That is, Answers to what the Ecumenist sympathizers
say, spread, and write against today’s Confessors, clergy and laity, of the
Orthodox Faith.
By Hieromonk
Chrysanthos the Athonite
Kapsala, Mount Athos
[Published in 1995 and republished in 2016, but very relevant today and currently being serialized in Greek on the website
of the G.O.C. Metropolis of Larissa and Platamon. – Tr. note.]
Prologue
The devil, the hater of good,
beloved brethren in Christ, this implacable enemy of the human race, after he
fell through his pride and was separated from God, always strives in various
ways, moved by envy, to distance man also. Especially in our age he has
marshaled all his powers, and is perhaps making the final assault against the
human race, and more particularly against our Holy Catholic and Apostolic
Church. Perhaps what is referred to in the sacred Apocalypse—“Woe to the earth
and the sea, for the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing
that he has but a short time” (Rev. 12:12)—is being fulfilled now.
Through great technological
progress and material prosperity, he has achieved man’s apostasy from God and
is leading him to destruction. Unprecedented apostasy! People have reached the
point of going about naked in the streets and considering this degradation of
theirs to be progress! They commit with shamelessness every kind of
licentiousness and sin, and consider this to be freedom, or a manifestation of
complete love, as the Neo-Orthodox would say!
But where he is wreaking great
havoc is in the realm of our Church. Through various dark organizations, new
heresies, new religions, and delusions, he is trying to dissolve her. “In the
latter times some shall depart from the faith,” the Apostle Paul wrote, “giving
heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons” (1 Tim. 4:1).
One such heresy, or rather new
religion, is accursed Ecumenism, the religion of the “New Age,” or the Age of
Aquarius, as naïve astrologers call it. The followers of this new religion,
unfortunately, are people who are found in the higher and highest ranks of the
Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, with the result that they lead many clergy and laity
astray into their delusion.
Resistance against this great and
destructive spiritual disease is minimal. There are, of course, many who write,
preach, and protest against Ecumenism, but they do not take practical measures,
such as the cessation of commemoration and communion, as our holy Fathers
teach. Moreover, they also turn against those who, following the example and
teaching of our saints, sever every Ecclesiastical communion with declared
Ecumenists.
We call these people Ecumenist
sympathizers, and the few who preserve the Ecclesiastical Tradition and
teaching, Confessors. And this honorable designation is by no means
exaggerated, when one considers the great psychological and social pressure
which they undergo.
In the present study we shall try
to answer briefly all that the Ecumenist sympathizers say, write, and spread
against today’s Confessors of our Orthodox Faith.
PART ONE
General Remarks
Concerning Ecumenists and Ecumenist Sympathizers
Saint Basil, that great Father
and teacher of our Church, addressing, together with other Orthodox bishops of
his time, the most venerable brethren and concelebrating bishops in Italy and
Gaul, and referring to the sorrowful condition then prevailing in the churches
of the East because of the Arian heresy, wrote, among other things:
“For us, in
addition to the open war of the heretics, there has also arisen the war from
those who seem to be Orthodox, which has brought the Churches down to the
utmost weakness.”
(St. Basil the
Great, Letter 92)
The same thing, unfortunately, is
happening today as well, as though history were repeating itself. Together with
the war of the Ecumenists, we are also facing the war of the Ecumenist
sympathizers, who with hypocritical plausibility adulterate the word of God and
cause great harm to His Church.
These people, clergy and laity,
while through spoken and written word they align themselves against Ecumenism,
in practice take no measures against it. Their whole resistance stops at some
personal or collective protest, and nothing more. As for the cessation of
commemoration and Ecclesiastical communion with those who are now declared
Ecumenists, there is not even to be any mention of it; they consider it a
delusion! And if some are found who, following the example of our holy Fathers
and obeying the Ecclesiastical ordinances, sever communion with and
commemoration of the heretics, they become their immediate target.
They try by every means to
slander these present-day Confessors of the Orthodox Faith as deluded and
schismatic, as fanatics and ignorant people, as lacking love and ecclesiastical
education, as insignificant and troublemakers, as insubordinate and proud, as
distorters of the truth, and so forth. At the same time, they present their own
stance as correct and appropriate.
