The Unrelenting Truth to a Deluded Theologian (1933)

On the anniversary of the repose in the Lord of the ever-memorable Bishop of Magnesia, Chrysostomos Naslimis (+ July 13, 1973 O.S.), we publish one of his first texts, which he wrote while still a layman, published in the then official organ of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece, The Herald of the Orthodox (issue no. 126, Sep 11/24, 1933).

The text is apologetic in nature and is addressed to a certain "deluded theologian" of the New Calendar, without naming him, who at that time, it seems, in the provinces, was expressing himself in writing and verbally against the followers of the Patristic Calendar, characterizing their true piety as "delusion."

At that time still a layman in Volos, Christos Naslimis, only 23 years old but venerable in mind, gives a fitting confessional reply, to the shame of the deluded accuser and for the strengthening of the Genuine Orthodox Flock. In certain points, the phrasing belongs to that early period following the Calendar Innovation, when there was still a strong expectation of rectification of the evil [reform/division] and a God-pleasing union of the Church.

The incurable New Calendarists, however, continued and do not cease from time to time to rage against the Truth; for this reason, the content of that noble text preserves, in the beauty of its style and in the simplicity and clarity of its arguments, a striking timeliness.

May the Lord grant rest to the soul of the blessed struggler for the Truth, Chrysostomos, Hierarch of the long-suffering, and may his prayers guide us in preserving the divine Deposit [of Faith]!

***

A multitude of clergy and a multitude of theologians (let us not mention the lesser ones, so as to judge other Christians who, as you also well know, all without exception approve the mindset of us so-called Old Calendarists), before the undisguised truth, covered their faces and stretched their hands toward heaven, uttering curses and anathemas against those who took the lead and still persist in the accursed Calendar Innovation, which has troubled the entire Orthodox Church.

We believe that you are in a position to know well that our mindset is spreading and being propagated day by day. Our mindset does not constitute a factional grouping, like others, aiming at the dominance of an opinion oriented toward worldly gain. Never did the adherents of the Old Calendar think to calculate days and seasons precisely, as their slanderers claim. The Old Calendarists aim to preserve all that the Church has received from the Holy Fathers—whether it be the Paschalion, or fasting, or the calendar, or the canons of marriage—for it is true that the Fathers of the Church taught all things rightly.

The Holy Spirit spoke through the Councils what is pleasing to God for the Christians to follow. If the calendar, if the Paschalion, if also all the other ecclesiastical customs were erroneous, we believe that the Holy Spirit would have informed the Holy Fathers, so that we might not follow them. Only if we admit that the Holy Spirit has not rightly guided the Church from the time of the Apostles until now, only then can we suppose that there are some errors within her. But this would constitute a dreadful blasphemy against Him, and it is known that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven, neither in the present age nor in the one to come.

Perhaps you will say to us that the Church has at times employed minor variations in matters of small importance, which also the present Church has done, and therefore you Old Calendarists should not have been scandalized. That the Church at times has introduced certain variations in her customs is true, but whatever the Church did, she did for the greater spiritual benefit of the Christians, and what was done was joyfully accepted by all. Now, however, we ask you: what have today’s Christians gained by being made to celebrate the feasts 13 days earlier? What good came to the Church after the alteration of the calendar? We at least do not see that any benefit has been brought about, except internal scandals, mutual conflicts among once brethren, division, schism, desolation in the Mother Church. It is therefore evident that the reform of the old ecclesiastical calendar tradition was not a fruit of the Holy Spirit. For it is written that the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, etc.

Please remember the past years, how the children of the Mother Church were in peace, and how now, being divided, they are tearing one another apart. Who is in the right is not difficult to discern. We have ecclesiastical Law, we have ecclesiastical History, and in addition, we also have the fruits from the works of each of the two contending parties. What remains now is to examine: What calendar did the Church have from the beginning? The Old one. Upon which calendar did She establish the Paschalion, the festal cycle, and the fasts? Certainly upon the Old one, and the proof is the irregularities occurring in the Church after its alteration, namely: abolition of the Fast of the Holy Apostles, the displacement of Pascha beyond April, general confusion in the Services, etc. What does Church history testify? Whichever such history we may open, we shall see that the issue of the calendar appeared around 1550, and that the Gregorian Calendar was three times condemned with anathema by the Orthodox Church through Pan-Orthodox Synodal decisions (1583, 1587, 1593). We do not consider it necessary to refer you to the pertinent chapters of history, for surely you know them better than we do.

Let us also examine what behavior was shown by the followers of the anathematized Gregorian Calendar. They employed truly anti-Christian means against those persisting in the Old. They imprisoned, exiled, beat, abused, murdered by the blows of gendarmes, dissolved (parishes and communities), and in various other ways pressured them to abandon the Old and follow the New. The conduct of the Innovators is indeed very characteristic. Whereas Christ compelled no one to follow Him, and neither the Apostles nor any of the Saints wished to violate the free will of man, the New Calendarists of today employed every unlawful means to win over those persisting in the ancient ecclesiastical custom. Christ gave the commandment that we should love even our enemies, but the innovators show not only no love, but not even a trace of sympathy toward their brethren. Christ said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” Let these words suffice to answer us whether, from their works, the New Calendarists are even Christians. But we have said that we must also judge from the works of those following the calendar innovation whether those who introduced it were truly guided by the Holy Spirit.

I take the liberty to urge you to cease opposing the will of God. Our faith knows how to utterly crush those who wage war against it. Therefore, do not desire to war against it as well, for your end shall be pitiable. If you think that you possess the truth, it is necessary that you come forth into the arena, and not fight in secret and in hiding, unarmed with weapons and arguments. Do you not know whether the day is very near when peace shall come to the Church through the eradication of the wrongly wrought calendar innovation? And then, what shall become of all those who fought against the Church? What courage will they then have to preach the word of God from the pulpit—those who once renounced the sacred and the holy? All the more prudent have taken this into account, seeing the ever-growing number of the faithful, and they have already begun to retreat—some covertly and others openly. This too you ought to do, for your own benefit, unless indeed you truly believe that the Old Calendarists are in delusion. In that case, I repeat: if you will, come out to war. You are theologians; they are rustic. You are wise; they are foolish! Come forth, and let us see what the One who takes the wise in their craftiness will do.

The New Calendarist sophists say that they supposedly did not adopt the synodically condemned Gregorian Calendar, but simply added 13 days to the Julian and corrected its error. But we ask: what more ought we to have done in order to adopt the Gregorian? And it is not only about the calendar. They dare to say that they will also correct the Paschalion, as if that too were supposedly in error—despite the fact that at another time they wished to throw dust into the eyes of the people by claiming that the Church’s anathemas supposedly concerned the Paschalion and not the calendar. [But] they also wish to legislate unlawful marriage for both clergy and laity, to cut down fasts and services, and to establish many other innovations by synodal decree...

What do these shameless publications of theirs show, if not their sinful character?

- Chr. E. Naslimis

 

Greek source: https://iaathgoc.gr/index.php/blog/rthra/ntiairetik/853-adyswpitos-alithia

It was Chrysostomos Papadopoulos who tore apart the Church with the Calendar Innovation…

 

Telegram of Ecumenical Patriarch Photios [II] (1929-1935) to Archbishop Chrysostomos Papadopoulos:

"Please inform the former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos, that the participation of His Eminence in a movement against the peace and unity of the Church and the pious nation has deeply saddened us and the Mother Church. Reminding him of the sacred oaths he took before the Church in the all-holy Patriarchal Church, regarding lifelong devotion and obedience to the Church, oaths which we still hear resounding, we, together with the Holy Synod around us, call for obedience and discipline towards the Church, declaring that the violation and breaking of these oaths will result in the erasure of his name from the book of life, because his audacity and that of those collaborating with him is directed against the God-established Mother Church and the unity of the pious people."

Patriarch PHOTIOS

- Newspaper Νέος Κόσμος, June 7, 1935

+++

The former Metropolitan of Florina, Saint Chrysostomos, in response to the letter sent to him by Ecumenical Patriarch Photios, sent the following letter:

 

Your Holiness, Master, Holy and Sacred Synod,

With a sorrowful soul and righteous indignation in my heart, I have received the telegram of Your Holiness transmitted to me through the Synod of the Church of Greece. In response, submitting the attached printed protest, I proceed to briefly declare the following:

A) We are not transgressors of the oath of faith and obedience to the Mother Church, but rather it is those who have violated the Traditions of the Holy Seven Ecumenical Councils and the centuries-old practice of the Orthodox Church through the calendar innovation.

B) We did not tear apart the Orthodox Church nor divide the Orthodox Greek people, but rather the innovating Bishops, who, in disregard of the centuries-old Orthodox institutions, introduced a foreign calendar tradition, reeking of Papism, serving the hidden desires of the Western church, and exposing the Orthodox Church as lacking unity and cohesion in matters of faith and Divine Worship.

C) We, Your Holiness, remaining faithful to the Traditions of the Seven Ecumenical Councils and the venerable Ecumenical decrees that constitute the unity of Orthodoxy and form the simultaneous and uniform expression of faith and divine worship, are worthy of praise and blessings from the Mother Church, and not of criticisms and threats, in contrast to those who, despite their oath of faith and the venerable Traditions of the Holy Seven Ecumenical Councils and the divine and sacred canons, trampled upon them through the unilateral and uncanonical implementation of the Gregorian calendar in Divine Worship. The Gregorian calendar, as is well known, was characterized by the great Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremias II at a Pan-Orthodox Synod in Constantinople as an innovation of Old Rome, as a global scandal, and as an arbitrary violation of the Synodal decrees and Ecclesiastical Traditions.

