Bulgaria: Persecution Begins at Home

The Bulgarian Patriarchate pleads for the persecuted church abroad. It petitioned the state to liquidate the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria at home.

July 2, 2026

 

 

Hold two documented facts side by side.

In August 2024, the Patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church received the ambassador of the United States and drew his attention to the plight of the church in Ukraine — the restrictions on its pastoral work, the "discriminatory policy" to which it is subjected — and urged, in the Patriarchate's own published account of the meeting, that democratic forces around the world help ensure religious freedom in Ukraine and elsewhere. [1]

In late 2025, the courts of Bulgaria ruled with finality that the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria — a community of Orthodox Christians with roots in that country running back to 1968, with its parishes, its monastery of nuns, its cathedral in Sofia — must be stripped of the legal registration it had held for less than a year, under a law enacted for that purpose at the request of the Bulgarian Patriarchate itself. [2]

The distance between those two facts is the subject of this editorial. The word doing the heaviest work in the first of them is elsewhere. This is an investigation into where, precisely, elsewhere ends — and, as always in this journal, every exhibit below is stamped by the institutions themselves: the Patriarchate's own communiqués, the National Assembly's own votes, the courts' own judgments, and the European Court of Human Rights' own findings. The prosecution's exhibits are all stamped by the defendant.

Exhibit A: The voice abroad

No Orthodox primate in the world jurisdictions has spoken more insistently about the persecution of the church in Ukraine than the current Bulgarian Patriarch. The record is extensive and entirely self-published or friendly-sourced.

He has stated publicly that the Ukrainian legislation against the church there imposes "serious factual and legal restrictions" on its pastoral activity and amounts to a "discriminatory policy." [3] In a national television interview marking the first anniversary of his enthronement, he declared that when violence occurs, when churches are seized, and when priests suffer, this cannot be ignored. [4] He raised the matter personally with the American ambassador, asking the world's democratic forces to safeguard religious freedom. [5] He has received, honored, and prayed with a delegation of the most heavily persecuted hierarchs of the Ukrainian church. [6] He has opposed European sanctions against the head of the Russian church. [7] And the Moscow Patriarch, in a published letter of congratulation, thanked him by name for "supporting the persecuted Ukrainian Orthodox Church" and for every word spoken in defense of his suffering brothers. [8]

Set down, then, the working definition of persecution that emerges from the Patriarchate's own advocacy, because we will need it shortly: legal restrictions on a church's activity; discriminatory policy; state interference in the life of a religious community; the use of courts and legislation against believers. These are the Patriarchate's criteria, published under its own letterhead. Remember them.

Exhibit B: The Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria

Who, exactly, is the body being erased? Not a foreign import, not a recent invention, and not — as will be seen — a claimant to anyone's property. The Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria is the continuation, in unbroken succession, of the Bulgarian faithful who refused the calendar reform of 1968.

In December 1968, the Bulgarian Patriarchate — then under the close management of a communist state — adopted the new calendar. A small circle of clergy and faithful refused: the spiritual children of Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev), the Russian hierarch who had lived in Sofia for thirty years and whose defense of Orthodoxy against ecumenism had made him, in the words of those who knew him, the conscience of the Church. For their refusal, the dissenting archimandrites were banned from serving and expelled from the Theological Academy; the convent at Knyazhevo had its church expropriated; the Patriarch of that era announced in synod that those who did not accept the reform would be unfrocked or confined to a ruined mountain monastery; and the community passed into a catacomb existence under a regime whose militia watched the convent gates. [9] They ceased commemorating the Bulgarian Patriarch in 1983, received a bishop in 1993 through the Old Calendar hierarchies of Greece and Romania, and applied — that same year — for legal registration in the new, democratic Bulgaria.

The application received no reply. Not a refusal: no reply at all. [10]

By 2013 the Old Calendar Church of Bulgaria numbered some two thousand faithful with twenty-four priests; today it counts parishes across the country, a convent of some sixty nuns, and a cathedral in Sofia. [11] It has never claimed a single church building, bank account, or asset of the Patriarchate; the European Court would later record expressly that it laid no claim to them. [12] It asked for one thing only: legal existence. Without registration, a religious community in Bulgaria cannot own its places of worship, receive donations, or lawfully employ its own clergy. [13] For thirty years, that is what was withheld from the Bulgarian Old Calendarists.

Let this journal's own position be stated without hedging, because it is the position of the whole Patristic-calendar witness of which the Bulgarian church is a part. The Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria is not a curiosity, not a sect, and not — whatever the statute now says — a counterfeit. It is the confessing remnant of Bulgarian Orthodoxy: the portion of that church which, when the reform of 1968 was imposed by a synod under a politburo's supervision, did what the confessors of every century have done, and paid what they have always paid. Three generations of the same community have now confessed under three regimes — the catacombs under communism, legal non-existence under democracy, and liquidation under the current synod — and the faith confessed has not varied by a syllable. That is not the profile of a fraud. It is the profile of the thing frauds imitate.

Exhibit C: What the record shows happened at home

Follow the file.

2012. The Sofia City Court refuses to register the Old Calendar Church, reasoning that its name is "identical" to that of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. In those very proceedings, the state's Religious Denominations Directorate declines to submit its own opinion until it has obtained the opinion of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. [14] Pause on that: the question of whether the Old Calendarists may legally exist was referred, by an organ of the state, to the very institution from which they had separated. The rival was invited to judge.

2021. The European Court of Human Rights, in Bulgarian Orthodox Old Calendar Church and Others v. Bulgaria, finds a violation of Article 9 of the Convention read in the light of Article 11. Its language is not equivocal: pluralism, "the basic fabric of democracy," is incompatible with state action compelling a religious community to unite under a single leadership; in a democratic society the state has no need to ensure that religious communities remain under one authority; the refusal to register was "not necessary in a democratic society." [15]

December 2024. Executing that judgment, Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation orders the church registered. For a few days, after fifty-six years, the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria legally exists.

The response. The Patriarch personally describes the registration as "uncanonical." The Holy Synod publishes a statement calling the judgment "as unexpected as it is unfortunate, with serious consequences for the future," declaring that "the Orthodox Church can only be one," and demanding that the Old Calendar Church either renounce the name Orthodox or accept that it is "an inseparable part" of the Patriarchate. [16] The Patriarch and members of the Synod then hold meetings with the country's political leadership — in the words of a publication wholly sympathetic to the Patriarchate, seeking state protection, and securing agreement that legislation would prohibit any body but the Patriarchate from bearing the word "Orthodox." [17] After meeting the Patriarch, the leader of the largest parliamentary party announces his support for the Patriarchate as "the sole expression of Orthodoxy in Bulgaria." [18]

January 31, 2025. The National Assembly amends the Religious Denominations Act by a vote of 186 to 1. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is declared the sole representative of Eastern Orthodoxy in Bulgaria; no other denomination may register under the word "Orthodox" or its derivatives; registered bodies that do not change their names within two months are to be terminated, with liquidation and deletion from the register to follow. [19] The single dissenting deputy states the constitutional objection on the floor: "It is important that we are here as a National Assembly, not as the Holy Synod... the church and the state are separated" — and warns that closed cases with final judgments will be reopened by force of law. [20] A media outlet devoted to the Patriarchate's cause reports the same fact as a triumph: this is "the first case in Bulgarian legislation where reference to Church canonical law would be explicitly included in a legal text with binding force." [21]

2025. The Sofia City Prosecution Office and the Religious Denominations Directorate move to terminate the Old Calendar Church's registration and open liquidation proceedings. When the Sofia City Court initially refuses — holding that the amendments conflict with the European Convention — the prosecution appeals. [22] In the autumn, the courts characterize the Old Calendarists as outside the law; by December, the ruling is final: the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria is to be deregistered. [23]

Fifty-six years without legal existence. Eleven months with it.

Now apply the Patriarchate's own definition

Return to the criteria the Patriarchate published in its advocacy for the church in Ukraine, and run the checklist against the file above.

Legal restrictions on a church's pastoral activity? For three decades the Old Calendar Church of Bulgaria could not own its churches, receive donations, or employ its clergy — a condition the European Court examined and condemned. [24]

Discriminatory policy? The Old Calendarists argued before the European Court that Bulgarian courts refused registration only to communities resembling the Patriarchate while freely registering multiple Evangelical and Baptist churches of a single confession; the Court found the underlying refusal unjustified in a democratic society. [25]

State interference in the life of a religious community? A statute now in force names one church the sole lawful bearer of the word "Orthodox," writes canonical claims into binding civil law for the first time in the country's legislative history, and prescribes liquidation for the Old Calendar Church if it will not surrender its name.