And since they do not have
canonical and Patristic testimonies, or examples from the practice of our
Church, they resort to sophistical theories and arguments, which, to put it
very mildly, could be called naïve thoughts and unsound arguments, in order in
this way to cover up their anti-traditional stance toward the new religion of
our days, which is called Ecumenism.
We, by the grace of God and
through the prayers of our holy Fathers, shall answer all these sophistical
objections and arguments of the Ecumenist sympathizers, after first setting
forth several excerpts from what various noteworthy men have written concerning
what Ecumenism is and what it seeks.
“Ecumenism is
the heresy of heresies, because until now each heresy in the history of the
Church has tried to put itself in the place of the true Church, whereas the
Ecumenical movement, having united all the heresies, summons all of them
together to honor themselves as the One, True Church! Here ancient Arianism,
Monophysitism, Pelagianism, Iconoclasm, and simply every possible superstition
of the contemporary heresies, under entirely different names, have been united
and are preparing to attack the Church. This phenomenon is undoubtedly of an
apocalyptic character… Ecumenism, attempting to destroy the boundaries of the
Church of Christ, itself has no boundaries. Already there is discussion not
only of union with all Christians, even with the Jews, but also that everyone
living upon the earth is a member of the church. In the W.C.C., as if by
sleight of hand, all the blasphemies, delusions, and contradictions of the
entire spiritual history of the human race have been linked and united, from
Cain and Ham to Judas the betrayer, Karl Marx, the corrupter Freud, and in
general all the lesser and greater contemporary blasphemers…”
(Metropolitan
Vitaly, of the Russian Church Abroad in the Diaspora, Orthodox Press,
February 10–May 20, 1970)
“Ecumenism is
obviously not merely an innovation, but is a hodgepodge of all innovations; it
is an attempt to tear down the entire divine edifice called the Orthodox
Christian Church, and to erect in its place the new tower of Babel. Ecumenism
shelters absolutely every kind of heresy, even the Protestants, who preach the
theology of the ‘death of God.’”
(Professor
Constantine Cavarnos, Orthodox Press, June 10, 1970)
“Ecumenism, the
greatest heresy of the twentieth century, preaching dogmatic and religious
syncretism and tending toward a kind of pan-religion through the equating of
Christian confessions and religions, constitutes the most deadly threat to
Orthodoxy…”
(Archimandrite
Spyridon Bilalis, Orthodoxy and Papism, vol. I, p. 377, Athens 1969)
“From the above
it becomes clear that Ecumenism-syncretism is not simply a heresy, but a
pan-heresy, because in essence it leads to the denial of Christianity as the
unique and exclusive absolute truth by revelation, and to its reduction to one
religion among many, or to the most spiritual and most important, but not the
only one. Ecumenism, therefore syncretism, is the greatest threat against the
Orthodox Catholic Church, because through it not merely one dogma or one
fundamental truth is struck, but the entire dogmatic and canonical order of the
Holy Church of Christ as a whole.”
(Professor of
the Theological School of Athens, Mr. Constantine Mouratides, Orthodox Press,
May 20, 1970)
“Ecumenism, a
Masonic construct, seeks to level all religions, to knead them in the same
kneading-trough, in order gradually to prepare the dough of religious
indifference—a precursor symptom of the Antichrist.”
(By an Orthodox
Christian from the former Iron Curtain, Orthodox Press, June 1966)
And for us, Ecumenism is a kind
of new religion, a Pan-religion, we would say, which, by uniting all the
existing religions of the world, will become the religion of the “New Age” or
of the “Age of Aquarius,” as the foolish astrologers call it. That is, of the
age when—according to them, of course—our True God will cease to be worshipped,
and instead of Him the Devil will be worshipped! This is Ecumenism, and this is
the purpose served by all its followers, clergy and laity.
In order that it not be thought
that we are wronging them, we shall set forth two or three statements of
prominent Ecumenists:
“We are deceived
and we sin if we think that the Orthodox Faith came down from heaven and that
the other dogmas are unworthy. Three hundred million people chose Mohammedanism
in order to reach their God, and other hundreds of millions are Protestants, Catholics,
Buddhists. The purpose of every religion is to improve man.”
(Patriarch
Athenagoras, Orthodox Press, Dec. 1968)
“The Ecumenical
movement, we believe, although of Christian origin, ought to become a movement
of all religions toward one another, so that dialogue may take place, if it is
in fact true that all religions serve God and man.”