D) We, Your Holiness, believe that the [current] resolution on the calendar issue is not only not canonical but also entirely contrary to the canons, because, apart from the fact that it did not stem from a decision of an Ecumenical Council, which alone is justified by the spirit of the divine and sacred Canons and the centuries-old practice of the Orthodox Eastern Church to resolve matters of a general ecclesiastical nature, it also lacks the ecclesiastical authority of the Ecumenical Throne. It was decided solely by a twelve-member Synod and not by the entire hierarchy of the Throne assembled in Synod and making decisions in the Holy Spirit, in accordance with the 34th Apostolic Canon. In the attached printed protest and clarification of the calendar issue, we extensively demonstrate the ecclesiastical and national reasons that encouraged us to take this great and historic step: and we are confident that, when Your Holiness and the Synod around you carefully read this, you will justify us. Perhaps, Your Holiness, you will ask us why, before declaring the governing Church schismatic and cutting all relations and spiritual communication with it, we did not present these reasons to the Synod of the Hierarchy? In response, we assure you that for twelve whole years, in all the Synods of the Hierarchy, we, together with other like-minded bishops, appealed to the sound judgment and Orthodox sentiments of the Hierarchy, earnestly exhorting them in the name of the unity of Orthodoxy and the peace and tranquility of the Church to restore the traditional calendar, the only thing capable of uniting what had been divided, as it had caused the division in the first place. Unfortunately, not only were we not heard by the majority of the Hierarchs, but we were even ridiculed as being out of touch and as clinging like barnacles to a rock to what, according to them, was an outdated and useless ecclesiastical tradition. Thus, when we saw that the schism had already been created without us, initially by a few Christians and now by over two million, and that the Hierarchy had no intention of restoring the Orthodox calendar, we embarked on this sacred and Holy Struggle, sustained by the hope that sooner or later, under the pressure of the people, the Hierarchy would be compelled to restore the Orthodox calendar for the sake of the unity of Orthodoxy and the peace of the Church. If the Archbishop is passing contrary information to you, do not believe him, for he has often been caught lying by his own signature. We know that the Archbishop, using falsehood and abusing the power of the Revolutionary Government, of which he was a blind instrument, then misled the Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, pushing it toward this calendar innovation, thus jeopardizing the authority that the Ecumenical Patriarchate exercises over all Orthodox Churches as the palladium of Orthodoxy. The same Archbishop is again attempting to mislead the Patriarchate through lies and slander, his only weapons, to push it into anti-Orthodox and uncanonical decisions that will have an impact on all Orthodox Churches standing on the foundation of the Holy Seven Ecumenical Councils and Ecclesiastical Traditions. We draw the attention of Your Holiness and the Holy Synod around you to this serious issue, for we must not forget that the primacy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate over spiritual matters is at stake due to the calendar innovation, and that the golden seals of Orthodoxy, acquired through rivers of martyrdom, are being nullified. Our bold and Orthodox stance protects these ancient rights and the primacy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as it absolves it from responsibility before the other Orthodox Churches for the audacity of the calendar innovation, placing it instead on the twelve-member Synod of the Patriarchate, which exceeded the limits of its jurisdiction, having been misled by the Archbishop, as is evident from the testimonies of respected persons, including the late Patriarch Constantine [VI], and from the official documents exchanged between the late Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory [VII] and the Archbishop of Athens. Let us not hide behind our fingers, Your Holiness. The calendar innovation, of which the Archbishop of Athens and his like-minded and equally responsible ally, Patriarch Meletios [Metaxakis] of Alexandria, are the instigators and primary agents, not only jeopardized the Orthodox prestige of the Ecumenical Patriarchate but also opened in the heart of the Orthodox Church of Greece a festering wound of a malignant nature, which, unless healed by the restoration of the Orthodox calendar, will bring decay and gangrene to the entire organism of the Autocephalous Church of Greece, which will have a terrible impact on the unity and vitality of the Greek nation. Be careful, Your Holiness, not to be misled again by the Archbishop, who, for reasons unknown, serving anti-Orthodox and anti-national purposes, has moved every stone to present us as underminers of ecclesiastical and national unity, portraying us as schismatics within the Church, while it was he who tore it apart with the calendar innovation. This is why the entire Greek people, fervent devotees of the Ecclesiastical Traditions, have disavowed him as an enemy of Orthodoxy and embraced us as pillars and defenders of the sacred and national traditions. And just as he falsely presented the calendar innovation to the late Ecumenical Patriarch Gregory as a pan-Hellenic desire and as serving the highest national interests, as events have shown, so now he will likely present to you that we, through our saving and historic initiative, provoked the wrath of the Orthodox Greek people. Yet we have received thousands of telegrams from all regions expressing their devotion to us as pillars of Orthodoxy and declaring that they are ready, fighting at our side, to shed their blood in defense of the Orthodox institutions and Ecclesiastical Traditions. We make these things known to you in advance and earnestly entreat you not to give any credence to what the Archbishop, the leader of falsehood and intrigue, writes to you. The Orthodox calendar will be restored in the Greek Church because respect for the Seven Ecumenical Councils and Ecclesiastical Traditions demands it, and because the Orthodox Greek people, the fervent devotees of religion and vigilant guardians and custodians of Ecclesiastical Traditions, have made this issue a matter of life and death.

What will save the unity of the Church and the Nation is only the return of the Church to the Orthodox Calendar, which must happen as soon as possible through the personal sacrifice of those who have caused this accursed division among the Orthodox Churches and Christians. Any other solution is excluded as dangerous to the peace and tranquility of the devout Greek people and to the Orthodoxy of the Church. This we deemed appropriate to communicate to Your Holiness and the Synod around you in response to your telegram, and we are pleased to believe that the Mother Church, caring for the unity of Orthodoxy and the peace of the Orthodox Greek people, will not only be inclined to restore the Orthodox Calendar but will also recommend to the Archbishop the personal sacrifice imposed by the unavoidable necessity of the situation, for the restoration of the Orthodox calendar institution and the appeasement of the devout Greek people who have risen against him.

With that,

I remain with brotherly love,

The former Metropolitan of Florina, CHRYSOSTOMOS

 

 

Source: Τὰ Πάτρια, Metropolitan Kalliopios (Giannakoulopoulos) of Pentapolis, Volume VII, Piraeus, 1987, pp. 162-166.

The Light of the Virtuous

Protopresbyter Dionysios Tatsis | March 18, 2026

 

 

Modern people are not particularly distinguished for the willing fulfillment of their duties in their profession and for the observance of the divine commandments in their personal life. These two are interrelated. The observance of the commandments, which forms conscientiousness in a person, is a prerequisite for the precise fulfillment of his duties. Those who achieve this combination experience very deep satisfaction, which lasts for many years. When, moreover, it is a permanent way of life and activity, the satisfaction is lifelong. All people desire satisfaction, but not all are consistent in the prerequisites. We shall present two examples, after first making a necessary clarification. The fulfillment of duties with dedication of soul and not with bureaucratic sluggishness presupposes religious conscience and the presence of many virtues in a person.

A retired teacher, conscientious in his vocation, used to say that he searches in vain to find even one of his students who would criticism him. All praise him, greet him, show him respect, and have beautiful memories. His students are his spiritual children, of whom he speaks with love, and many times, jokingly, he assures that every positive and good thing they have they owe to their teacher! And even after two and three decades, the mutual feelings remain. The students grow up and change, but the teacher also grows old and begins to forget and not easily recognize his students, who are now men and women with professions and families. Every time the retired teacher meets one of his students, or remembers him particularly from some characteristic of his personality, he rejoices and his soul is filled with a satisfaction for which there are no words to describe it.

The second example is given to us by a priest who worked for decades in small and remote parishes, without ever seeking advancement of position. He was satisfied with his humble work. He was distinguished by his readiness to serve his parishioners without payment, to communicate with them, to care for the maintenance and proper condition of the central churches and the chapels, and to manage their income with conscientiousness, something which they especially appreciated and thus offered money for his work. Money was never lacking, and he was able to meet the needs of his parishes. He was reverent within the church, but also outside, when the Divine Liturgy ended and people would wait for him with interest for coffee at the café or in the parish hall. There he would willingly converse with everyone, resolve various questions related to religion and the needs of the village, and at the same time receive information about his traveling parishioners. He always departed from his parish satisfied and glorified the Lord who deemed him worthy to perform his priestly duties and to satisfy the people. He was tireless, although he had to travel great distances. He always served in more than one parish, due to the lack of parish priests. His good experiences from his ministry preserved his sacred zeal, but also his good willingness to work, even though he had exceeded fifty years in the priesthood! Every time his parishioners and other acquaintances asked him whether he would retire, he would smile and tell them: “We priests of the provinces do not retire, as long as we are able to celebrate the Liturgy. We do not forget that the priesthood exists until the last day of our life, and may it be that until then we remain on our feet and in sound mind!”

The virtuous man is not regarded with love by everyone. There are always some who wish to diminish him in the eyes of the many, because they themselves are reproved by his presence. It is not enough for them to taste the fruits of the tree; they want to cut it down. However, the majority of people accept him, and some well-disposed individuals pay closer attention to him, are taught by his words and his deeds. If the virtuous man is also a clergyman, the benefit that results for society as a whole is great.

The light of virtuous people is necessary in our harsh age, in which people have lost their spiritual orientation and are miserable, despite their external brilliance and the hypocrisy in their life.

 

Greek source:

https://orthodoxostypos.gr/%cf%84%cf%8c-%cf%86%e1%bf%b6%cf%82-%cf%84%e1%bf%b6%ce%bd-%e1%bc%90%ce%bd%ce%b1%cf%81%ce%ad%cf%84%cf%89%ce%bd/

 

“Anti-ecumenists” in the Service of Ecumenism

By Dimitris Chatzinikolaou,

former Associate Professor of Economics of the University of Ioannina

Introduction

The present article supplements three previous articles of mine, in which it was demonstrated that some “anti-ecumenists,” such as Fathers Epiphanios Theodoropoulos (†1989), Euthymios Trikaminas, Theodoros Zisis, Eugenios, Savvas Lavriotis, etc., preach three heresies in order to fight the Orthodox of the Patristic Calendar (P.C.), a fact which tarnishes their struggle on behalf of Orthodoxy. It should be noted, first, that there is significant overlap between the present and the aforementioned three articles. Second, with regard to the movement of the P.C., the article is limited to the time period 1924–1935, focusing on the walling off of 1924 and on the ordinations of 1935. Third, the author does not belong to any “faction” of the P.C. During the period 1999–2017 he belonged to the Synod of [Archbishop] Chrysostomos (now [Archbishop] Kallinikos), from which he walled himself off on account of its subjection to Law 4301/2014 and the establishment of Religious Legal Entities (RLE).

1. The heresy of “Potentialism”

Some of the opponents of the Patristic Calendar (P.C.) preach the heresy of “Potentialism,” namely that walling off from non-deposed heretics is supposedly optional, whereas, according to Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers, it is a dogma, that is, obligatory.

(See https://orthodox-voice.blogspot.com/2025/07/blog-post_66.html)

The principal exponent of this heresy was Fr. Epiphanios Theodoropoulos (see The Two Extremes: Ecumenism and Zealotry, Holy Hesychasterion of the All-Merciful Theotokos of Troezen, Athens 1997, pp. 75–76). “Potentialism” is a “crutch” of Ecumenism and is responsible for its rapid spread, as well as for the fall of many “fortresses of Orthodoxy,” such as Mount Athos, and also for the remaining in heresy of many select souls, even “great pillars of Orthodoxy,” such as Fr. Georgios Metallinos (†2019), the exceptional theologian-philologist Nikolaos Sotiropoulos (†2014), etc.

It should be noted that certain “anti-ecumenists” such as Fr. Savvas,

(see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogrgW5a97NU, minute 24:30–24:35)

although they verbally reject “Potentialism,” nevertheless accept the “canonizations” of persons who knowingly communicated with the Ecumenists and praised them

(see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogrgW5a97NU, minute 24:15–24:20)

and thus were “canonized,” according to the principle “receiving glory from one another” (John 5:44). According to the opinion of the author, this is the most extreme form of “Potentialism,” because it prevents the faithful from walling off: if someone can “become holy” while remaining in communion with heresy, and indeed knowingly, then what need is there for walling off?

2. The heresy of the new calendar (N.C.)

Some of the opponents of the Patristic Calendar (P.C.) also preach the heresy of the new calendar (N.C.), which: (1) was introduced into the Orthodox Church with the aim of subjecting it to the “pope”; (2) was introduced without pan-Orthodox agreement, without there being a pastoral necessity, and despite its condemnation by pan-Orthodox Synods; (3) in practice abolished sacred Canons of Ecumenical Councils, such as the 37th of the Council of Laodicea (ratified by the 2nd of the Sixth Ecumenical), which forbids the Orthodox to seek the joint celebration of Christian feasts with heretics, as well as the 56th of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, which requires that one festal order prevail worldwide; and (4) it was certainly expected that it would cause a schism, as indeed it did, a fact which harmed the dogma of the unity of the Church, which has three characteristics: common faith, common worship, and common administration (Dogmatics of Ch. Androutsos, 4th ed., “Aster,” Athens, p. 274). These four facts, taken together, define the “calendar issue.”