Courts and legislation used against believers? A final judgment of a national supreme court, issued in execution of a European human-rights ruling, was overturned within weeks by an act of parliament passed 186 to 1 — precisely the reopening of closed cases by force of law that the lone dissenting deputy warned against.

Every criterion the Patriarchate applies to Kyiv is met, item for item, in Sofia — and the body it is met against is the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria. There is exactly one difference, and it is not a difference of kind. In Ukraine, the state moved against a church over the objection of the local patriarchate's sympathizers. In Bulgaria, the state moved against the Old Calendar Church at the request of the local patriarchate — after its primate called that church's legal existence "uncanonical," after its synod sought what its own friendly press called state protection, and after its meetings with party leaders produced the very bill. The Patriarchate of Bulgaria is not a bystander to the checklist. It is the petitioner.

And so the sentence delivered to the American ambassador completes itself. Religious freedom must be ensured in Ukraine and elsewhere — and elsewhere, on the evidence of the file, extends to every jurisdiction on earth except the streets around the Synod's own palace.

The saint in the middle of it

There is one more exhibit, and it is the most uncomfortable of all, because the Patriarchate itself placed it in the record.

In 2016, Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev) — the hierarch whose spiritual children founded the Bulgarian Old Calendar movement, the man who taught them that ecumenism was a betrayal of Orthodoxy and whose counsel they invoked when they refused the reform of 1968 — was glorified as a saint, with the participation and celebration of the Bulgarian Patriarchate, which venerates his relics in Sofia to this day and marked the tenth anniversary of his canonization with a solemn liturgy. [26]

Sit with the arithmetic of that. The father is on the calendar of saints. The children are on the liquidation docket. The same institution that censes the relics of St. Seraphim of Sofia petitioned the state to dissolve the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria — the church that did what he taught. If the saint was right — and the Patriarchate's own act of glorification declares that he was — then the church formed in his obedience is not a fraud upon Orthodoxy but its remnant. And if that church is, as the Synod's statement insists, no church at all, then what, precisely, was canonized in 2016?

This journal does not leave its own answer in doubt. What was glorified in 2016 was the father of the Bulgarian confessors; what stands before the liquidator in 2025 is his church — the one body in Bulgaria that received his teaching whole and kept it at cost. The Patriarchate cannot have the saint and the statute. It has chosen to keep both, and the incoherence is now enshrined in Bulgarian law. The Old Calendarists, for their part, have no incoherence to manage: they venerate the same saint the Patriarchate venerates, and unlike the Patriarchate, they obeyed him.

What this journal is not saying

Let the record be precise about what is not claimed here. This editorial does not adjudicate the situation in Ukraine, does not defend any state's measures against any believer anywhere, and does not require the reader to take a side in that conflict. It stipulates, for the sake of argument, everything the Bulgarian Patriarchate says about the suffering of the church there — every word of it. The argument does not depend on doubting the Patriarchate's advocacy. It depends on believing it.

Because if legal restriction, discrimination, state interference, and legislative targeting constitute persecution when they fall upon two hundred monasteries in Ukraine, then they constitute persecution when they fall upon one convent of sixty nuns in Bulgaria. The number of the persecuted does not alter the nature of the act. A synod that can identify the pattern flawlessly at a thousand kilometers' distance, and then reproduce the pattern at home down to the statutory mechanics — courts, registries, liquidation procedures — has not failed to understand what persecution is. It has demonstrated that it understands perfectly.

This journal has documented elsewhere how the Bulgarian Synod, alone with Georgia, drew the honest conclusion from its own confession and left the World Council of Churches — and how it refused Crete. [27] Credit was given where due, and it stands. But the same synod's conduct in this file discloses what that traditionalism is prepared to do when the Patristic-calendar witness appears not in a rival patriarchate's territory but in its own: it reaches for the state. The confessors of 1968 were handed to the militia by a patriarchate that answered to a politburo. Their successors have been handed to the liquidator by a patriarchate that answered to no one but itself — and that, in the same twelve months, asked the ambassadors of the world to weep with it over churches seized by governments.

When violence occurs, when churches are seized, and when priests suffer — this cannot be ignored. The sentence is true. The Patriarchate said it. The only question this editorial leaves with the reader is the one the file forces: whether the sentence was a confession of faith, or a description of policy — and whether elsewhere was ever meant to include the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria, the people who kept the calendar the saints kept, in the country where their saint now lies enshrined.

What a court cannot deregister

One word remains, and it belongs to the Old Calendarists rather than to their prosecutors.

A court can strike a name from a register. It struck this one after eleven months, and the men who drafted the statute may count that a victory. But the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria was not created by registration and cannot be dissolved by its removal. She existed for fifty-six years without the state's permission — through the militia at the convent gates, through the decades when her application sat unanswered in a drawer, through every refusal the European Court would later condemn — and her liturgies did not pause for any of it. The nuns of that convent will rise for the midnight office on the day the liquidation order is stamped, as they rose the day before it, on the calendar of the saints, in the obedience of their saint. What the National Assembly voted 186 to 1 to protect was a name in a civil register. What it could not reach by any vote is the thing the name pointed to.

The confessors of 1968 were promised unfrocking and a ruined monastery in the mountains. They took the mountains. Their heirs are promised liquidation. The record of this file suggests they have already shown, across three regimes and fifty-eight years, exactly what they will do with a promise like that — and the record of the Church suggests that this, and not the statute, is what Bulgaria will one day keep.

✦

Notes

1. Communiqué of the Bulgarian Patriarchate on the meeting between the Bulgarian Patriarch and the U.S. Ambassador to Bulgaria, August 2024; reported in "Bulgarian Patriarch informs U.S. ambassador about persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church," OrthoChristian, August 2024.

2. "Съдът реши окончателно: 'Българска православна старостилна църква' трябва да бъде дерегистрирана" [The court rules with finality: the "Bulgarian Orthodox Old Calendar Church" must be deregistered], Glasove, December 2025; cf. "Βουλγαρία: Δικαστήριο χαρακτηρίζει έκνομους τους Βούλγαρους Παλαιοημερολογίτες" [Bulgaria: Court characterizes the Bulgarian Old Calendarists as outside the law], Balkan Periscope, 10 October 2025.

3. Statements of the Bulgarian Patriarch on Ukraine's Law 8371, August 2024; see Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, "Pro-War Policies Put Russia's Orthodox Church Under Increasing Pressure Outside Russia," 30 August 2024, quoting the characterizations "serious factual and legal restrictions" and "discriminatory policy."

4. Interview of the Bulgarian Patriarch with Bulgarian National Television on the first anniversary of his enthronement, mid-2025; reported by Orthodox Times and RISU, July 2025.

5. See n. 1.

6. "Persecuted Metropolitan Longin visits staunch Bulgarian Patriarch Daniil," OrthoChristian, February 2026, describing the visit of a delegation of hierarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

7. Remarks of the Bulgarian Patriarch following the session of the Holy Synod, June 2026; Orthodox Times, "Bulgarian Patriarch defends opposition to sanctions on Russian Patriarch Kirill."

8. Letter of congratulation of the Moscow Patriarch to the Bulgarian Patriarch on the anniversary of his ministry, 2025; quoted in RISU, "Bulgarian Patriarch voices Russian narratives while commenting on events in Ukraine," July 2025.

9. On the events of 1968–1990: "Bishop Photios of Triaditsa and the Old Calendarist Church of Bulgaria," Orthodox America (archival); the community's own historical account; and the factual recitation in the European Court's judgment cited at n. 15, §§ 4–5.

10. Bulgarian Orthodox Old Calendar Church and Others v. Bulgaria, no. 56751/13, ECtHR, 20 April 2021, § 6 (application of 1993 "remained without a formal reply").

11. Ibid., § 7 (twenty-four priests, about two thousand adherents by 2013); on the present count of parishes, the convent, and the Sofia cathedral, see the community's own published directories and contemporaneous Bulgarian reporting, 2024–2025.

12. Ibid., §§ 14–15 and the Court's summary of the applicants' submissions on paragraph 3 of the 2002 Act's transitional provisions.

13. Ibid., § 7 and the Court's account of the consequences of non-registration.

14. Ibid., §§ 10–11: the Religious Denominations Directorate advised the court that it would file its comments only after obtaining the opinion of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.

15. Ibid., §§ 62–64: "Pluralism, which is the basic fabric of democracy, is incompatible with State action compelling a religious community to unite under a single leadership"; the refusal was "not 'necessary in a democratic society'"; breach of Article 9 read in the light of Article 11.

16. Statement of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church – Bulgarian Patriarchate, late December 2024; reported by the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, "Bulgarian Orthodox Church Slams Supreme Court Judgment on Old Calendar Orthodox Church Registration," 30 December 2024, including the Patriarch's prior public characterization of the registration as "uncanonical."

