorporation of the human person into Christ and his deification by grace are established and realized.

 

Greek source: http://aktines.blogspot.com/2014/11/15_28.html