(See https://www.triklopodia.gr/%CE%B4%CE%B7%CE%BC%CE%AE%CF%84%CF%81%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%82-%CF%87%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B6%CE%B7%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%AC%CE%BF%CF%85-%CF%84%CF%8C-%E1%BC%A1%CE%BC%CE%B5%CF%81%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CE%B3/)

Instead of the term “calendar issue,” however, the opponents of the P.C. use the words “calendar [per se],” “13 days,” etc., in order to downgrade the issue, removing from it its dogmatic dimension, disconnecting it from the heresy of Ecumenism, and presenting it as a matter of choosing a supposedly more accurate calendar! They also speak of the “impossibility” of restoring the P.C. (The Two Extremes, op. cit., p. 88) and criticize the pseudo-synod of Kolymbari (2016) because it did not address the issue in order to “resolve” it (Fr. Th. Zisis), evidently by accepting the Gregorian calendar (see Section 4).

But the cry of the Orthodox of 1924, “they have made us Franks,” testifies that the pious people correctly perceived at that time that the matter is dogmatic, as being inseparably connected with Ecumenism and the fragmentation of Orthodoxy. Correctly did the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Patriarch Photios of Alexandria, and many theologians (such as Prof. Gregorios Papamichael) declare that the N.C.—not only the Gregorian, but also the “revised Julian”—is problematic also from a dogmatic point of view (Works of former Metropolitan of Florina Chrysostomos, Holy Monastery of St. Nikodemos, Gortynia, 1997, vol. A, p. 377, and journal Pantainos, 1910, no. 39, pp. 624–628, http://digital.lib.auth.gr/record/146308/files/5471_1.pdf).

Nevertheless, the opponents of the P.C., distorting the truth, claim that those of the P.C. supposedly elevated the Julian calendar—“in itself”—to a dogma of faith (!), attributed to it a certain “sacred character,” and thus were led into a “peculiar idolatry” (!) (The Two Extremes, op. cit., pp. 83–86, and Fr. E. Trikaminas, The Timeless Agreement of the Holy Fathers on the Obligatory Nature of the 15th Canon of the First-Second Council concerning the Cessation of Commemoration of a Bishop Preaching Heresy in the Church, DeGiorgio, Trikala, 2012, pp. 230–235, 243). A favored tactic of all these distorters of the truth is to generalize the foolish views of isolated individuals to the entire population of the P.C. (For a characteristic example, see Fr. E. Trikaminas, op. cit., p. 231.) As the science of Statistics teaches, however, biased sample selection inevitably leads to erroneous conclusions; and in the present case, to false accusations against the Orthodox of the P.C.

3. The ecclesiological heresy that heretical “bishops” are “canonical”

Finally, the opponents of the P.C. also preach the ecclesiological heresy that non-deposed schismatic/heretical “bishops” who occupy the historical thrones are “canonical,” whereas the sacred Canons consider them “false bishops” (see the 15th of the First-Second Council). Fr. Savvas Lavriotis, for example, emphasizes on every occasion that the “canonical bishop” of Mount Athos is “Patriarch” Bartholomew! According to Dositheos of Jerusalem (Dodekavivlos, book VII, ch. 8, vol. 4, p. 116), however, Bartholomew, as a heretic, “is neither Patriarch, nor Bishop, nor even a member of the Church,” which accords with the ecclesiology of St. Gregory Palamas: “Those of the Church of Christ are of the truth, and those who are not of the truth are not of the Church of Christ” (Refutation of the Letter of Ignatius of Antioch, E.P.E. 3). Moreover, Bartholomew, as a heretic, does not even have apostolic succession (Dogmatics of Ch. Androutsos, op. cit., pp. 281–282).

The adherents of the above heresy claim that if Orthodox Bishops hasten to shepherd the people in provinces where heretical/schismatic “bishops” are already established—as is the case today throughout the whole world—they will create a schism!

(See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogrgW5a97NU, minutes 5:50–6:10)

If, for example, a movement of Orthodox Bishops attempted to install an Orthodox Patriarch in Constantinople, Fr. Savvas would consider this movement schismatic, because he regards Bartholomew as the “canonical patriarch”! This anti-patristic view shows how small an idea Fr. Savvas has of Orthodoxy and how great an idea he has of the thrones, which he defends, although he knows that since the beginning of the 20th century they have been occupied worldwide through the indications of Masonry and of international Zionism.

Fr. Savvas and those of like mind, in order to support this heresy, invoke the sacred Canons which forbid the intrusion of Bishops into foreign jurisdictions (14th Apostolic, 15th of the First Ecumenical Council, etc.), as well as the coexistence of two Bishops in the same Diocese (8th of the First Ecumenical Council, 16th of the First-Second, etc.). Certainly, these sacred Canons must be observed inviolably when there is peace in the Church and the thrones are occupied by Orthodox Bishops. When, however, in a time of heresy or persecution of the Church, the entire ruling hierarchy is heretical or schismatic, that is, a “pack of wolves” not sparing the flock (Acts 20:29–30), then the “violations” of the said Canons which aim at the benefit of the Church—in this case at the replacement of the heretical “hierarchy” by an Orthodox one—must be praised and not condemned, since “of necessity there is also a change of the law” (Heb. 7:12, emphasis added)! Dositheos writes:

Note that Meletios of Antioch, and the Bishops of that time who transferred Saint Gregory to Constantinople [i.e., an exceptional example which refutes the adherents of the said heresy], knew that the Canon forbidding transfer was made by the Fathers for the proud, those who out of vainglory leap from throne to throne, as formerly there were many such heretics, who feigned piety, and, being received as Orthodox, deceived the people of God. However, the Canon does not also hinder those things done by way of economy and for the benefit of the Church; for this reason some have stated more clearly that the Canon forbade the transfer which is ambitious, that is, a passing over for advancement, and not the transfer which is for a necessary need … and the divine Athanasios, Eusebios, and Basil ordained outside their jurisdiction, and indeed Epiphanios also in Constantinople, and in Jerusalem the brother of Jerome (Dodekavivlos, vol. 2, pp. 16–19, Book III, ch. 2, pars. C and D, emphasis added).

He also writes:

Note first, that to act outside one’s jurisdiction is unlawful; wherefore the great Basil, although most wise and most holy, nevertheless seeks the opinion of the holy Eusebios as to whether it is blameless to ordain in another province in a time of necessity; second, that it is just in a time of necessity to assist Churches that are being warred against or afflicted, and to ordain in them Bishops and Presbyters, and almost to act in them as their own Bishops, as the saints Eusebios and Athanasios did (Dodekavivlos, vol. 1, pp. 500–502, Book II, ch. 19, pars. A–6, emphasis added).

But Saint John Chrysostom also proceeded to many trans-jurisdictional depositions and ordinations of Bishops and, although he was accused for this, nevertheless later the Fourth Ecumenical Council did not condemn him (Dodekavivlos, vol. 2, pp. 53–54, Book III, ch. 4, par. Z, and Pedalion, “Aster” ed., Athens, 1993, footnote 1 on the interpretation of the 28th Canon of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, p. 207).

Therefore, in a time of persecution of the Church, and generally whenever there existed a “reasonable cause,” many trans-jurisdictional ordinations and other acts “contrary to the Canons” took place, in accordance with the spirit of the 14th Apostolic Canon, the subject of which is the transfers of Bishops. As Socrates notes, “for this formerly took place indiscriminately because of persecutions” (Ecclesiastical History, Book V, ch. 8, P.G. 67, pp. 576–580, emphasis added). Dositheos emphasizes that actions “contrary to the Canons” and “outside one’s jurisdiction” done in the Church are indeed condemnable when they are done out of lust for power, love of money, pride, vainglory, etc., but are praiseworthy when they are done for the benefit of the Church, as for example in a time of necessity and of Her persecution.

Dositheos also writes the following: “Always in the great misfortunes, which the just judgment of God permits to befall His people, His infinite compassion afterwards grants sufficient consolation, and we have for this countless examples … the rule of Constantine, equal to the Apostles, came as light to those in darkness … the springtime of the great Theodosios arrived … the prosperity of Justin [i.e., the Thracian] came, under whom the four Ecumenical Councils were confirmed, being honored as the four Gospels … the exiled Bishops were set free, the heretics were driven away, the Church was united” (Dodekavivlos, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 9, Book V, ch. 1, par. A, emphasis added). Do you hear, Fr. Savvas, that there are countless examples where the heretics were driven from their positions and were not left to dissolve the Church? Do you now perceive that the spirit of the sacred Canons, which the saints always applied, is that the right faith and unity in the Church be preserved, and not that the sacred Canons be used in favor of heretics/schismatics? Do you see that you support exactly the opposite of those things for which the Holy Fathers struggled and preached?

The sacred Canons have been established for the good order of the Church and for Her protection from disturbers, schismatics, and heretics, whereas the aforementioned opponents of the P.C. invoke them for the protection of the heretics/schismatics from the Orthodox, considering the Ecumenists, who are false bishops, as “canonical,” and the Orthodox as “schismatics”! According to the opinion of the author, this insane inversion of justice through the distortion of the spirit of the sacred Canons constitutes an ecclesiological heresy and incurs the anathema of misinterpretation/distortion of the teaching and practice of the Saints: “To those who do not rightly receive the divine utterances of the holy teachers of the Church of God, and who attempt to misinterpret and to distort those things clearly spoken in them by the grace of the Holy Spirit, Anathema, thrice” (Synodikon of Orthodoxy, Triodion, “Phos” ed., Athens, p. 160).

Let Fr. Angelos Angelakopoulos and his followers also hear this, who on the Sunday of Orthodoxy proclaim the following anathema: “to the factions of the ‘schismatic-heretical zealots not according to knowledge Old Calendarism,’ of the so-called genuine Orthodox Christians, to their pseudo-synods, their pseudo-bishops, pseudo-metropolitans, and their pseudo-clergy, anathema.”

(See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4Aas58cEYY&list=RDk4Aas58cEYY&start_radio=1, minute 8:00)

These insane ravings are fruits of the aforementioned ecclesiological heresy. It should be noted that Fr. Angelos, until his walling off (2020), on the one hand anathematized Ecumenism, but at the same time was in communion with it,

(see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwO9A5Z2aI0&list=RDkwO9A5Z2aI0&start_radio=1, 1:05:41, 1:09:28)

like another Nasreddin Hodja who was sawing off the branch on which he was sitting!

A fruit of the same ecclesiological heresy of the neo-wallers-off “anti-ecumenists,” who wish to appear in history as the first to have walled themselves off from Ecumenism, is also the “de-churching” of the Orthodox of the P.C. Here are two examples. First, at a gathering that took place years ago at the Holy Monastery of Saint Paraskevi of Milochori, Ptolemaida, in the presence also of Fr. E. Trikaminas, the then abbot Fr. Maximos Karavas (†2025) said that Fr. Euthymios is the “first who walled himself off,” and he bowed his head, accepting the falsehood, instead of correcting it, that the first who walled themselves off were the Orthodox of the P.C. one hundred years ago. Second, at another gathering at the same Monastery, Fr. Th. Zisis, who on every occasion declares that “the Old Calendarists are schismatics,” addressing Fr. Maximos, said that the Holy Monastery of Saint Paraskevi of Milochori is perhaps the only walled-off monastery in the entire world! And Fr. Maximos did not correct him, but accepted the falsehood, in order that he too might have a primacy in the firmament! Does Fr. Theodoros not know of the walling off decades ago of the Holy Monastery of Esphigmenou on Mount Athos (the genuine one, of course, not the “imitation”), and of many other monasteries of the P.C., or perhaps—more likely—does he consider them “outside the Church” and therefore nonexistent? “Canonical,” therefore, according to the aforementioned “anti-ecumenists,” are Bartholomew and the Ecumenists with him, who proclaim urbi et orbi that all religions constitute “paths” leading to God, but the Orthodox of the P.C. are “schismatics”! It should be noted that the Ecumenists and those who knowingly commune with them are subject to the anathemas of the Ecumenical Councils: (1) “anathema to all heretics” and “if anyone sets aside any ecclesiastical tradition, written or unwritten, anathema” (Seventh Ecumenical Council, Acts VII and VIII, Acts of the Holy and Ecumenical Councils, ed. Kalyve of the Precious Forerunner of the Holy Skete of Saint Anna, Mount Athos, vol. 3, pp. 878/879 and 383); and (2) the 11th anathema of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, by reason of their refusal on 7-12-1965 to anathematize the Papists (Acts, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 343).