17. "Bulgarian Parliament moves to protect Patriarchate's legal status against registration of schismatics," OrthoChristian, January 2025: the Patriarch "and members of the Holy Synod met with various institutions seeking state protection against a potential new schism, agreeing on the need to prohibit the use of the word 'Orthodox' as a designation for any church in Bulgaria other than the Patriarchate."

18. Contemporaneous Bulgarian reporting on the meeting between the Patriarch and the leader of GERB, December 2024 ("the sole expression of Orthodoxy in Bulgaria"); see also the Wikipedia digest of party positions with underlying Bulgarian sources.

19. Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Religious Denominations Act, adopted 31 January 2025, in force 4 February 2025; The Sofia Globe, "National Assembly legislates that Bulgarian Orthodox Church is country's sole representative of Eastern Orthodoxy," 31 January 2025 (vote of 186–1); OrthoChristian, "Only Bulgarian Patriarchate can use 'Orthodox' in its name," February 2025 (two-month renaming deadline; termination and liquidation procedure).

20. Remarks of the deputy from We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria on the floor of the National Assembly, 31 January 2025; The Sofia Globe, ibid.

21. OrthoChristian, "Bulgarian Parliament moves to protect Patriarchate's legal status against registration of schismatics," January 2025.

22. Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, "Prosecutors Appeal Court's Refusal to Cancel Registration of Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria," July 2025, including the motions of the Sofia City Prosecution Office and the Religious Denominations Directorate to terminate the registration and initiate liquidation.

23. See n. 2.

24. See nn. 10, 13, 15.

25. Bulgarian Orthodox Old Calendar Church and Others v. Bulgaria, §§ 65–66 (the Article 14 complaint) and §§ 62–64 (the Court's holding on Article 9).

26. On the glorification of St. Seraphim (Sobolev) of Boguchar, February 2016, and the Bulgarian Patriarchate's celebration of its tenth anniversary at the church housing his relics in Sofia, see OrthoChristian, "10th anniversary of canonization of St. Seraphim (Sobolev), link between Russian and Bulgarian Churches," February 2026.

27. "But We Don't," Patristic Witness (2026), n. 1 and the discussion of the withdrawals of Georgia (1997) and Bulgaria (1998) from the World Council of Churches.

 

Source: https://patristicwitness.com/ArticleDetail?id=6a4778978db63aa061b0f4d1

 

 

 

The Holy Mountain’s Condemnation of Elder Ephraim of Philotheou’s move to ROCOR, and a Response (1991)

 

The Holy Community of the Holy Mountain Athos

Karyes, May 8, 1991

To His Beatitude, the Ecumenical Patriarch,
His All-Holiness Demetrios, our most honorable Father and
Master of the Phanar.

Most Holy Father and Master,

Grieved and horrified, our Holy Community has now officially become aware of the entrance of the former abbot of the holy monastery of Philotheou, Archimandrite Ephraim, into the schismatic and para-ecclesial “group” called the Russians Outside of Russia, which no local Orthodox Church recognizes. And we rightly ask ourselves how the former abbot’s conscience permitted him—he who, over the years, with the approval and permission of the sacred Archbishop of America, worked as a spiritual father within the flock of the local Church of His Eminence Archbishop Iakovos, dependent upon and under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Throne, thus bringing a multitude of spiritual sons into the parishes and churches canonically dependent upon Archbishop Iakovos, with whom he was in spiritual communion for more than ten years—how does he now advise the same sons whom he then counseled to submit to the Church, and who received the Holy Mysteries from her, to separate themselves, like rebels, from the Archdiocese, in order to join this para-ecclesiastical parasynagogue?

Your Beatitude certainly knows that these people of the Russian Diaspora, safe on foreign soil, were, until yesterday, playing at being spiritual fathers, and today they continue to accuse the sister Russian Church of having compromised herself with the atheist regime, while she was striving to strengthen the faithful in Russia and to keep the holy churches open, even at the price of the lives of her members, tens of thousands of whom faced martyrdom, while they fled by emigrating abroad. Today, when the breeze of freedom is blowing in Russia, they are entering the territory of the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow, “ordaining priests” and threatening the Russian Church with a new schism. And, unfortunately, the former abbot Ephraim has joined them.

Our Holy Community, scrupulously following the decisions of the holy extraordinary Double Synaxis of last April, openly and unanimously condemns the adherence of the former abbot Archimandrite Ephraim to the aforesaid para-ecclesiastical parasynagogue.

Likewise, it invites all the spiritual sons of His Eminence the Archbishop of America to remain faithful to this Archdiocese and to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, given that the Church of Constantinople, together with all the local Orthodox Churches in communion with her or depending administratively and spiritually upon her, is identified with the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church of the Creed. Outside her, there are only schisms and heresies. Outside her, there are no valid Mysteries, nor the grace of God, according to Orthodox teaching. “Outside the catholic Church, that is, Orthodoxy, there is neither Baptism, nor Eucharist, nor bishops, nor thrones, nor true teaching…” according to Saint Cyprian of Carthage.

It remains, therefore, Most Holy Master, for Your Holiness and the Holy Synod to take all the measures that are required in order to defend the unity of the flock of the Archdiocese in America and to shelter it from the mortal fall of the aforesaid abbot, who has simply placed himself outside the Church in order to carry out his erroneous aims in complete freedom, without the yoke of obedience to the Church that tonsured him a monk and ordained him a priest, and to which he promised obedience unto death at the taking of the monastic vows made on the Holy Mountain, which he abandoned.

Who entrusted him with the salvation of the Nations? Is the Church in America perhaps deprived of canonical shepherds, of bishops and priests? From whom did he receive a blessing? Let him give the names of the prominent Athonites from whom he sought counsel. We asked them all, and all condemned his behavior with harsh words and considered him as one “gone astray.”

Why his fall and the abandonment of his spiritual sons from the Holy Mountain, whom he had brought as far as the dread altar of the Great Church of Christ, where the Ecumenical Patriarch is bishop? Who will be able to affirm to us that his “inner conviction” was not a “delusion” of the devils, for Satan transforms himself into an angel of light?

Together with all the holy fathers who have not gone astray and who live in a manner pleasing to God on the Holy Mountain, we repeat the condemnation of his acts and ask for your paternal and patriarchal prayers; with profound respect and filial reverence, we kiss your honorable right hand, a fountain full of grace.

All the delegates and abbots of the common Synaxis of the twenty holy monasteries of the Holy Mountain Athos.

(Published in Ecclesia, no. 11, 391, July 1/14, 1991.)

* * *

Letter of Protest to the Holy Community of the Holy Mountain for everything that it wrote against Father Ephraim

 

Most Honored Fathers,

The reason that compels me to address the present letter to you is the publication in the journal Ekklesiastiki Aletheia of 1/7/1991 of the letter of the Holy Community concerning the transfer of the former abbot of the holy monastery of Philotheou, Father Ephraim, into the Russian Church Outside of Russia.

I became aware of its publication with a little delay, and I ask your Reverences to forgive me for everything that I am about to write to you.

Honestly, I was horrified by the content of the letter of the Holy Community. The expressions used by the author are harsh; the characterizations concerning Father Ephraim are inadmissible. You say that “he placed himself outside the Church, joining the Russian Church Outside of Russia simply so that he might, in complete freedom, fulfill his personal deluded aims, outside the yoke of obedience to the Church; that he is one gone astray; that this fall of his, manifested through this action, is mortal,” etc. …

Why, my fathers, why so much hatred for Father Ephraim? What evil has he done? This man sought ecclesiastical approval and nothing else, in order to create monasteries in America according to the Athonite model, something which neither the Ecumenical Patriarch nor Iakovos of America would have permitted him.

For this you call him a heretic! Can you tell me wherein the delusion consists and what its signs are?

How can you judge in this way a man who was the reformer of contemporary Athonite monasticism, when Mount Athos was in danger because of a lack of men, and who, by his spiritual radiance and by his holiness, repopulated the monasteries of monks on the Holy Mountain and a large number of monasteries of nuns on Greek soil?

Why, my fathers, why do you lie when you say that Father Ephraim’s action “was unanimously condemned by all the holy fathers who have not gone astray and who live in a manner pleasing to God”? We know that the abbot of the monastery of Konstamonitou left the Holy Double Synaxis in order to protest against all the accusations brought against Father Ephraim.

The representative of the monastery of Philotheou, Father Ephraim (not to be confused with the Father Ephraim mentioned above), protested forcefully against the horrifying and fearful accusations brought against his Elder. The holy monasteries of Xeropotamou and Karakallou did not agree for many reasons. The holy monastery of Esphigmenou did not participate. How, then, can you affirm that there was unanimity? Were the sketes asked? Were they represented by anyone? Were the simple monks of the cenobitic monasteries asked? Why so much venom, my Fathers?