(Archbishop
Iakovos of America, Orthodox Press, Aug.–Sept. 1968)
“And Mohammed
too is an apostle who led many to the Kingdom of Heaven.”
(Patriarch Parthenios
of Alexandria)
Let us now also look at a prayer
of the Ecumenists:
“O God, Father,
Thou canst make all things new. We entrust ourselves to Thee; help us to live
for others, because Thy love also extends to all men; to search for the truth
which we have not known.”
(Orthodox
Press, Feb. 10–May 20, 1970)
Let these dark men, then, search
for the truth which they have not known; let them search in the dark chambers
of the Masonic lodges to find it. For us, “the Way, and the Truth, and the
Life” (John 14:6) is our Lord Jesus Christ, our True God.
The sorrowful thing in this case
is that these people have occupied the higher and highest positions in the
Church of Christ, with the result that they lead many Orthodox Christians into
the religion of the “New Age,” Ecumenism. It is from these people that the
Ecumenist sympathizers do not wish to separate, because they believe that by
doing such a thing they separate themselves from the Church of Christ!!! And
they hinder in every way the separation of every well-intentioned person who
perceives the spiritual danger brought about by Ecumenism.
Our Lord, reproving the Pharisees
and scribes of His time, said: “Woe unto you lawyers, for ye have taken away
the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering
in ye hindered” (Luke 11:52); that is, “Woe unto you, because you took away
from men the key of knowledge; that is, you darkened their mind with your false
teachings and took from them the means by which they would have known the truth
and advanced along the road of salvation. Thus, you yourselves did not enter
into the Kingdom of Christ, and those who wished to enter you hindered” (interpreted
by Ioannis Th. Kolitsaras).
It would be good for the
Ecumenist sympathizers to take heed, lest, by hindering pious Christians from
severing every communion with the Ecumenists, they inherit the woe of our Lord…
Let us now answer their
objections, not, of course, with sophistical arguments of our own, but with
Patristic testimonies and canonical proofs.
OBJECTION I
It is not permitted, they
say, to cease commemorating one’s own Patriarch, Archbishop, Metropolitan,
or Bishop before he has been condemned by the whole body of the bishops of the
Church.
Although they refuted this
argument by their own practice in 1972, when both certain bishops of Northern
Greece and almost the entire body of the Athonites ceased commemorating
Patriarch Athenagoras, let us nevertheless also see what the sacred Canons, the
holy Fathers, and the practice of our Church say.
There are two sacred Canons, the
31st Apostolic Canon and the 15th Canon of the First-Second Council, which
permit lower clergy to cease commemoration of, and communion with, their
superiors when these openly preach some heresy and false doctrine. Of course,
these two sacred Canons, and several others, such as the 18th Canon of the
Fourth Ecumenical Council, the 13th and 14th Canons of the First-Second
Council, and so forth, have as their central purpose the prevention of lower
clergy from severing relations with their superiors; and only as an insertion,
one might say, do they grant this right, namely, the cessation of communion.
One might ask why, on so serious
a matter, no special Canons were issued. The answer is very simple. Such a
thing was not needed, because from the first Christian centuries the severing
of every spiritual relationship with anyone who preached heresy was taken for
granted.
Saint Mark of Ephesus, that great
champion of Orthodoxy, in a wonderful passage, says concerning this:
“All the
teachers of the Church, all the Councils, and all the divine Scriptures exhort
us to flee those of other mind and to separate ourselves from communion with
them.”
Yes, this is the general mind of
our Church, and for this reason, we repeat, the sacred Canons did not deal with
it more specifically.
We shall now set forth these two
sacred Canons which we mentioned, and their interpretation by Saint Nikodemos.
Canon 31 of the
Holy Apostles:
“If any
presbyter, despising his own bishop, should gather separately and set up
another altar, having condemned the Bishop in nothing concerning piety and
justice, let him be deposed as one who loves authority. For he is a tyrant.
Likewise also the rest, and as many as join themselves to him; and let the
laity be excommunicated. But let these things be done after a first, second,
and third exhortation by the Bishop.”