These things being so, the ordinations of 1935 by the three Bishops of the P.C. were in every respect in accordance with the sacred Tradition. It was then known that the aim of the introduction of the N.C. was the union of the Orthodox Church with the two great “branches of Christianity,” Papism and Protestantism, and for this reason there was the “need” for the joint celebration of feasts with them. This aim was known from many sources, such as, for example, from the Patriarchal Encyclicals of the years 1902 and 1920, from statements, conferences, articles, books, and actions of the Ecumenists, as for example from the book of Anthimos of Vizye entitled The Calendar Question (1922, p. 141): “that through the issue of the Calendar, once its unification is achieved, there will undoubtedly be accomplished the first important step toward the attainment of the contemplated and, by circumstances, imperatively imposed Communion of the Churches.” These Masonic plans of the Ecumenists were known in 1935 to the three Bishops of the P.C. who had walled themselves off, as is evident from the writings of Chrysostomos, formerly of Florina, for example: “But She [i.e., the Orthodox Church] always rejected the Gregorian calendar as an innovation of elder Rome, incompatible with the traditions of the 7 Ecumenical Councils, and as an attempt of the latter to subject also the Orthodox Church to the absolutist dominion of the Pope” (Works, op. cit., vol. A, p. 98, the emphasis in original).

The only way that could have prevented the subjection of the Orthodox Church to Papism after the imposition of the heresy of the N.C. was the formation of an Orthodox Synod, the repudiation of the schismatics, and the ordination of new Bishops, according to the model of the handling of the Bulgarian schism (1872), where the establishment of a local synod by the Patriarchate of Constantinople was necessary for the proclamation of the schism, whereupon “the Patriarchate and the Exarchate were justified, after the proclamation of the schism, to send hierarchs wherever they wished” (B. Stephanides, Ecclesiastical History: From the Beginning Until Today, Papadimitriou ed., 2nd ed., Athens, 1959, pp. 738–739, emphasis added). The same is also written by Fr. Epiphanios: “If Philaret [i.e., of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR)] believed that the Church of Greece had fallen into heresy, then he could intervene in it … to ordain anew priests (and even bishops) for the fullness of the Church of Greece” (The Two Extremes, op. cit., p. 86, emphasis added). But if ROCOR had such a right, why did hierarchs of the Church of Greece not have it? Therefore, the aforementioned accusation against the three Bishops of the P.C., that in 1935 they supposedly created a schism,

(see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogrgW5a97NU, 5:50–6:03)

is false, since the entire local hierarchy had then become potentially schismatic.

Fr. Savvas has perceived his error and attempts to “correct” it, but with unsound “arguments.” First, he says that “the calendar is not a dogmatic issue,” because before 325 each Church celebrated Pascha in a different manner and, nevertheless, they had communion with one another (See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A7znjSwOAA, minutes 28–30). By disconnecting the calendar issue from Ecumenism and the schism, with which, however, it is inseparably connected, he misleads his listeners, presenting this purely dogmatic issue as non-dogmatic. If the deliberate creation of a schism (1924), in order to achieve union with Papism, that is, the abolition of Orthodoxy, which is being promoted gradually through the adoption of a common calendar (see Section 4) and which was effected officially on December 7, 1965,

(see https://w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/speeches/1965/documents/hf_p-vi_spe_19651207_common-declaration.html)

is not a dogmatic issue, then what issue is dogmatic?

Second, “responding” to our argument that all the aforementioned Saints proceeded to acts “contrary to the Canons” in a time of necessity,

(see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ4YXKDpjZY&t=7896s, 1:19:28–1:22:12)

Fr. Savvas says that St. Athanasios the Great did indeed proceed to trans-jurisdictional ordinations, but before each ordination he first deposed the existing bishop there, so that there would not be at the same time two bishops in the same province.

(See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A7znjSwOAA&t=1800s, 31:30–33:00)

On this point, we have to observe the following. First, this claim is ridiculous and insulting to the Saint, because it presents him as wishing to eliminate the “contrary to the Canons” element from the said trans-jurisdictional ordinations by proceeding to additional “contrary to the Canons” acts (depositions), in order to appear to observe the Canon of one Bishop in one province, while disregarding the Canon against intrusion into another province! Second, the author referred not only to St. Athanasios the Great, but also to a multitude of other Saints who proceeded to “contrary to the Canons” acts; did they also do the same? Third, what is the historical source of this information?

4. Conclusions

As is known, during the last two years, the Ecumenists are again promoting the issue of a “common Pascha” with the heretics through the acceptance of the Gregorian calendar, which has been anathematized by the Pan-Orthodox Synod of 1593 (Dodekavivlos, vol. 6, p. 232, Book XI, ch. 11). As their banner, they have the falsehood that “the calendar is not a dogmatic issue.”

(See https://fosfanariou.gr/index.php/2026/02/27/pros-mia-koini-imerominis-eortasmou-tou-pasxa/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwUwAn7Iau8)

They hypocritically say that the First Ecumenical Council requires the said “common celebration,” despite the fact that the disturbance of the Orthodox Paschalion, which the acceptance of the Gregorian calendar will bring about, will render even the Orthodox Church alien to the Church of Christ (1st Canon of the local Council of Antioch, ratified by the 2nd of the Sixth Ecumenical Council). The aforementioned “anti-ecumenists” raise the same banner, thus offering to Ecumenism the highest service. Even greater, however, is the service they offer it by preaching the aforementioned ecclesiological heresy. For, as also in 1935, the only way that can prevent the impending evil is the formation of an Orthodox Synod, the repudiation of the schismatic-heretical Ecumenists, and the ordination of Orthodox Bishops.

Fr. Savvas and those of like mind, however, slandering and mocking the ordinations of the P.C. of 1935, with “catchphrases” such as “they made a synod in order to save the Church, because they considered the sacraments of the New Calendarists invalid,” and speaking nonsense about “walling into bishops,” which (“walling in”) supposedly stops walling off and leads the faithful “outside the Church” (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKxgu4BrgnU, 1:20:00–1:20:25), have so greatly discredited this singular solution that it appears unlikely to be implemented. As we have seen at length above, however, this singular solution is not hindered by the sacred Canons, because it accords with their spirit and with the practice of the Saints in similar circumstances. The legalistic “arguments” of the Ecumenists and of their aforementioned allied “anti-ecumenists” distort the spirit of Holy Scripture and of the sacred Canons, do not accord with the actions of the Saints in similar circumstances, and serve the protection and promotion of heresy. For this reason, they incur the anathema of the distortion of the teaching and practice of the Church. According to the opinion of the author, these “Javerts” would even anathematize the Lord Himself, because He healed the sick on the Sabbath “contrary to the Canons”!

 

Greek source: https://orthodox-voice.blogspot.com/2026/03/blog-post_34.html

The Pastor’s Betrayal: A Hidden Trauma Many Church Leaders Carry

David Mercer | March 17, 2026

For most pastors, betrayal is not an abstract concept. It is a lived experience. Sadly.

Ask clergy privately about the most painful moments of their ministry and many will not point to long hours, low pay, or cultural hostility toward Christianity. Instead, they describe a moment when someone they trusted, an elder, a staff member, a board chair, or even a close friend in the congregation, turned against them.

When Trust Becomes Betrayal

Often the story begins the same way. A pastor learns that concerns about his leadership have been circulating for months without his knowledge. A key lay leader who once offered public support suddenly withdraws it. Staff members hold private conversations questioning the pastor’s direction. Eventually there is a meeting, sometimes brief, sometimes carefully orchestrated, in which the pastor learns that the trust he believed existed is gone.

For clergy who have given years, sometimes decades, to a church, the experience can be shattering.

Psychologists have a name for this kind of injury. It is called betrayal trauma, a concept developed by Jennifer Freyd in the early 1990s. Freyd’s work originally focused on abuse within families, but the principle applies to any environment built on deep relational trust. When harm comes from someone on whom a person depends emotionally, socially, or professionally, the trauma can be uniquely severe.

Freyd introduced the theory in 1991 and developed it further in her influential 1996 book, Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse. Freyd’s core insight was that trauma inflicted by a trusted caregiver or authority figure creates a unique psychological conflict. In such situations, a person’s survival, career, or emotional stability may depend on maintaining the relationship with the perpetrator.

Freyd expanded the framework to include the idea of institutional betrayal, which describes the additional harm caused when an organization fails to prevent abuse or responds poorly when abuse is reported. These areas include:

• military institutions
• workplaces
• universities
• and increasingly, religious institutions and churches

Today, betrayal trauma theory is widely used in trauma psychology and abuse research to explain why those harmed by people they trust often experience more severe and complex trauma responses than those harmed by strangers.

This dynamic explains why abuse aimed in any direction inside churches, ministries, or Christian institutions can be uniquely devastating. When a pastor, counselor, or ministry leader abuses authority, or when a church fails to respond properly, the psychological damage often reaches far beyond the initial incident. And likewise, when a pastor or leader is singled out for abuse by parishioners or elders, the ramifications are often excruciating, sometimes life-altering. This is because the person or institution representing safety becomes the source of harm. And the place that symbolized God’s presence becomes the site of trauma.

Pastors do not simply work for an organization. Their vocation is bound up in relationships with the people they serve. They baptize children, officiate weddings, sit beside hospital beds, and bury loved ones. Their social network, spiritual identity, and professional life often exist within the same community.

When that community fractures, the loss is not limited to a job. It can feel like the collapse of an entire world and the most searing betrayal imaginable.

A Wound the Church Rarely Names

Conflict in churches is hardly new. The apostle Paul wrote letters attempting to resolve disputes in early Christian congregations, and church history is filled with stories of theological and personal divisions.

But the modern conversation about church trauma has focused primarily on abuse victims within congregations. That emphasis is necessary and overdue. Yet there is another reality: clergy themselves are often deeply wounded by the conflicts that remove them from ministry.

Researchers studying clergy health have found that relational stress inside congregations is one of the most significant pressures pastors face. The Duke University Clergy Health Initiative, which has studied thousands of clergy across denominations, reports that pastors experience high rates of emotional exhaustion and stress linked to congregational conflict.

Data from Barna Group suggests the scale of the issue. In recent surveys, 38 percent of pastors reported seriously considering leaving full-time ministry within the previous year. While cultural pressures and workload contribute to that number, conflict within congregations remains one of the most commonly cited reasons pastors contemplate stepping away.

Another study from Lifeway Research found that one in five pastors said conflict in a church was a significant factor in leaving a previous ministry position.

Statistics alone cannot capture the emotional reality behind those departures. Many pastors leave quietly, often with carefully worded announcements about “new seasons” or “pursuing other opportunities.” What those statements rarely describe is the relational breakdown that preceded the exit.