How is it that on that very day, while the meeting of the Holy Double Synaxis was taking place, the political newspapers were already publishing in advance the decision condemning Father Ephraim, and that the Athens News Agency had already been informed by its correspondent in Constantinople?

Even supposing that Father Ephraim had gone astray, where, then, is love for your brother who has gone astray? Where are your tears? Where are your prayers to God for his return?

Alas, it seems that all these are nothing for you but burst soap bubbles. Through your behavior you have shown yourselves to have a face very different from the one you displayed to us in the showcase. In spite of your calumnies, the sun will continue to shine, to scatter rays, to warm pure and sincere hearts, and to burn up completely all the other hearts full of passions.

Why, my fathers, did you not show the same zeal against all the deeds and attitudes taken in the Church?

I shall cite a few examples to refresh your memory, in case you have forgotten.

On October 12, 1987, the late Patriarch Demetrios, going to Geneva, declared that his visit to the World Council of Churches was the summit of his pilgrimage, that the W.C.C. is our home! Do you agree with all this?

Are you in agreement with the visit that the late Patriarch made to Rome in December 1987? With the common prayers with Pope John Paul and with the memorial service that he performed at the tombs of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI, and especially with all the declarations of the Pope, against which he did not protest, namely that the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church had received the grace to meet one another again as sister churches and to move toward full communion?

Are you in agreement with the refusal of the Orthodox to confess, in the common communiqué of the plenary assembly of the Joint Theological Commission of the Dialogues between the Orthodox Churches and the Roman Catholic ones, at Freising near Munich, in June 1990, to confess, I say, the exclusivity of the Orthodox Church—her confession, her soteriology, her ecclesiology? This communiqué declares that our churches meet on the ecclesiological basis of communion between sister churches.

Are you in agreement with the communiqué of the Coordinating Committee of the Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox churches, where there is talk of a new ecclesiological vision, since the stage in which each church said of itself that it was the sole possessor of salvation had supposedly been surpassed, toward the conviction that the two churches, Catholic and Orthodox, are sister churches?

Are you in agreement with all the blasphemies uttered and practiced at Canberra, in Australia, in February 1991?

Are you in agreement with Stylianos of Australia, this new Kazantzakis, and with all the blasphemies that he cried out against the Theandric Person of the Lord?

Are you in agreement with the Doxology served by Iakovos of America with three representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at the visit of Patriarch Demetrios to America, at which the Imam, a papist delegate, a rabbi, Anglicans, and many other heterodox participated?

Are you in agreement with the common pan-religious prayer at Assisi in Italy, in October 1986?

Are you in agreement with the pilgrimage to the heretical Brotherhood of Taizé by three bishops of the Ecumenical Throne, for the purpose of addressing a special message of congratulations on behalf of the Patriarch?

The renowned theologian M. Nikolaos Sotiropoulos, in an article published by Orthodoxos Typos, writes that neither Stylianos of Australia nor his heretical opinions any longer shocked the monasteries of the Holy Mountain, which took a stand against Patriarch Diodoros of Jerusalem and supported Stylianos and the Patriarch of Constantinople, his accomplice.

N.Y. from Thessaloniki

(Source: Orthodoxos Typos, no. 152, November 15, 1991.)

 

Translated from the Romanian edition:

https://ortodoxiacatholica.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/staretul-efrem-din-arizona-condamnat-chiar-de-fratii-lui-din-sfantul-munte-athos-in-1991-pentru-ca-a-vrut-sa-intre-sub-jurisdictia-bisericii-ortodoxe-ruse-din-afara-granitelor-biserica-sfantului-ioa/

Should We Be Set Apart From Others?

By the Holy Monastery of the Paraclete, Oropos, Nea Palatia

 

 

By closely examining the social life around us, we inevitably come to the conclusion that in our time, duty and virtue have lost their former glory. What appears to matter today is power and numbers. This becomes especially evident in the political, social, and private lives of men.

The various pressures and injustices are easily forgiven to the powerful of our day. The much-celebrated progress and development often conceal and justify many other things. Frequently, even the slightest objection to a questionable event is characterized as lack of tact. Moreover, the opinion of the masses exerts a remarkable influence on human thought.

Whatever the crowd thinks, decides, and acts upon becomes law to which everyone must submit, including one’s very conscience. Of course, the majority can sometimes be right. Nonetheless, many are under the impression (perhaps not mistakenly) that most of the time, the crowds, the masses, are wrong.

“But why should we care?” many think. “It is wiser to behave like everyone else or, at the very least, it is not unforgivable not to adhere strictly to duty, since others do not adhere to it either. There is no reason to be set apart from others!”

This rule, however, is disastrous because, although it may appear to benefit us in certain circumstances, it ultimately demands of us a triple sacrifice: of our convictions, of our freedom, and of our honor.

THE SACRIFICE OF CONVICTIONS

Those who follow this rule often have to sacrifice their convictions first and foremost. It is, of course, widely accepted that it is usually necessary to adjust to daily demands and conditions of life, as long as they do not infringe upon faith or Christian morals. A Christian who is inspired by true love for his fellow man is always cheerful, polite, helpful, obliging, and willing to endure everything that does not go against his beliefs.

Nevertheless, here is the limit of his magnanimous disposition to conform to the world’s dictates. Let those around him heed neither divine revelation nor the teachings of the Church. Let them be carried away by public opinion to do their provocative deeds. Let them trample upon divine and human moral law without remorse. Let them scorn our Orthodox tradition. The faithful Christian will lament the spiritual disability of his fellow men, but of course he will never imitate them. His personal conscience, illuminated and guided by faith, remains his sole compass.

For how could it be otherwise? Does delusion cease to be delusion when accepted by the majority? Does evil, when done on a wide scale, not remain just as evil? Does moral duty, even if forgotten and unacceptable to the many, lose its transcendent and universal authority for him?

The Apostle Paul emphasizes to the unstable and faltering Christians of all ages: “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2).

So, if the whole world has forgotten the divine truths and has sunk into evil—“the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19)—in order for the teaching of the Gospel to be realized and for the will of God to prevail in all things, it is often both necessary and natural to distinguish ourselves precisely from those whose will does not agree with the divine law and whose life is not characterized by an Orthodox Christian spirit.

In this regard, the Old Testament presents us with an impressive example in the person of Tobit.

He lived in an era when the Hebrews, forgetting the countless blessings of God, fell into idolatrous delusion. The apostasy was so widespread that the words of the Prophet David could have applied to that time: “They are all gone astray, they are altogether useless, there is none that doeth good, no not one.” (Psalm 13:4).

However, amidst the deluded crowd, Tobit remains firm in his faith, adhering to the traditions of his ancestors and the divine law given at Mount Sinai. When everyone else was rushing to worship the golden calf, Tobit would go to the Temple in Jerusalem to worship the true God, offering the first-fruits of his fields and a tenth of all his income.

Then came the dark years of slavery, laden with trials, captivity in the land of the Assyrians. Yet, even now, he does not betray the path of truth. He remains steadfastly devoted to the ancestral law. Thus, while everyone else ate the meat of pagan sacrifices, the idol-offerings, which were forbidden by God’s law, he never once did “what everyone else does.”

Tobit’s ultimate testimony of faith, amidst his idol-worshipping nation, was his risky approach—diametrically opposed to that of his cowardly countrymen—on the issue of the burial of the dead, a matter vital to the Israelite conscience. He defied not only public opinion, their comments and mockery, but also the tyrants’ decree that forbade the burial of dead Israelites under penalty of death. Each evening, he would leave his humble home to perform—alone—the sacred duty of burying any unburied bodies of his unfortunate enslaved fellow-countrymen that he might find.

From the Holy Scriptures we know well the blessings with which the Lord rewarded him—not immediately, of course, but only after first testing his steadfast and courageous adherence to the divine law under the most desperately adverse circumstances.

Likewise, we too are called, amidst the formidable masses that are (voluntarily or, usually, involuntarily) mobilized against the faith and the Church of Christ, to distance ourselves as courageous individuals, to set ourselves apart from the others. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate,” writes the Apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 6:17); and Saint John Chrysostom comments: “Let us accept the counsel of the teacher of the world and consider what sort of men Christians ought to be; how they ought to be strangers to the present life, not to dwell somewhere outside and far from this world but rather, while living in this world and interacting with it, to live not as the world lives, thus shining like stars and showing the unbelievers through their works that they have transferred themselves to another polity, and that they have nothing in common with the earth and worldly things.” Therefore, we Christians will not sacrifice any of our principles and beliefs, nor the “jot” or “tittle” of our ecclesiastical life, for the sake of humbly pleasing those who act unlawfully.

THE SACRIFICE OF FREEDOM

It is noteworthy that the harmful rule “we must not stand out from others” is most often followed by people who like to call themselves “liberals,” without realizing that by conforming to this mass mold, they are denying their personal freedom and surrendering themselves to a humiliating slavery.