Behind the scenes, the reality may be far closer to betrayal than resignation.

How Trust Breaks Inside Churches

Pastoral betrayal rarely arrives in dramatic form. It usually unfolds slowly, through relationships that deteriorate over time.

Sometimes it begins with a staff member or church leader who feels sidelined in leadership decisions and begins expressing concerns privately to church members. In other cases, influential congregants form informal alliances around dissatisfaction with the pastor’s direction, whether related to theology, finances, or ministry priorities.

Church governance structures can intensify the problem. Many congregations operate with volunteer boards that have little training in conflict resolution or leadership evaluation. When tensions escalate, discussions about a pastor’s future may take place in closed meetings long before the pastor realizes trust has eroded.

Leadership consultant and author Tod Bolsinger has observed this pattern repeatedly while working with congregations navigating pastoral transitions. When trust breaks between a pastor and key leaders, he notes, the conflict quickly becomes existential.

“The church often believes it is making a leadership decision,” Bolsinger has written. “But for the pastor it feels like the loss of family, vocation, and community all at once.” The pastor who preached about forgiveness on Sunday may find himself suddenly excluded from the very relationships that have defined his life.

The Psychological Fallout

When psychologists describe betrayal trauma, they emphasize the role of dependency. Trauma intensifies when the harmed person depends on the relationship for stability or identity.

Few professions involve deeper relational dependency than pastoral ministry.

Clergy families frequently move across the country for a call to serve a congregation. Their friendships, children’s schools, and social networks often center on the church. If conflict leads to dismissal or resignation, the entire structure of life may collapse simultaneously.

Pastors who experience sudden or hostile exits often report symptoms similar to those seen in other forms of trauma. Anxiety and hypervigilance are common. Some leaders struggle to trust future ministry partners. Others find themselves replaying conversations repeatedly, trying to understand when relationships began to unravel.

The spiritual dimension makes the experience even more complicated. Pastors who have spent years teaching others to trust God during hardship sometimes discover that they must relearn those lessons themselves.

Leadership writer and former pastor Carey Nieuwhof has spoken candidly about the emotional toll of church conflict on pastors. Reflecting on his own experience leaving pastoral ministry after a difficult season, he once noted that many leaders leave not because they have lost faith in God but because they have lost trust in the church.

For clergy who once believed the local congregation embodied the best of Christian community, that realization can be profoundly disorienting, even life-altering.

Silence Around the Wound

Despite the depth of these traumatic experiences, pastors tend to rarely talk publicly about them. Part of the silence comes from professional caution. Speaking openly about conflict with a former congregation can make a pastor appear defensive or bitter, potentially affecting future ministry opportunities.

Another reason is theological. Many pastors feel a responsibility to protect the church’s reputation, even when they themselves have been wounded by it. As a result, stories of pastoral betrayal often circulate only in hushed conversations among clergy. Ministers share them over coffee at conferences or in confidential pastoral peer groups, describing the moment when they realized relationships had turned against them.

The details vary, but the emotional pattern is strikingly similar: A trusted ally withdraws support. A private conversation reveals that concerns have been building for months. A meeting is called, and the pastor suddenly realizes that decisions about his future may already have been made.

The betrayal is not only personal. It is communal.

The Long Road Back

Recovery from pastoral betrayal does not follow a predictable timeline. Some leaders eventually return to ministry in another congregation, though often with a different approach to leadership and boundaries. Others move into nonprofit leadership, counseling, or teaching roles that allow them to serve the church without returning to the same congregational dynamics.

For many, healing begins when the experience is finally acknowledged rather than minimized. Naming betrayal as betrayal—rather than simply “a difficult transition”—can be an important step.

Counseling, spiritual direction, and trusted peer relationships frequently play a role as well. Pastors who process the experience in healthy environments often discover that their calling to ministry, though wounded, has not disappeared. Even so, the scars remain.

The church has spent the past decade grappling with serious failures involving abuse, misconduct, and institutional accountability. Those conversations are necessary and must continue. Yet another reality deserves attention as well.

Pastors are not only leaders within the church. They are also members of its community, vulnerable to the same relational dynamics that affect any congregation. When trust breaks in those relationships, the result can be deeply traumatic.

For a faith tradition that teaches reconciliation and restoration, acknowledging those wounds is an important step forward, not only for the pastors who carry them, but for the churches that hope to learn from them.

 

Source: https://churchleaders.com/pastors/2215055-a-pastors-betrayal-the-hidden-trauma.html

Ecumenism is a Heresy Against the Dogma of the Church – One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic

By Archimandrite Seraphim (Aleksiev) and Archimandrite Sergiy (Yazadzhnev)

Excerpted from Почему православному христианину нельзя быть экуменистом [Why an Orthodox Christian Cannot be an Ecumenist]

A) The Church According to the Symbol of Faith. The “Branch Theory.” Pluralism

The dogma of the Church is expressed very concisely and precisely in the ninth article of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith: “I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.” By these words is expressed the firm and unchanging conviction of the Orthodox Christian that the Church in which we believe is existing, and not awaited; already established, and not awaiting establishment; fully real, and not imagined.

There was a time when the Church was promised by the Savior in the words: I will build My Church (Matt. 16:18). But this promise was fulfilled on the day of the first Christian Pentecost, and since that time no one has doubted the existence of the Church, founded upon faith in Christ—the Cornerstone of it (cf. Eph. 2:20). For the Orthodox Christian, it exists as a real God-man organism for the salvation of souls.

Only in our time, on the basis of ecumenism, has there appeared the idea that the Church must be created not upon the Rock of Christ’s truth, but upon the sand of all manner of human errors, which contradicts the Symbol of Faith and Holy Scripture. The only things spoken of in the Symbol of Faith as expected in the future are the eschatological events—the Second Coming of Christ, the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the age to come—which is why of them it is said “I expect” (i.e., “I await”), whereas of the rest—“I believe” (“I confess”).

In contrast to heretical societies that claim to be “churches,” the Church of Christ is called “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.” What do these definitions mean? Let us set them forth briefly.

1. The Church is one because of the unity of its confession of faith. It would not be one and unique, but would be multiple, if various approaches to the faith were permitted within it;

2. The Church is holy and sanctifying through the Divine grace imparted by it. If it had not received such grace from above, it could not be called holy, but would be merely a human graceless organization, such as heretical communities are;

3. The Church is catholic and universal by virtue of the Divine truth which it preserves and proclaims, intended for dissemination throughout the whole world. If it did not possess this Truth, it would be merely a grand earthly entity that had absorbed into itself the various false religious teachings existing in the world, and not the Church of Christ. And finally,

4. The Church is apostolic by reason of its apostolic origin; it preserves apostolic succession and is faithful to the apostolic traditions. If it had broken with this, it would not have the right to be called apostolic.

This teaching, concisely expressed in the ninth article of the Symbol of Faith by the words “…in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church,” constitutes the fullness of the Orthodox faith in the Church. … If one compares the faith of a true Orthodox Christian in the Church with the views of heterodox ecumenists, a great difference becomes immediately apparent. Ecumenists do not believe in the existence of a single—unique, true, free from all error—holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. According to their understanding, none of the existing Christian confessions has fully preserved fidelity to the ancient apostolic Church and none possesses the fullness of truth. Ecumenists hold that the Church must be created by means of the ecumenical movement, through the rapprochement of the so-called “churches” with mutual concessions in doctrine and practice.

Already in 1937, the Protestant ecumenist Eli Hunel openly expressed his ecumenical “faith” in a universal church: “I believe in that which does not yet exist… but which must necessarily be. For I believe in the Holy Spirit, Who from the historical hour of Pentecost in Jerusalem unceasingly again and again creates experiments, projects of the church, until there arises the exemplary (church)… I see a multitude of churches: scattered, divided… I see churches sinning to such an extent that they cause scandal, pursued by a legion of demons: formalism, intellectualism, dogmatism (!).” The author concludes this tirade by repeating his belief in the coming “universal church.”

An Orthodox Christian can only be horrified upon hearing such blasphemous words. The Church founded by Christ is presented as non-existent, and the Holy Spirit is accused of being unable to create at once an exemplary Church, as though from Pentecost until now He has been producing unsuccessful projects of “churches,” whereby there have appeared in the world churches that lead into temptation and are populated by a “legion of demons”! To ascribe all this to the Holy Spirit is an unforgivable blasphemy, of which the Lord speaks in the Gospel (cf. Matt. 12:32)! The Church was created by the Lord Jesus Christ (cf. ibid. 16:18) and established by the grace of the Holy Spirit, poured out upon it in all fullness on the day of Pentecost (cf. Acts 2:1–12). The Savior loved it (cf. Eph. 5:25); for it He shed His blood (cf. Acts 20:28), that He might sanctify it, having cleansed it with the washing of water by the word; that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:25–27).

In a conversation with the ecumenist Michael Moore, we asked whether there is a church that today would confess a completely correct and irreproachable faith. “No!” he answered. “We must combine the faith of all the churches, and then everything will become one.” As this answer shows, at the foundation of ecumenism lies the dogmatically inadmissible principle of syncretism.

The Anglican “Bishop” of Gloucester, who participated in the Athens conference of Greek and Anglican theologians in May 1941, vigorously objected to the Orthodox dogma that only the Orthodox Church is the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church,” asserting that “the Church has lost its unity and now exists only in schisms—an Eastern schism, a papal schism, an Anglican schism.” Certain Western ecumenists have gone even further and deny not only the factual, but also the principled unity of the Church. Henry van Dusen writes: “The notion of a single original ‘undivided Church’ is an absolute fiction… History knows nothing of the sort. There has never been an ‘undivided Church.’ Even in the first fifteen centuries there was hardly a century in which at least one new major falling away from the ‘Body of Christ’ did not occur.”

The author of these words—a liberal Protestant—sees in every heresy a new branch of Christ’s Church and assigns to each separate part the right to be called a “church.” Being outside the Church, he cannot understand or perceive that communities which fall away through heresy depart from the Church and can no longer belong to it, and can be united with it only by renouncing all their errors. Being false churches, they have no right to be called churches, whereas the true Church of Christ, by cutting off heretics from itself, continues to exist as a whole, internally united in faith, an indivisible Church.

The great Serbian Orthodox dogmatic theologian, (Venerable) Archimandrite Dr. Justin (Popović), speaks excellently: “Just as the Person of the God-man Christ is one and unique, so also the Church founded by Him and upon Him is one and unique. The unity of the Church inevitably follows from the unity of the God-man Christ. … Any division (of the Church) would signify its death. It is wholly already in the God-man and is first and foremost a God-man organism, and only then a God-man organization. Everything in it is God-man: its life, and its faith, and its love, and Baptism, and the Eucharist, and every one of its holy Mysteries, and all its teaching, and all its life, and all its immortality, and all its eternity, and all its structure. … In it everything is God-man and indivisible … In it everything is organically and by grace united into one God-man Body, under one Head—the God-man Lord Christ. … United with Christ, all the members of the Church from all nations and all times are one in Christ Jesus (cf. Gal. 3:28).

This unity of the faithful begins with the first Mystery—holy Baptism, continues and is strengthened through the other holy Mysteries, and reaches its summit in the holy Eucharist, by which the most perfect unity of the faithful with the Lord Christ is realized, as also unity among the faithful. … The foundation of the whole Church of Christ is built upon the unity and uniqueness of the God-man FAITH. And in this faith, everything is the God-man Lord Jesus Christ, Who in Himself and through the Church has united forever heaven with earth, angels with men, and, most importantly, God with men. … The God-man faith gives us, men, absolutely everything that is needed for eternal life. … With this faith we stand and exist from top to bottom; it has once for all been delivered to the saints (cf. Jude 1:3). … Like the holy Apostles, the holy Fathers and teachers of the Church also confess the unity and uniqueness of the Orthodox Church. From this is understandable also the fervent zeal of the holy Fathers of the Church, manifested at every separation and falling away from the Church, as well as their strict attitude toward heresies and schisms … Just as the Lord Christ cannot have several bodies, so also, He cannot have several churches. … Hence the division of the Church, ontologically, in its very essence, is impossible. There has never been, nor can there be, a division of the Church; there have existed and will exist only departures from the Church. … From the one indivisible Church of Christ, heretics and schismatics have fallen away at various times, and thereby they ceased to be members of the Church … Thus, there fell away from the Church the Gnostics, Arians, Pneumatomachi, Monophysites, iconoclasts, Roman Catholics, Protestants, Uniates, and … all other separatists belonging to the heretical-schismatic legion.”

B) The Church - One. The Anglican Principle of Comprehensiveness

If in the Orthodox Church, which is guided by the canons, every teaching at variance with the Church’s faith would lead to ecclesiastical trial and condemnation, in Anglicanism innovations develop without hindrance, for the Anglican “church” has lost love for the truth and therefore allows all manner of opinions and false teachings to spread within it. It even prides itself on its openness to the world, to philosophies and the elements of this world (cf. Col. 2:8), and reproaches the Orthodox Church for its unchanging steadfastness in the faith and its withdrawal from the vain life of this world!

The late Athenagoras (Kokkinakis), Greek Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain, known as a convinced ecumenist and Anglophile, nevertheless said with reproach: “In the Anglican Church, thinkers-intellectuals and theologians do not expect from the Church any official condemnation. The openness of their church to world history and the principle of ‘comprehensiveness’ gives them a kind of theological boldness in relation to history and adaptation to the formulations of faith… These attempts expand the boundaries of ‘comprehensiveness’ to such a degree that they raise problems both within and outside the Anglican community.” However, further on Archbishop Athenagoras enters into contradiction with himself, attempting in some way to justify the Anglican principle of “comprehensiveness,” identifying it with the Orthodox principle of ecclesiastical economy (oikonomia—from Greek “household management”—condescension toward the repentant for the sake of strengthening them on the path of salvation. —Ed. note).

This attempt must be recognized as unsuccessful, for:

1. The Orthodox Church never applies the principle of economy in the sphere of dogmas, whereas the Anglican principle of “comprehensiveness” extends also to this most important sphere of faith;

2. the two principles differ greatly from one another, since among the Anglicans the concrete result of comprehensiveness in the sphere of faith is the destruction of human souls, whereas in Orthodoxy the application of the principle of economy has as its aim the salvation of the soul—according to the ancient patristic expression—through “healing at the root.” In recent times, in Anglicanism there have appeared modernists who deny the very foundations of Christianity as a God-revealed religion. One of the most prominent representatives is the “bishop” Dr. John Robinson, author of the book Honest to God, published in 1963, whose worldview may be characterized as “Christian” atheism. He denies the existence of a personal God—the Creator and Providence of the world—as well as the existence of the spiritual world in general and of the future eternal life in particular. For him, Jesus is a mere man. But this man—Jesus—is the highest and unique manifestation in history of the divine principle of the universe… In this sense He is consubstantial with the Father, although for the Father there is no place in Robinson’s worldview. According to him, the Resurrection of Christ does not mean a bodily rising from the tomb, but “a certain inner experience of the apostles, which happened to them on the third day after the Crucifixion and inwardly transformed them.” And this “Christian” atheism is tolerated by the Anglican church! No sanctions on the part of the church authorities followed with regard to “bishop” Robinson, and his teaching has remained uncondemned by the Anglican church, which avoids condemning heretical views.

More than that! The corrupt principle of “comprehensiveness,” extended not only to faith but also to Christian morality, is used by Anglicanism for openly immoral purposes. For example, in Church Times, the official organ of the Anglican Church, on October 14, 1983, there was published a shameful advertisement of the “Christian (!) Union of Homosexuals,” in which books are recommended containing religious rites for… sodomite “marriages” between persons of the same sex!!! Concerning one such “marriage,” which took place on January 21, 1983 with the participation of the Anglican “priest” Holt—a “marriage” that provoked deep indignation and vigorous protests from local laity—the general secretary of the aforementioned “Christian” union, Kirker, shamelessly declared that the number of such “marriages” is continually increasing and that many of them are performed in Anglican churches according to a specific rite. It is unnecessary to demonstrate how God-opposing these unnatural “marriages” are, which the holy Apostle Paul stigmatized as shameful passions (cf. Rom. 1:25), placing them among the gravest sins, the perpetrators of which shall not inherit the Kingdom of God (Gal. 5:21).

Such are the fruits of the Anglican principle of “comprehensiveness,” by means of which not only all kinds of dogmatic false teachings are justified, but also the most shameful moral crimes.

This principle has, unfortunately, begun to infect certain Orthodox theologians as well, for example, Protopresbyter Liveriy Voronov, professor of dogmatics at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. Having visited the Theological Institute at the Sergievskoe Podvorye in Paris, he delivered a lecture on the views of the heretic Protopresbyter Sergius Bulgakov, condemned by the Russian Orthodox Church, and in the name of Christian “love” attempted to present them as tolerable and acceptable, inviting all those present at the end to sing “Memory Eternal” to the heretic!

The acceptance of the Anglican principle of “comprehensiveness” will not lead to genuine unity and a single right faith, for everyone will be given the right to follow his own erroneous convictions. By means of this principle one may attain not unity in truth, but only a complete falling away from it, a departure from the God-revealed faith and, consequently, a falling away from the Church and from personal salvation. Such are the sorrowful results to which the denial of the unity of the Church will lead!

C) The Church - Holy

Ecumenists sin not only against the dogma of the unity of Christ’s Church, but by including heretics within its composition, they also sin in their understanding of the Church as holy.

According to Orthodox teaching, both of these properties—unity in truth and holiness—are in a close mutual relationship. Just as unity in truth binds all Orthodox Christians by one faith through their rejection of errors and false teachings, so also holiness unites them by means of grace and truth that came through Jesus Christ (cf. John 1:17), which exclude every union with impiety and heresy (cf. 2 Cor. 6:15)—these being the offspring of the evil spirit, who devised falsehood in order to undermine saving Truth. The concepts of holiness and truth are akin to one another, as the Savior said in His High-Priestly prayer to God the Father: Sanctify them [the disciples] by Thy truth (John 17:17). The Lord Jesus Christ inseparably links holiness and truth. Do you wish to be holy—embrace the God-revealed truth! Do you wish to understand the divine truth—strive for holiness, for it alone can make the truth near and dear to you! The Church could not be called holy if, in its essence, it could be infected by error. “The infallibility of the Church rests upon its holiness; the Church is infallible because it is holy,” as the Russian dogmatic theologian Protopresbyter N. Malinovsky beautifully said (Protopresbyter N. Malinovsky, An Outline of Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Sergiev Posad, 1912).

In what does the holiness of the Church consist, and in what sense is it called holy?

First of all, because its Head is holy, and because the Holy Spirit, who governs and guides it, sanctifies it, being the source of all holiness. From Christ—the Head of the Church—(cf. Eph. 1:22) streams of holiness flow to the entire Body of the Church. And the Holy Spirit—the source of our sanctification—abiding in the Church, sanctifies its members by the grace imparted in the Mysteries. By means of this grace, He impels every believer to the labors of holiness. The presence of sinners in the Church does not diminish its holiness, but, on the contrary, even more strongly emphasizes it, for it reveals the following spiritual fact: under the influence of the grace distributed in the Church’s Mysteries, even the most notorious sinners often repent and become truly holy! The grace of the Holy Spirit inherent in the Church constitutes its holiness. Only in the bosom of the Church can true holiness be attained, for in it grace is imparted. The people of the Church are called a “holy people” (cf. 1 Peter 2:9). The Lord Jesus Christ came and gave Himself up to death so that His Church might be a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or anything of the kind, but that it should be holy and without blemish (Eph. 5:27).

The word “spot” may be referred to the purity of the Church’s dogmatic faith, and “blemish” to its moral purity. Both a spot and a blemish are fatal obstacles on the path to the attainment of holiness, which is the fundamental property of God (cf. 1 Peter 1:15–16) and without which no one will see God (Heb. 12:14). Every believer who strives for holiness can acquire it by combining both means: by guarding himself from the dark spots of false teachings, which stain the purity of the faith and render it non-saving, and by overcoming moral corruption, that is, by freeing himself from moral sins that distance the soul from God. Such holiness is attainable in its fullness only in the Orthodox Church, since in it there are no spots of false teachings, and by its grace it can heal the moral infirmities and vices of its faithful children, on the indispensable condition of their personal repentance.

Excellent thoughts on the holiness of the Church may be found in Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev), who in his report at the Moscow [Pan-Orthodox] Conference of 1948 said: “The Church is called Holy because it is the dispenser of the grace of the Holy Spirit, which is communicated to the faithful in the Mystery of Chrismation when Baptism is performed over them. This regenerating, sanctifying, and saving grace is the most precious and highest good for us, for the granting of it to us was the purpose of Christ’s coming into the world and of His sufferings on the Cross and death… The regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit is the source of our holy life. But this most precious good for us, this regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit with its holiness, is not and cannot be among Protestants, for they do not have the Mystery of Chrismation. In this Mystery the Holy Spirit is imparted to us with all His gifts, which nurture and strengthen us in the spiritual holy life. This grace-filled holy life is likewise impossible for those heterodox Christians (Roman Catholics) who, although they have the Mystery of Chrismation, nevertheless, by reason of their rejection by the Orthodox Church for heresies, this grace among them is ineffective and non-saving.”

The Church is called holy also because it unites all the saints of all epochs and all countries—those who have reposed and passed into the life beyond the grave—with those who are still in this earthly life and with those who will live on earth until the end of the world. Niketas of Remesiana, a Western Church writer of the fourth century, in his work Explanation of the Symbol of Faith, writes: “What is the Church, if not the society of saints? From the beginning of the world, the patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, and all the other righteous, whether they lived in the past, or live now, or will live in the future—all of them constitute the Church, for they are sanctified by one faith and one life, sealed by one Spirit, and united into one Body, whose Head is Christ … Therefore, believe that in this Church you will attain communion with the saints.”

What has been said may be summarized as follows:

1. The Church is holy as the Body of Christ, being sanctified by its Head, Christ, and by the Holy Spirit abiding in it;

2. it is holy because it imparts holiness (cf. Heb. 12:10) to its members—not only to the righteous, but also to repentant sinners—through the grace communicated by means of the holy Mysteries performed within its bosom;

3. it is holy also because it links the Orthodox Christians sanctified by it—those now living and those who will yet live on earth—with all the sanctified who have departed to God in the heavenly Church (cf. Heb. 10:23).

All this is entirely inapplicable to the distorted ecumenical concept of the Church and to the projected “universal church,” since:

1. within ecumenism are united heretical communities which do not recognize the Mystery of Chrismation and arbitrarily call themselves “churches,” while not being such;

2. ecumenism itself, being a heretical gathering, is devoid of grace and is incapable of imparting it;

3. ecumenism does not lead its adherents to holiness. On the contrary, it leads even those “Orthodox” ecumenists who are inclined toward holiness away from it!