Saint John Chrysostom writes very accurately once again: “The crowd is, unfortunately, our master and a terrible tyrant... The great crowd, disorderly and insignificant, does not need to give orders; it need only show us its preferences, and we immediately obey everything. ‘And how,’ they say, ‘can one avoid these tyrants?’ If he acquires a mindset superior to theirs, if he carefully examines the nature of things, if he despises the opinion of the many, if, above all, he trains himself so that, in matters that are truly shameful, he fears not men but the ever-watchful eye of God, and in good matters, he seeks again the crowns that He bestows.”

Let us all openly ask ourselves: A person who is afraid to stand out from others, who does not dare to openly express his beliefs—is he truly free? He would be happy if he could express himself without hesitation, according to the voice of his conscience, but he does not dare. He is not free. He is a captive to “public opinion.” The mere presence of people with opposing views paralyzes him.

He is very bold and acts according to his conscience when he is alone or in an environment that shares his beliefs; but observe him when he is among the unsteady crowd. You won’t recognize him! He becomes a different person, thinking and living like everyone else. He denies his personality, his freedom of thought and conscience. He is a slave, and indeed, the most miserable of slaves.

This expression does not conceal any form of exaggeration. Is there perhaps a more wretched form of slavery than not being able to express what you feel and to act as you desire?

He who is fettered by such psychological complexes is often compelled to humble himself greatly. The fear of “standing out from others” forcibly drives him to participate at times in soul-eroding conversations or to occasionally smile at blasphemous and vulgar jokes against the faith. Such a tactic, however, is not only unfree but leads to the complete debasement of one’s personality.

So, these are the inevitable consequences of the rule “there is no reason to stand out from others, but it’s better to behave like everyone.”

The early Christians and martyrs behaved entirely differently. In front of the bloodthirsty judges’ judgement seat and the angry hostile crowds, they did not hesitate to boldly confess their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

They would ask the Christian: “What is your name?”

“Christian!” he would answer.

“What is your profession?”

“Christian!”

“Where are you from?”

“Christian!”

Always the same majestic and courageous response, which often put the persecutors in a difficult position, sometimes it troubled them, and not infrequently it led them to Christ.

This is the genuine Christian spirit: a spirit of sincerity, steadfastness, true freedom, a spirit diametrically opposed to the humiliating theory of “there is no reason to stand out from others.” “God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power.” (2 Timothy 1:7).

THE SACRIFICE OF HONOR

But does this tactic of “chameleonism,” by stripping the Christian of his principles and of his own self-liberty, at least ensure the respect and esteem of others, for which it primarily aims? It would be completely irrational to assume such a thing. Common opinion on spiritual matters—as we’ve already mentioned—often misses the mark. However, it never rewards characters who vacillate. How can we deny it? People love and in fact admire, even if only inwardly, those with steadfast and clear convictions, and their respect for those who stand unwaveringly by their principles runs deep.

This held true even in the idolatrous world. A pre-Christian wise man, desiring to portray the image of a virtuous person, emphasizes that nothing can deter him from fulfilling his duty: neither the exceeding power of tyrants, nor the pressure of public opinion, nor even the destruction of the entire... world!

The following action of the pagan emperor Constantius Chlorus is very convincing regarding the truth of what we are now supporting. Wanting to test the Christian officers of his retinue, he announced that he would keep close only those who would immediately renounce their Christian faith. Some then, taking a step forward, declared that they were ready to renounce. Then Constantius, casting them a contemptuous glance, dismissed them as unworthy of his trust.

The same contemptuous gaze, whether overt or hypocritically veiled, is the reward of the cowardly and the faint of heart, who are ready to betray their principles at an ironic smile. People disdain them, while, conversely, they respect those whom nothing can deter from the Christian way of life which they have chosen. Not only do they respect them, but sometimes they are ready to emulate them.

One incident illustrates this. At a luxurious hotel, an official dinner was held during a fasting period. Everyone was eating non-fasting foods. Someone, however, ordered fasting food, resulting in many ironic smiles and offensive comments. Nonetheless, the calm and confident demeanor of the faster and his witty and serious responses quickly forced his superficial table companions to fall silent. One person in fact even rose from his seat and, expressing his admiration for the steadfastness of the first, added, “I don’t want only you to have fasting food tonight. I too am an Orthodox Christian, and from today I will follow your example.” He immediately asked them to serve him fasting food.

* * *

We must realize that a great danger to Christian life is posed in our days by the widespread distribution of the mindset that says, “There is no reason to stand out from the others.”

It is worth remembering that the pagan philosopher Plato, in the fifth century before Christ, highlights this danger to ethical life through the persona of Socrates. In the dialogue “Crito,” he personifies this petty concern “lest we incur the disapproval of the majority” in the character of Socrates’ disciple, Crito. But Socrates responds: “We should not give any thought to what most people will say of us. No, we should heed what the person who knows justice and injustice says, that one person, and truth itself.”

Speaking almost prophetically, besides not caring whether he will stand out from the majority, Socrates emphasizes the opinion of the one, the chosen one, who in our case is none other than God, the “One and Truth itself.”

Those, however, who consider Socrates and Plato “obsolete,” as well as the other wise man who said “to me, one excellent man is worth ten thousand,” let them rest their pioneering thought on the “pioneering” Eugène Ionesco and specifically on his “Rhinoceros,” which convey the same message, namely Socrates’s distrust of the opinion of the many and, even closer to us, the apostolic exhortation, “Be not conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2).

We remind the reader that in this work, the famous playwright allegorically presents some originally isolated cases of men who, following a rather beastly way of life, took on the external form of the rhinoceros, arousing of course the abhorrent aversion and dread of “good society.” Later on, however, these cases of metamorphosis increased, until the last ones who did not transform and remained human became the target of… rhinocerotic irony and contempt, feeling insecure because they were “different from the others,” in other words, because they did not become rhinoceroses themselves!

Between the teachings of Plato’s Crito and the pioneering message of Ionesco, for us Christians a remarkable prophecy by the illiterate teacher of the desert, Anthony the Great, holds a central (in terms of time and value) position, which we read in the Gerontikon:

“Abba Anthony said, ‘A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, “You are mad,” because he will not be like them.’”

If we are not already traversing this prophesied era, we are certainly very close to it. Of course, madness should not be our ambition, even if it is collective. Let us be ready to hear many times with philosophic dispassion the words, “You are mad.”

In any case, our collective experience, which is not so small, convinces us that those few and isolated individuals who have not been swept away by the current of mass adoption of ideas (whether social, political, or religious) are not so few, though they are admittedly isolated.

Of course, a very large portion of the world (not “the whole world”) is indifferent to spiritual values, ignores the voice of conscience, and tramples on the eternal law of God. There are many, however, especially among the youth, more than we suspect, who have not submitted to the mentality of the crowd and the leveling of the globalization that is being promoted, who have not deigned to betray their principles for a fake sociality, who have not “bowed the knee to Baal,” who have remained faithful to the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ and uncompromising in the ecclesiastical struggle for virtue. It’s just that, as we said, while they are not so few, they are “isolated” and unknown to the many, who are in need of such support.

It is true that “good does not make noise.” We agree. It is also true that the “remnant of the Lord,” which has not conformed to “this world,” is not—must not be—ostentatious. Finally, let it at least not be... shy!

So, for those of us who have been more or less influenced by the destructive theory that “there is no reason to stand out from the others,” it is an urgent necessity of the times to reject it as soon as possible. Without big words, let our stance, flowing from our genuine ecclesiastical experience, be the denunciation of this theory.

By steadfastly observing the bright commandments of our faith and of our Church, without guilty shame, full of courage, it is certain that we will soon enjoy the appreciation, trust, and respect of our fellow men. Even if this does not happen, the Lord Himself will abundantly reward us for our steadfastness and courage. Therefore, let us confess Him everywhere and always, “Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24).

 

Translated by Nicholas Nelson (typos corrected) and published by Uncut Mountain Press.

Prayers for the Seven Days of the Week

From the Patrimony of the Romanian Orthodox Church

 

 

PRAYER FOR SUNDAY

ON THIS DAY, Sunday, I recall thy boundless power, O Master, by which thou didst make the world and redeem mankind. And for this reason, O Lord and Lover of man, I worship thee and thank thee for thy great gifts, which thou hast wrought in all thy works. Truly my heart rejoices and makes glad when I stop and think that thou alone art God, holy, wise, merciful, benevolent, good, mighty, and beyond understanding; in short, thou dost not lack any goodness or majesty. I rejoice that thou art God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let all those who worship other gods be troubled, my Lord, for there is no other God but thee. Therefore, make Christians to wax in strength and increase in goodness, since they alone know thee, the true God, and confess and worship and serve thee always with all their heart and with all their strength.