D) The Church - Catholic

Ecumenists interpret incorrectly also the catholicity (universality) of Christ’s Church. As has already been said, they underestimate the truth, confessed in an absolutely uncorrupted form only in Orthodoxy; they disregard the God-revealed dogmas of the Church as an essential mark of its universality and catholicity, i.e., of true ecumenicity, and they place in the foreground numerical strength, so that the Church might be an influential international force. For this purpose, ecumenists propose that all “churches” be united, including among them heretical communities long since cut off from Christ (cf. John 15:6); but this external, graceless union cannot create the true universal catholic Church of Christ!

Already in the fourth century, St. Cyril of Jerusalem excellently and fully explained that property of the Church which in the Symbol of Faith is designated in Greek by the word (katholike, and in Slavonic—“sobornaya,” i.e., “catholic”). He writes in the 18th Catechetical Lecture, § 23: “The Church is called catholic because it is throughout the whole world, from the ends of the earth to its limits, and because it universally and without any omission teaches all that ought to come into human knowledge—dogmas concerning things visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly; also because it subjects the whole human race to piety …; and finally, because everywhere it heals and cures every kind of sin committed by soul and body; and in it is acquired everything that is called virtue …—in deeds, and in words, and in every spiritual gift.”

… Thus, the Church of Christ, in St. Cyril, is described by the word “catholic” as:

1. universal, in the geographical sense—“to the ends of the earth,” and even more in the qualitative sense of the word—as embracing people of various races, cultures, and social conditions;

2. as possessing the fullness of truth;

3. as possessing the fullness of holiness and grace; and

4. consequently—as the only one.

… Similar thoughts are expressed also by Archimandrite Justin (Popović). He writes: “The very God-man being of the Church is all-embracing, universal, catholic, integral, conciliar. By its God-man organism the Church embraces all that is in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible: whether thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers (Col. 1:16). All is in the God-man, and He is the Head of the Body of the Church (cf. ibid., 17–18). … The God-man Person of the Lord Christ is the soul of catholicity in the Church. … Into the conciliar life of the Church are included the existences of angels and of men, of the repentant and of sinners, of the righteous and the unrighteous, of the departed and of those still living on earth; and the righteous and the saints help the less righteous and less holy to grow toward ever greater righteousness and holiness. … Thus we all grow into the Church, holy in the Lord (Eph. 2:21), being grace-organically united among ourselves by one faith, by the same holy Mysteries and virtues, by one Lord, one Truth, one Gospel. … All of us the faithful constitute one body in the Church. For what purpose?—To live one holy and catholic life of the Church, the holy and catholic faith of the Church, the holy and catholic mind of the Church, the holy and catholic will of the Church. … Very often the concept of catholicity is presented in a Catholic, geographical sense. But according to the Orthodox understanding, catholicity is not a topographical, geographical concept, but an inner, essential, psychological concept …, founded upon the integrity of the confession of faith, upon the uncorruptedness of the confession of faith, upon the holy and apostolic unity of faith” (Archimandrite Justin (Popović), Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, Belgrade, 1978).

In the words of the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, Christ is the Head and we are the members, and therefore we must constitute “one body through our unanimity and unity of faith” (Acts of the Ecumenical Councils, Kazan, 1865).

The care and attention of the Ecumenical Councils were directed toward confirming the original Orthodox faith, handed down to us by Christ through the holy Apostles, and toward condemning and removing the destructive false teachings that arise through diabolical suggestion. The Church tolerates even the greatest sinners, hoping to heal them, but it excommunicates heretics, since they distort the holy dogmas—eternal God-man sanctities—which “the human mind cannot fully comprehend” (Archimandrite Justin (Popović), Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, Belgrade, 1978).

No one is able fully to comprehend the mystery of Christ, the incarnate Son of God, Who revealed to us the truth of our salvation, being Himself the Truth (cf. John 14:6). Therefore, the proper approach to the God-revealed dogmas consists not in a bold rationalistic investigation of them, but in reverent veneration with faith in the unerring Incarnate Word of God. The holy Fathers humbly embraced faith in Christ’s Truth and defended it with their blood against distortions, in which they perceived the cunning of the devil and of the antichrist with his forerunners. In the words of Archimandrite Justin, “just as the appearance and activity of the antichrist will be according to the working of Satan (cf. 2 Thess. 2:3), so also the activity of every heresy proceeds according to the working of the devil” (Archimandrite Justin (Popović), op. cit.). Therefore, the holy Fathers unanimously anathematized all heresies and heretics, seeing in them enemies of the salvation of the human soul.

Only in the Church of Christ are immortality and eternal life contained for man. Heresy, however, is a destructive force that plunges man into eternal death, that is, into eternal separation from God. To this also leads contemporary antichrist ecumenism, imposing its universalism and denying the grace-filled universality of the Orthodox Church of Christ as the sole bearer of the genuine saving Truth.

D) The Church – Apostolic. The Concept of Apostolic Succession and the Protestant Teaching of the Universal “Priesthood” of the Laity

Ecumenism likewise falls into a profound error when it touches upon the definition of the Church as apostolic. The Orthodox Church is called apostolic because it proceeds from the holy Apostles, faithfully preserves their teaching, strictly adheres to apostolic succession, and is guided by apostolic Tradition in its dogmas, in its liturgical life, and in its ecclesiastical structure. The cornerstone of the Church is Christ Himself (cf. Eph. 2:20), but around Him stand the holy Apostles of Christ—the twelve stones, upon which the Seer beheld the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb written (Rev. 21:14). Various confessional communities that call themselves “churches” cannot be recognized as apostolic, for they are not founded upon the foundation of the Apostles (Eph. 2:20), they have not received from them the succession of ordinations, they do not preserve the uninterrupted oral apostolic Tradition, which has authority equal to Holy Scripture (cf. 2 Thess. 2:15). They are not included in the spiritual chain ascending to the Apostles, through which the grace-filled gifts of the Holy Spirit are transmitted in the Church. By their innovations they alter the teaching handed down by the Apostles, whether orally or in writing, and they do not preserve in fullness the truth entrusted to us as a pledge for our salvation (cf. ibid., 13). In one way or another, they diminish the spiritual inheritance left by the Apostles of a dogmatic, liturgical, sacramental, and canonical character.

With full justification, Archbishop Seraphim [Sobolev] writes with indignation: “Strange as it may be, ecumenists include in this apostolic Church also the so-called ‘Christian churches’ which have no apostolic origin or succession at all. They consider all heretical confessions to belong to the apostolic Church, despite the fact that Paul, the greatest of the apostles, excommunicates all heretics from the Orthodox Church and delivers them to anathema, saying: even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach to you a gospel other than that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema (Gal. 1:8)” (Acts of the Conference of the Heads and Representatives of the Orthodox Churches, Moscow, 1949, vol. II, p. 369).

And indeed, can such societies be considered “apostolic” as the Unitarians, who reject the dogma of the Holy Trinity, or the National Czechoslovak “church,” which does not recognize the divinity of Christ, or the religious organization of the Remonstrants-Arminians in Holland, who deny all dogmatic and ecclesiastical obligations, or religious associations that consider water baptism non-obligatory, as well as many other religious communities that call themselves “Christian churches” but do not confess the fullness of Christ’s truth? Their faith is so distorted that it directly contradicts the Apostolic faith. Despite this, the WCC continues to call all these and similar communities “churches.” Moreover, new bold steps are being taken toward the elimination of the original and age-old Orthodox ecclesiology, according to which the Church is called Apostolic.

At the Sixth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Vancouver (Canada), held from July 24 to August 10, 1983, the General Secretary of the WCC, Dr. Philip Potter, in his opening address gravely sinned against the truth, incorrectly interpreting the words of the holy Apostle Peter: you yourselves, as living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ… you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation… (1 Peter 2:5, 9). Proceeding from these words, Potter declared: “One of the great achievements of the Reformation, which belongs to Martin Luther, is the discovery (!), based on the words (1 Peter 2:5, 9), that everyone—whether woman or man—is a priest before God.” Further, the General Secretary of the WCC calls upon all to become a “true priesthood, consisting of all believers, regardless of whether they are ordained or lay.”

By these words Potter attempts to undermine the Orthodox teaching on apostolic succession as a necessary mark of the legitimate sacramental priesthood: he seeks to abolish the boundary, on the one hand, between clergy and laity, and on the other—within the priesthood—between women and men. For him, all believers, including the laity, both men and women—all are priests!

But does the holy Apostle Peter, in the cited words of his First Epistle, establish such a universal “priesthood” in the Protestant sense, which would displace the lawful sacramental priesthood existing in the Church through apostolic succession? Does he include women in this general “priesthood”? Not at all!

Rising up against the original age-old tradition of the Orthodox Church, Potter in his speech calls to “cast aside the heresy (!) of authority and teaching power in the Church.” This statement, met with applause by Protestants, provoked strong opposition and protests from many delegates. They demanded that Potter retract his words, which he supposedly did. This is testified by the Greek professor of theology G. Galitis, who was present at the assembly, in an article entitled “The Protestant majority must not decide on behalf of the Orthodox!” However, in reality, Potter’s outrageous phrase was not removed from his speech and continues to remain in it, poisoning souls with yet another new ecumenical heresy, which is cloaked under a slanderous accusation against Orthodoxy of “heresy.” Potter, who as an ecumenist generally avoids the word “heresy,” uses it in order to declare as “heresy” the Orthodox teaching on the apostolic succession of the hierarchy and on the “authority and teaching power in the Church” that rightfully belong to it. Seeking brazenly to push through his blatant heresy, he acts according to the principle: “Stop thief!”

The well-known Russian exegete (exegesis—a branch of theology in which biblical texts are interpreted; the study of the interpretation of texts. —Ed. note), Bishop Michael, at the end of the nineteenth century interpreted the words of the holy Apostle Peter, addressed to Christians: You yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices (1 Peter 2:5), as follows: “A spiritual house… is a spiritual temple in contrast to a material one, spiritual because it is built of living stones, animated by the Spirit of God, being morally perfected—in spirit, living by the spirit.” Commenting on “a holy priesthood,” i.e., be a holy society of priests, Bishop Michael writes: “This entire discourse of the Apostle is not literal, but figurative, which must be understood in a metaphorical sense, that is, not in the sense of the priesthood as a special class of persons appointed in the Church for teaching, the performance of the Mysteries, and governance; this latter is not governed by that universal priesthood, but, on the contrary, serves only as an image for expressing the thought of the high calling of all Christians” (Explanatory Apostle, Kiev, 1890).

And in the Old Testament God calls the people of Israel a “kingdom of priests” (cf. Exod. 19:6), but only in a general figurative sense, for the special priesthood that served the Jerusalem Temple was given by God not to the whole people, but to one of the twelve tribes of Israel—the tribe of Levi (cf. Num. 3:6–12; cf. Heb. 7:11). Consequently, the universal priesthood of the people of Israel did not at all exclude the necessity of a special priesthood, the ministry of which was inaccessible even to royal persons, as is evident from the case of King Uzziah, who was punished by God with leprosy for daring to burn incense in the Temple of the Lord (cf. 2 Chron. 26:19).