O holy Father, have mercy on me! O blessed Son of God, save us from hell! O Holy Spirit, give us thy grace and thy shelter! O my Lord and Maker, hear the prayers and requests of my sinful soul, and give me thy grace, lowly and unworthy though I be, so that I may honor this Sunday according to thy commandment and according to the commandment of thy Church, our Mother. Give me true repentance so that I may weep over the sins I have committed against thy kingdom and against my soul and my neighbor. I pray thee, most merciful Lord, from this day forward make no remembrance of my many sins.

According to the multitude of thy mercies, I give thanks with my whole heart for the numberless good things thou dost send down upon me every day, and above all for the renewal of my soul and thy great long-suffering. For thou hast not punished me according to the multitude of my sins, but dost forbear and await my repentance, since thou art good and merciful and lovest forgiveness. And again I pray thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, grant that I may spend this week well, as a Christian ought, without sinning against thee in thought, will, word, or deed. Rather, may I pass this week in the power and glory of the annunciation to thy holy Mother, thy Resurrection on the third day, and the descent of thy Holy Spirit upon the apostles. O Master and Benefactor, I especially pray for thy help to know myself, that I may repent of my sins and correct myself through confession. Then, at the hour of my death, may I be found prepared through the reception of holy Communion, purified in heart, and thus worthy of thine everlasting kingdom. Amen.

PRAYER FOR MONDAY

LORD Jesus Christ, with deep humility I acknowledge and confess that all day long I sin against thy divine love. Therefore, today, on Monday, at the beginning of the week, I humbly pray for thy great mercy: forgive my sins, both voluntary and involuntary, and help me to make a good beginning and to care better for my soul, for which thou didst endure so much pain at thy holy Crucifixion.

O Lord, today I give thee my soul and my body and my will, asking that thy will be done in me, according to thy good pleasure. Reprove me, O Lord, according to thy mercy, in this world and not in the next. And forgive the living and the departed, for the sake of the prayers of thy holy Church, and make us all worthy of thy glory in paradise.

To this end I place before thee as intercessors thy holy angels, and to them I say: O heavenly helpers and guardians of men, I bow down before you and thank you for the help and guidance that you render us every day, unworthy and sinful though we be. Save me from mine enemies, visible and invisible, so that, from now on, I may never sin before my God. Make me worthy to see you round about me at the time of my death, attending me, ready to take my soul to heaven, where I may bow before the glory of the face of God, thanking you for the care you had for me, telling of your goodness with unceasing voice forever. Amen.

PRAYER FOR TUESDAY

O LORD my God, condemned I stand before thy holy face, and I confess my great unworthiness, helplessness, and poverty. And I beseech thee, O sweet Source and Ocean of mercy, open the dams of heaven and rain down upon me the goodness of thy mercy, so that I may cry and weep, washing and cleansing my soul from the defilement of sin with firm and true repentance.

And to obtain this gift for me, O Master, I put forward as my intercessor the Forerunner John, to whom I say: O teacher of faith and glorious prophet, who art greater than all the prophets, as the Son of God himself said of thee in the holy Gospel; who didst indicate our Master Christ to the people; who didst baptize him in the Jordan and see the heavens open; who didst hear the voice of the heavenly Father and witness the Holy Spirit as a dove descending upon him: I pray thee, help me by thine intercession, thou who dost stand in heaven before the eternal Judge, and make him to have mercy on me, for thou dost have great boldness in his love.

Stretch out that hand with which thou didst baptize him and destroy my evil thoughts, strengthening me to spend my life on the good path of God. O prophet, enlighten my mind with the commandments of the Lord, that I may have them in remembrance and observe them until the end of my life. And stay close to me in the hour of my death, and bring me repentant before my Master and God. Pray also for all the world, that God may render aid to all Christians, both the living and departed, and that he may grant them refreshment in their many necessities, giving them all that they need, and make them worthy of his kingdom. Amen.

PRAYER FOR WEDNESDAY

ALMIGHTY and all-merciful Lord, I remember that thou wast born as a Man of the blessed Virgin in a cave and wast sold for thirty pieces of silver by the unfaithful disciple in order to redeem us sinners who suffered under the power of the devil. Therefore, I pray thee, have mercy on me, a sinner!

Receive, O Lord, my small supplication and my humbled will, for I am sorrowful because I have sorrowed thee, and I grieve because I have provoked thee countless times. In thee, O most beneficent Savior, I place all my trust, and I believe that thou, who out of love for mankind didst accept to be sold for our sake, wilt have mercy even on me now, so that thou mightest save me from everlasting torment and make me worthy of thy kingdom.

Do not depart from me, O Lord, and help me, so that in all things I may do thy will, and not crucify thee further, day by day, with my sinful deeds, neither mock thee with my evil thoughts, as did the unbelieving Jews at thy holy Passion. Rather, like the sinful woman, may I wash thy feet with the tears of my eyes, so that even I may be made worthy to hear the words from thy sweet mouth: “Thy sins be forgiven.” Amen.

PRAYER FOR THURSDAY

LORD Jesus Christ, Son and Word of God the Father, who on this day didst eat thy Last Supper with thy disciples and with great humility didst wash their feet, even the feet of the disciple who sold thee; who didst then take bread and wine in thy holy hands and bless them with thy divine power, and didst make them to be thy very Body and Blood, of which thou didst grant thy disciples to partake, saying, ‘Take, eat, and drink, for these are my Body and Blood, so that your sins may be forgiven you’; who on this same day didst ascend into heaven and sit at the right hand of God thy Father, there to reign together with him forever as his beloved Only-begotten Son: I pray thee, through the prayers of thy disciples, forgive the sins of us all, the living and the departed. Grant me warm tears, O Lord, to weep over my sins. May thy cleansing grace, which washed the feet of thy disciples, wash and purify also my heart and soul, so that, with purity and humility, I may worthily partake of thy holy Mysteries, now and at the time of my death. And at the hour of my exodus, may my soul ascend to thee with joy, without any fear, doubt, or impediment during my passage, that I may enter into thy heavenly glory. Help me, O Lord,

PRAYER FOR FRIDAY

O LORD Jesus Christ, sweet Savior of my soul, on the day of thy Crucifixion, thou didst suffer and accept death for our sins. And I confess before thee that I am the one who crucified thee by many sins.

Nevertheless, I beseech thine inexpressible goodness that thou wouldst make me worthy of thy grace, O Lord, so that I, too, might endure suffering for the sake of my faith in thee, my hope in thee, my love for thee. And as thou, O Suffering One, didst suffer for the sake of my salvation, strengthen me, O Lord, that from this day forward I may bear thy Cross with joy and great repentance, hating my evil thoughts and intentions. Establish sorrow over thy death deep in my heart, so that I may share this sadness with thy beloved Mother, thy disciples, and the myrrh-bearing women who stood by thy Cross.

Illumine the senses of my soul, so that it may rouse itself and come to know thy death, just as thou didst cause the inanimate creation to know thee when it trembled at thy Crucifixion. More than this, may my soul come to know thy death as the believing and penitent thief knew thee and worshipped thee when thou didst make a place for him in paradise. Give me this grace as thou didst give it to him, O Lord, even though I have come to resemble the evil thief, and forgive my sins for the sake of thy holy Passion. And through my sincere conversion and repentance, place me together with the good thief in paradise, for thou art my Maker and my God.

I venerate thy Cross, O Christ, and because of thy love for us, I cry out in praise: Rejoice, O precious Cross of Christ, for the Lord, who was lifted upon thee and nailed to thee, has saved the world!

Rejoice, blessed tree, for thou hast borne the fruit of life, which has saved us from the death of sin. Rejoice, strong rod, which hast broken down the gates of hell. Rejoice, royal key, which hast opened the gate of paradise.

O my crucified Christ, how much thou hast suffered for us! How many wounds, how much spitting, and how many insults hast thou endured for our sins and in order to give us an example of true patience among the suffering and troubles of this life!

God sends these difficulties upon us on account of our sins, so that we may correct ourselves and draw near to him; in this life, he chastises only for our benefit. Therefore, I pray unto thee, O Master, that, amid whatsoever afflictions, temptations, and pains as may befall me, thou wouldst also increase my patience, strength, and contentment. For I know that I am helpless if thou wilt not strengthen me, blind if thou wilt not enlighten me, bound if thou wilt not loose me, afraid if thou wilt not make me bold, lost if thou wilt not search for me, a slave if thou wilt not redeem me with thine abundant divine power, through the grace of the holy Cross, which I venerate and magnify, both now and unto ages of ages. Amen.

PRAYER FOR SATURDAY

O LORD Jesus Christ, my Judge, I know that my sins are innumerable. Therefore, I pray to thee this day, upon which thou wast laid in the grave by Joseph and Nicodemus and didst descend into hell with thy holy and deified soul and drive away the darkness with the light of thy divinity and bring unspeakably great joy to our forefathers, saving them from dreadful bondage and raising them up to heaven: Bury my sins and my wicked and deceitful thoughts so that they may perish from my mind and cease forever their fight against my soul. Illumine the dark hell of my heart, expel the murk of sin, and lift my mind up to heaven to rejoice at thy face. O Lord, receive my humble prayer as a fragrant incense, through the prayers of thy beloved Mother, who saw thee nailed on the cross between two thieves and was wounded by the terrible pains of her heart, who together with the disciples and myrrh-bearers laid thee in the grave, who on the third day saw thee risen from the dead, and at thine Ascension saw thee ascending from earth to heaven in the company of thy holy angels.

Have mercy, Lord, on both the living and the dead, through the prayers of thy saints, whom I address in my unworthiness: O blessed servants of God, do not cease praying day and night for us in our unworthiness, for we continually transgress with numberless sins. Beseech God on our behalf for his grace and his assistance, for we do not know how properly to ask for what we need.

Never cease to pray: through your prayers, may forgiveness be granted to sinners, help to the poor, comfort to the sorrowful, health to the sick, wisdom to the foolish, peace to the troubled, protection to the oppressed, and the grace of God to each and every man, for the benefit of their souls, to the glory of God praised in Trinity, to whom is due honor and worship forever. Amen.

 

Source: Orthodox Christian Canons & Prayers, edited by Priest John Mikitish, St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press, South Caanan, PA, 2025, pp. 54-64.

 

Clouds and Shrouds

By Ephraim Figueroa

 

 

And like most everyone

I, too, enjoy the sun;

But on a quiet day

With nothing in the way,

I like to watch the clouds,

And how they seem to shroud

The sky and all its blue;

They lend to it a hue,

And make it look so fair—

They come from everywhere.

But since they always move,

In ways that seem so smooth,

Be sure to hold your gaze,

Or like a horse that strays

They’ll suddenly depart

And make a brand new start.

That’s right, they’re here and gone,

They’re always moving on,

So easily without force

In their appointed course—

Until they dissipate.

For when their hour is late

They’ll fade into the night

Then disappear from sight;

Which also is our plight.

For like the early mist

Which by the sun is kissed,

We too shall pass away

And leave without delay.

For life, which once began

So joyously, then ran

Through all its fruitful years,

Shall come to many tears.

For when the time is right

We shall depart from sight;

By death shall we be called,

By worms shall be dissolved

Within a narrow grave,

Or hid within a cave.

It’s there the body rests

Until the final test;

Until the trumpet sounds

With Angels all around.

That’s when it, too, shall rise,

Will wake with great surprise,

And joining its own mate

Will be judged at the Gate;

Where sentence will be passed

By Christ the Lord at last.

Then to the left shall go

All sinners unto woe.

But they shall enter in

Who faithfully have been

Disciples of the Word;

Who kept what they had heard

And lived it unto death,

Until their final breath;

Who made for Him a place

Within their hearts by grace;

Who by the Spirit’s might

Prevailed in that good fight.

Hence, with the Hosts on high

To God shall they draw nigh,

And they shall reap rewards

From Christ Whom they adored.

And they shall ever be

In peace eternally!

 

Source: The Faithful Steward, Issue 26, 2007, p. 12.

REVIEW: “Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries” by Sebastian Morello

The Conservative Case for Antichrist

Michael Warren Davis | June 3, 2025

[On the strange fascination of some modern “traditional Catholics” with Neo-Platonism, Hermeticism, and Kabbalah. The reviewer is a convert to Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism. – Blog Admin.]

 

 

“For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.” — Matthew 24:24

 

In my book After Christendom, I explain that West is undergoing a process of repaganization. Since the Fall, the world has been under Satan’s power. This is why Saint Paul calls him “the ruler of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4). The deities worshipped by the pagans were, in fact, fallen angels. This is why King David says, “The gods of the nations are demons” (Psalm 95:5).

A few centuries ago, these lands were baptized in the martyrs’ blood, the missionaries’ sweat, and the mystics’ tears. The “gods of the nations” were driven from their thrones, at least here in the West. They were not vanquished, however, but driven underground. They have been fighting a guerilla war against Christian civilization ever since.

In the last few centuries, the tides have turned quite dramatically. The demons are making a comeback here in the West. This will, most likely, culminate in the Reign of Antichrist.

Part of my thesis is that many on the political Right will hasten the West’s repaganization and, therefore, the coming of Antichrist. Some will do so knowingly—for instance, ethnonationalist and radical traditionalist groups who dismiss Christianity as a Jewish conspiracy against the white race and seek to restore Norse polytheism. However, many “Christian conservatives” will unwittingly assist the West’s repaganization as well. In seeking to preserving Christendom as political, social, and cultural entity, they will help the demons to undermine the West’s spiritual foundation: the Church.

As an example of this latter group I gave Sebastian Morello, an editor at The European Conservative. In 2023, Morello wrote a series of essays in which he argues that Hermetic magic can save the Catholic Church and, by extension, Christendom.

I assumed this would be a non-starter for virtually everyone who calls himself a Christian. After all, the Scriptures take rather a dim view of magic:

·       “But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” (Rev. 21:8)

·       “Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies…” (Gal. 5:19-20)

·       “Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver.” (Acts 19:19)

·       “And it shall be in that day,” says the Lord, “That I will cut off your horses from your midst and destroy your chariots. I will cut off the cities of your land and throw down all your strongholds. I will cut off sorceries from your hand, and you shall have no soothsayers.” (Mic. 5:10-12)

·       “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.” (Deut. 18:10-11)

·       “You shall not permit a sorceress to live.” (Ex. 22:18)

The Church has upheld this teaching consistently for the 2,000 years since Christ died. For instance, the first-century catechism known as the Didache addresses this question in its chapter on “gross sin,” along with abortion and pederasty:

And the second commandment of the Teaching: You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten.

Now, would Christian conservatives be comfortable with an article defending pederasty? Would any of our magazines publish an article saying that abortion could save the Church—or the West, or anything else worth saving? Of course not. When I put it that way, it sounds ridiculous. But then how could we justify the “gross sin” of magic in any form?

Frankly, I expected Morello’s essays on Hermeticism to be a career-ender. It’s not that I wanted him to get “canceled”; I just assumed that conservative Christians would be so repulsed by his proposal that they wouldn’t want anything to do with him. But no one seemed to care.

In fact, Morello recently brought out a book on this topic. It’s called Mysticism, Magic, and Monasteries. It was released in 2024 by Os Justi Press, a traditionalist Catholic publisher. The folks at Os Justi were kind enough to send me a review copy. So, here is my review.

* * *

Morello begins by diagnosing a three-fold crisis in the West:

1.     Post-Authority Era: The collapse of religious institutions and leadership.

2.     De-Enchantment: The emergence of materialism and naturalism as our default worldview.

3.     End of History: a triumphalistic presentism that makes it difficult, if not impossible, for modern Westerners to look to the past for guidance.

I don’t think Morello uses the third term in the book, but it captures a central theme: a kind of militant anti-traditionalism that prevents Western man from understanding the true nature of our present crisis, or its solution.

Anyway, I thought this part of the book was excellent. No quibble here.

The question is, what do we do about it? How do we address the threefold crisis? Morello’s answer, as you may have guessed, is Hermeticism: “A set of practices and disciplines of mind, will, and imagine to habituate the practitioner to a vision of the world that acknowledges it as God’s icon” (p.71).

As we said, the problem Morello faces is quite simple: Magic is evil and is condemned univocally by Scripture and the Church Fathers. [1] But don’t worry: Morello assures us that it’s not that kind of magic. It’s the good, Christian kind of magic:

The Western world has always believed in magic. It has always held that curses exist and that they can be placed on people, animals, fungi, and inanimate objects. And the Western world has always held that such curses can be banished by special words, special objects, and special concentration, which in that order it has been content to call “blessings,” “sacramentals,” and “prayer.” In short, even the most orthodox in the West have always believed what the Hermeticist calls the opposing forces of “goetia,” or black magic, and “theurgy,” or sacred magic—though they generally would not put it in such terms. (p.90)

Morello is pulling a classic syncretist gimmick: the false equivalence. Hermeticists believe in some kind of supernatural Thing. Christians also believe in some kind of supernatural Thing. Therefore, Hermeticists and Christians essentially believe the same Thing.

We don’t, though.

The word magic refers to the use of certain words (spells), gestures (rituals), and/or objects (crystals, herbs, etc.) to exercise control over natural and supernatural forces. According to its own internal logic, magic is morally neutral. It taps into certain laws that govern the universe, similar to the laws of gravity. Casting a spell, therefore, is not intrinsically immoral—no more than it’s intrinsically immoral to roll a rock down a hill.