Accordingly, in the New Testament, alongside the universal “royal priesthood” (cf. 1 Peter 2:9), consisting of Orthodox Christians as a “holy people” (in the sense of being dedicated to God), there exists a grace-filled ministerial priesthood chosen from among them, which does not extend to the laity who have not received special consecration through apostolic succession. … Against this Old Testament background, one must understand the words of the holy Apostle Peter about the New Testament people of God, likened to a “spiritual house” being built from “living stones,” in which spiritual sacrifices are offered, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (ibid., 5). … The Lord Jesus Christ Himself likens Himself to a temple, speaking figuratively of the temple of His body (John 2:21). And the holy Apostle Paul calls all Christians the “temple of the living God” (cf. 2 Cor. 6:16), whose foundation is Christ as the Cornerstone (cf. Eph. 2:20; cf. 1 Peter 2:4), upon which the whole building … grows into a holy temple in the Lord, and all believers are built into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Eph. 2:21–22), continually offering through Christ to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of lips that confess His name (Heb. 13:15).

Independently of this universal priesthood of the people of God, received by every Orthodox Christian in the Mystery of holy Chrismation, there exist in the Church special ministries connected with official grace-filled gifts, received in the Mystery of the Priesthood through ordination by apostolic succession. And all this is according to the will of the Founder of the Church, Christ, Who said to His apostles: He who hears you hears Me (Luke 10:16). Concerning these grace-filled gifts, the holy Apostle Paul writes to Christians: And God has appointed these in the Church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers … Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? (1 Cor. 12:28–29). Continuing the Apostle’s thought in the spirit of the undoubtedly negative answers to these questions, we may rightly ask: “Are all priests in the grace-filled official sense of hierarchical ministry in the Church of Christ?” And we must answer: “Of course not all!” …

Consequently, the Orthodox interpretation of the text (cf. 1 Peter 2:5, 9) does not allow any disparagement of the divinely established hierarchy, any neglect of apostolic succession, or any leveling of the apostles with the laity, of shepherds with the flock. On the contrary, at the end of the same epistle the holy Apostle Peter instructs the shepherds-presbyters how to tend the flock of God, setting it a personal example, for which they will receive a reward from the Chief Shepherd—Christ (cf. ibid., 5:1–4). The holy Apostles were appointed by Christ Himself to govern the Church, to celebrate in it the holy Mystery of Communion (cf. Luke 22:18), to teach and to baptize (cf. Matt. 28:19), to bind and to loose (cf. ibid., 18:18), to anoint and to heal (cf. Mark 6:13), and so forth. The Apostles constitute the first hierarchy in the Church of Christ. They also ordained deacons (cf. Acts 6:6), presbyters (cf. ibid., 14:23; Titus 1:5), and bishops (2 Tim. 1:6). Although they were at times accompanied by women (cf. 1 Cor. 9:5), they never ordained a woman as a presbyter or as a bishop. On the contrary, they commanded women not to teach, but to learn in silence and full submission (cf. 1 Tim. 2:11–12): Let your women keep silence in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak, but to be in submission, as also the law says (1 Cor. 14:34).

Now, in the WCC, the exact opposite is observed—women are accepted as “priestesses” and even “female bishops.” The first woman “bishop” was among the Methodists, and in July 1988, as already mentioned, a council of Anglican “bishops” resolved that women may be “bishops”! These outrageous innovations undoubtedly have as their aim the destruction of the very concept of apostolic succession in the Church, cleverly replacing it with a vague “apostolic tradition,” in order to evade the concrete question of apostolic succession and ordinations descending from the holy Apostles, which Protestants do not possess. Unfortunately, in order to accommodate them, even “Orthodox” ecumenists yield to such a confusion of concepts. Protopresbyter Professor Vitaly Borovoy, one of the compilers of the Lima document of 1982 on the Mysteries of Baptism, Eucharist, and Priesthood, without mentioning apostolic succession at all, writes of the “organic continuity of apostolic tradition” and of the “foundations of the historical continuity of apostolic tradition.”

Fortunately, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, under the chairmanship of Patriarch Pimen of Moscow and All Rus’, in the “Message on the Fifth Assembly of the WCC and its results,” reacted negatively to the priesthood of women: “The Orthodox Church cannot join the position of the Protestant majority, which allows the possibility of women’s priesthood and often expresses its attitude toward this problem in secular categories alien to Divine Revelation. In the mysterious unity, all members of the Body of Christ are possessors of an incomparable treasure of life. But the calling of all to holiness, to the inheritance of eternal life, and to universal apostleship does not mean the calling of all to sacramental priestly ministry. The Divine wisdom of Christ—the Founder of the Church—has indicated to us the solution of this question. Among those close to Christ there were also women, but not one of them was included in the apostolic Twelve. We cannot admit that Christ, acting thus, made a concession to the spirit of the times. The Orthodox Church considers it obligatory for itself in this matter to follow the ever-existing and universal Church Tradition thus established by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Church history knows no examples of the sacramental ministry of women” (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1976, no. 4).

However, these considerations pertain to the true divinely established grace-filled ecclesiastical hierarchy, which, through succession, ascends to the holy Apostles, and which the Orthodox Church of Christ possesses as its most precious divine gift. Anglicanism, its “hierarchy,” does not possess apostolic succession and, consequently, does not differ in any way from the so-called “hierarchy” of Protestant religious associations.

E) The Church – Infallible. Confessions of the Heterodox in Favor of the Orthodox church against Papal “Infallibility”

To the marks of the true Church one may add yet another of its distinguishing features—infallibility. The Orthodox Church is infallible in the confession of the faith entrusted to it by Christ through His holy Apostles.

The renowned French church historian Fr. Vladimir Guettée (1816–1892), a former Catholic abbé who, by deep conviction, converted to Orthodoxy, writes in his article The Fundamental Principles of Orthodoxy: “From the standpoint of the teaching of the Orthodox Church, the dogma of the infallibility of the Church is entirely reasonable and may be accepted by even the most exacting philosophy; in essence, it reduces to the trustworthy testimony necessarily borne by the Christian society concerning that teaching which Christ and the Apostles communicated to this society. The reliability of this testimony is confirmed, as a historical fact, by continuous witness-bearing, which begins and is linked together from the first century to our own days. Such testimony is so indisputable that, in order to refute it, one would have to reject all history, for there is no other historical fact that continues so uninterruptedly as the testimony of this whole society, a society living in all epochs and continuously affirming the teaching it has received. …

Truly, the Orthodox Church presents a most beautiful spectacle by its remarkable constancy in doctrine! It has witnessed many disputes; it has withstood numerous hostile attacks; it has been subjected to unheard-of cruelties and persecutions… Yet both in misfortune and in humiliation, as well as in days of glory, it has preserved its teaching: its fundamental principles have remained identical with those of true Christianity. Even in our days it can offer to heretical “churches” its most excellent teaching that the world has ever heard!” (Faith and Reason, 1884, Jan., pp. 25–26).

Further, Fr. Guettée contrasts with Orthodox teaching the errors of the Roman “church” concerning the dogma of infallibility, which “clearly proceed from the errors it adopted in its doctrine of the Church. Even before that church introduced the division into a teaching church and a taught church, its bishops had already attributed exclusively to themselves the authority of teaching, derived from their episcopal character; then they placed this infallibility in the episcopal body united with its head, that is, with the pope. And in our days, we have already heard how the pope (at the First Vatican Council of 1870) said to his bishops: ‘I alone can define dogmas; the bishops have only a consultative voice; I alone am infallible!’ Thus, an error which once appeared a very innocent invention of theological subtlety has, in the end, led the Roman church to heresy and absurdity” (ibid., p. 26).

Today one observes the complete collapse of the Roman false teaching on papal “infallibility,” which in essence is denied even by such a zealot of papist “tradition” as the French “Archbishop” Marcel Lefebvre. After the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), he declared his opposition to Rome, not accepting the conciliar innovations, and founded in Switzerland (Écône) his own “traditionalist” seminary. Since then, Lefebvre has been ordaining “traditionalist priests,” and on June 30, 1988, without the permission of the pope, he ordained four “bishops,” for which he, together with the ordained “bishops,” fell under excommunication by Pope John Paul II. Responding to the question of how he felt in view of the impending excommunication, Lefebvre said: “I am calm, for such an excommunication has no significance: I shall be excommunicated by a modernist pope, although the modernists themselves had been excommunicated by popes before John XXIII. The present-day Rome itself is in schism, for it separates itself from, and even opposes, Tradition. … Thus, we are in schism with those who themselves are in schism with their predecessors” (Monde et vie, 24.6.1988, p. 11). … The aforementioned Fr. Guettée, after his conversion to Orthodoxy, wrote: “The Church, for Orthodox Christianity, is the Christian society existing from the apostolic times; it lives one life; it does not change, because it changes nothing in the God-revealed teaching; having received this teaching from the beginning, it transmits it from age to age as it received it. The faithful (the laity) constitute in it as essential a part as the bishops. The latter have the special duty of watching over the Christian communities so that no innovation may penetrate into them; but all the faithful also have the right to participate in the preservation of Orthodoxy, and they are obliged to warn even the bishop himself, if he, betraying his duty, should wish to become an innovator.

In the Roman church, those people are condemned who rise up against the errors and abuses of episcopal authority. This was clearly revealed at the time of the proclamation of the latest false dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and papal infallibility. When several conscientious priests raised their voice against this innovation, they were condemned; they were persecuted in every possible way …”

In the Orthodox Church it is impossible that all the bishops should betray their duty, because they do not have as their head a so-called infallible man; however, in particular, this or that bishop, such as Nestorius, may fall into error. But in such a case, a priest or even a simple believer who points out the heretic not only is not subjected to reproach, but will even deserve glorification and gratitude from the entire Orthodox Church” (Faith and Reason, 1884, Jan., pp. 23–24).

… The holy Orthodox Church owes its high prestige as the sole constant and infallible bearer of Truth to its unchanging fidelity to that dogmatic faith which it inherited from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and His holy Apostles, and which it has affirmed at the Ecumenical and recognized Local Councils. From this it is clear that the dogmatic inheritance which the holy Church received from the Savior and assimilated from His immediate disciples constitutes an unshakable and firm foundation (cf. Luke 1:4), upon which it abides through the centuries always unchanged and indivisible.

The Orthodox Church is a stronghold against all errors on the ideological-dogmatic plane; it has preserved until now the truth in which it believes for salvation (cf. 2 Thess. 2:13), and it will preserve it until the end of the world, so that the true children of God, even in the last times—the times of the antichrist—may, on its basis, distinguish truth from error. Thus, the Orthodox Church of Christ will help all who sincerely desire to attain the truth in times of general apostasy (cf. ibid., 3), so that they may not yield to the cunningly woven deceptive teaching of the adversary of Christ, but, in an atmosphere of universal betrayal of Christ, may remain faithful to their Lord and Savior and, through right faith and a virtuous life in accordance with it, attain eternal communion with Him in the Kingdom of immortality. This lofty task as guardian of the truth the holy Orthodox Church must also fulfill today through fidelity to the dogmas and canons entrusted to it, firmly and once for all formulated, in fulfillment of the irrevocable promise given to it by the Savior that the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18).

An Orthodox Christian cannot be an ecumenist, because:

1. ecumenism does not believe in the existence of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church;

2. it heretically undermines Orthodox ecclesiology (the teaching on the Church. —Ed. note);

3. it manifests unbelief in the power of Christ’s words, unchanging until the end of the world, concerning the indivisibility of the Church (cf. ibid., 28:20);

4. it preaches an entirely new teaching about the Church, contrary to the Orthodox faith!

 

Abridged Russian edition from the Bulgarian original:

https://verapravoslavnaya.ru/?Pochemu_pravoslavnomu_nelmzzya_bytmz_ekumenistom