Morality is determined, not by the means, but by the end. Why are you rolling the rock down the hill? If you’re using it to make a stone wall, that’s fine. But if you’re trying to flatten someone at the bottom, that’s evil. Likewise, magic that helps people is good, while magic that hurts people is bad.

Why, then, does Christianity condemn magic? Well, for two reasons.

First, there are no neutral powers. As Fr. Stephen De Young once said, “There are only two spirits: the Holy Spirit, and the other one.” There’s God and there’s the Devil. There are angels and there are demons. There are sheep and there are goats. There’s Heaven and there’s Hell. And every intelligent lifeform—corporeal or not—must choose a side.² “He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad” (Matt. 12:30).

So, whatever power Morello’s “magic” is tapping into, it is either beatific or demonic. Either it comes from God or… the other one.

Secondly, those powers can’t be controlled by spells or rituals. Morello is correct, of course, to say that Christians believe in the efficacy of blessings and curses. However, we do not believe that words and/or gestures have any inherent power. Again, the power comes from either beatific or demonic powers. And the response they give to our words and gestures is not automatic. We do not compel them to act in a certain way. We don’t compel them to act at all.

For example, say an Irish Catholic priest blesses a bomb, which the IRA will use to blow up a train station. Say that the priest prays that it will kill every single person in the station. Is the bomb automatically suffused with Divine Power? Does it become deadlier? Of course not.

Christ taught us these rituals—above all, the Divine Liturgy—so that we may cooperate with His divine grace. By saying these words and performing these gestures, we signal our desire to serve as vehicles for His energeia, to help Him achieve His goals. We can also use His power to achieve our own goals, but only if they align perfectly with His. We are not the boss of God.

To put it another way, God allows us to participate in His saving work the way a father allows his daughter to “help” wash the dishes… even if she takes three times as long, breaks a few plates, and leaves a puddle of water on the floor. It’s a beautiful gesture of paternal love. And it’s all right if the child, in her innocence, believes that she’s actually helping Dad. But “when I became a man,” Saint Paul writes, “I put away childish things” (1 Cor. 13:11). Christians shouldn’t imagine that we mortals have the ability to channel God’s energy on demand, as though He were obedient to us.

In a malicious inversion of this divine condescension, the demons will often give a magician the illusion of control. They will make it seem as if their spells are inherently efficacious. They will even pretend to be his slave. But this is always a deception. One day. the magician will discover that—quite without realizing it—he has become enslaved to the demons. And by then. it may be too late.

This is why the Church has always forbidden the use of any kind of magic. It is always a lie, a delusion, a blasphemy.

* * *

Now, if Morello was simply jazzing up mainstream Catholic theology with edgy Hermetic language, that would be bad enough.

For instance, we all understand that James Martin, S.J., undermines the Catholic Church’s witness on sexual morality by adopting the LGBT lexicon. He doesn’t need to come out and say, “I think homosexuality is great.” He doesn’t need to. He’s got the rainbow flag, celebrates Pride Month, blesses same-sex couples, etc. And in the process, he does measurable harm to the Catholic Church’s witness on sexual morality. Clearly, this is his goal. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. 13:9).

Likewise, imagine if we showed Morello all the passages where Scripture and the Fathers condemn magic. I know exactly how he would respond. He’d give us a certain look—knowing, pitiful, a little bored—and say, “Of course, I’m not talking about that kind of magic.” But where does the Church ever differentiate between good and bad magic? The same place where it distinguishes between good and bad pederasty, good and bad abortions, etc.

And Morello goes a step further than Martin. Not only does he introduce Hermetic language: he introduces Hermetic concepts as well.

The most glaring example comes in chapter seven, in which Morello discusses the concept of egregores. According to the dictionary, an egregore is an “autonomous psychic entity that is composed of, and influences, the thoughts of a group of people.” By way of example, Morello quotes a certain Catholic theologian who also happened to be a Hermeticist: “As Joseph de Maistre detected, the people did not lead the Revolution; the Revolution led the people. In such cases, it looks a lot like we are dealing with egregores” (p.91).

Now, this isn’t the most egregious example. But it only gets worse from here.

For instance, all of you Catholics will remember Fiducia Supplicans: Pope Francis’s encyclical authorizing the blessing of same-sex couples. And you’re probably not a huge fan. But why not? Well, you would probably say that it further erodes the Church’s witness on sexual morality. Some would point out that it offends God by misusing the sacred authority with which Christ invests the priest by at his ordination. A few would argue that, by inverting the proper sacramental order, it becomes a sort of demonic parody of itself.

According to Morello, you would be wrong. You’re actually afraid of conjuring an egregore: “The fact is, embarrassing as it might seem, we still believe that special words said with special concentration, perhaps combined with special gestures and special artefacts, can possess a special causal power when aided by special, powerful spirits” (p.92).

That’s not the end of it, either. In this same chapter, Morello writes this:

Some time ago, I visited an old friend, a monk, at his priory. He and I discussed the notion of egregores in some depth. Eventually he said, “It seems to me that what the Hermetic tradition calls ‘egregore,’ the mainstream of Christianity would call ‘antichrist.’” Then, I thought: What indeed could antichrist—the antithesis of Christ—be? The spiritual Logos descended into matter, while egregores are spiritual error-structures that arise from the material plain. The truth became incarnate, while egregores are falsehoods that become spirits. The Incarnation is one; egregores are many. (p.93)

There are at least two massive problems with this statement.

First, the spiritual can’t “arise” from the material. This violates the ontological hierarchy. In fact, the Catholic Church teaches that God alone can create spiritual entities. Even in sexual reproduction, a man and a woman only create the body of a child; the soul is given to Him directly by God at the moment of conception.

Secondly, Antichrist is not a “spiritual error-structure.” He is a person.

To be exact, there are many antichrists who herald the coming of a final Antichrist. According to Saint John the beloved: “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18).

The final Antichrist is described by Saint Paul as the lawless one:

For the secret power of lawlessness is already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming. The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. (2 Thes. 2:7-10)

So, the concept of egregores maps on to neither traditional Christian metaphysics nor the traditional Christian account of Antichrist. Morello’s position is heretical, historically illiterate, and metaphysically nonsensical.

* * *

I expect many folks still won’t understand why I’m making a big deal about this. So, let me be as blunt as possible: Sin is still sin, even if it’s got a RadTrad vibe. Heresy is still heresy, even if it’s based and red-pilled.

Morello explicitly aligns himself with Renaissance Hermeticisits such as Pico Della Mirandola. What he neglects to mention is that his use of magic led Mirandola into conflict with Catholic authorities, or that he eventually repented and embraced a life of prayer and fasting. The Church gives this exact prescription to everyone who has ever dabbled in magic—myself included. She always has; she always will.

So, where could Morello possibly go from here? Is Christian Hermeticism no longer a heresy because it’s an old heresy?³

There is much more to be said about this book. On Friday, I’ll post a second review, critiquing the book specifically from an Orthodox perspective. I want to leave it here for now, though, as a warning to all Christians. Remember what the Lord says: “For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect” (Matt. 24:24).

Let me say this one more time, so no one can accuse me of mincing my words. A “conservative” like Sebastian Morello is no less dangerous than a “liberal” like James Martin. Yes, one is trying to prop up Christendom while the other is trying to destroy it. But though their ends are different, their means are exactly the same: the normalization of grave sin. Both, therefore, attack Christian civilization at its very foundation: the Church.

Ultimately, Morello and Martin are on the same side. They are both hastening the advent of Antichrist—whether they realize it or not.

 

NOTES

Top of Form

 

1. Bottom of Form

1. Even those who speak favorably of Hermes Trismegistus as a philosopher implicitly or explicitly condemn his magical system. For instance, Morello names Cyril of Alexandria as a supporter of Hermes. But look at what the saint actually says:

This Hermes of Egypt, then, although an initiator into mysteries, and though he never ceased to cleave to the shrines of idols, is [nevertheless] found to have grasped the doctrines of Moses, if not with entire correctness, and beyond all cavil, yet still in part.

In other words, Cyril admires Hermes despite his sorcery, not because of it. God knows he would not have supported an effort to revive the Hermetic mystery cult—especially not within the Christian Church.

2. According to the Qur’an even says that the djinn (genies) must choose sides. Some are Muslims; some are infidels. Some are even Jewish or Christian!

3. Is this why so many “conservative” Christians are so keen on Nestorianism these days?

 

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20250726112313/https://yankeeathonite.substack.com/p/the-conservative-case-for-antichrist

For another review from a Papist author, see here:

https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/occult-subversion-traditional-catholicism/