Interpretation: “Any
presbyter who should despise his own bishop and, without knowing him to be
manifestly in error either in piety or in justice—that is to say, without
knowing him to be manifestly either a heretic or unjust—should gather the
Christians privately, and, having built another church, should serve liturgy in
it separately, without the permission and consent of his bishop, let such a one
be deposed as a lover of authority, because, as a tyrant, by force and tyranny,
he seeks to usurp the authority belonging to his Bishop. But let any other
clergy who agree with him in such apostasy likewise be deposed; and let any
laity be excommunicated. These things, however, are to be done after the Bishop
has urged, with gentleness and meekness, three times, those who have separated
from him to desist from such a movement, and they persist in their obstinacy.”
Here ends the interpretation of
the present Apostolic Canon; but Saint Nikodemos thought it good to add
something from the 15th Canon of the First-Second Council, which we also set
forth:
“But as for
those who separate from their Bishop before a synodal examination because he
publicly preaches some false doctrine and heresy, such persons are not only not
subject to the above-mentioned penalties, but are also deemed worthy of the
honor befitting the Orthodox, according to the 15th Canon of the First-Second
Council.”
What one would observe concerning
this sacred Canon of the holy Apostles is that it permits presbyters to sever
communion from their Bishop not only on account of false doctrine and heresy,
but even if he is unjust.
Canon 15 of the
First-Second Council
Since the present Canon is rather
long, we shall set forth only its second part.
“...For those
who, on account of some heresy condemned by the holy Councils or Fathers,
separate themselves from communion with their president, when, that is, he
publicly preaches the heresy and teaches it bareheaded in church, such persons,
walling themselves off from communion with the one called Bishop before a
synodal verdict, are not only not subject to canonical penalty, but shall also
be deemed worthy of the honor befitting the Orthodox. For they have condemned
not Bishops, but false bishops and false teachers; and they have not sundered
the unity of the Church by schism, but have been zealous to deliver the Church
from schisms and divisions.”
Interpretation: “...But if the
aforementioned presidents are heretics, and preach their heresy openly, and for
this reason those subject to them separate themselves, even before a synodal
judgment concerning this heresy has yet taken place, these who separate are not
only not condemned on account of the separation, but are even worthy of the
honor due to them as Orthodox, because they did not cause a schism in the
Church by this separation, but rather freed the Church from the schism and
heresy of these false bishops.”
We deem it appropriate to mention
here what the well-known Serbian canonist Bishop [St. Nikodim] Milaš
emphasizes, in a special study of the above Canon and on this point:
“If a Bishop or
Metropolitan or Patriarch should begin to proclaim publicly in church some
heretical teaching contrary to Orthodoxy, then those subject to him possess
both the right and the duty to withdraw immediately from them; wherefore they
shall not only be subjected to no canonical penalty, but shall even be praised,
since by this they have not condemned and risen up against lawful Bishops, but
against false bishops and false teachers; nor have they thereby created a
schism in the Church, but on the contrary, they have delivered the Church,
insofar as they were able, from schism and division.”
(Pravila
Pravoslavne Crkve s Tumačenjima, II, Novi Sad, 1896, 290, 291).
With the above interpretation of
these two sacred Canons, which express the established Ecclesiastical Tradition
and practice of our Church, our holy Fathers also agree completely.
Saint Athanasios the Great writes
concerning this:
“Every man,
having received discernment from God, shall be punished if he follows an
ignorant shepherd and accepts a false opinion as true.”
(B.E.P.E.S. 33,
214)
And in another place, he writes:
“If the Bishop
or the presbyter, who are the eyes of the Church, conduct themselves wickedly
and scandalize the people, they must be cast out. For it is better to gather
without them in a house of prayer, than with them to be cast, as with Annas and
Caiaphas, into the fire of gehenna.”
(B.E.P.E.S. 33,
199)
Saint John Chrysostom, referring
to the well-known passage from the Epistle to the Hebrews of the Apostle Paul,
“Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves,” writes:
“How then does
Paul say, ‘Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves’?
Having said above, ‘considering the outcome of their manner of life,’ then he
said, ‘Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves.’ What
then, he says, when he is wicked, are we not even then to obey? Wicked, how do
you mean? If it is in regard to the Faith, flee and avoid him, not only if he
is a man, but even if he is an angel coming down from heaven.”
(PG 34, 231A)
Saint Theodore the Studite, in
his letter to the Patriarch of Jerusalem, writes:
“Some have made
complete shipwreck concerning the Faith; others, even if they were not drowned
in their thoughts, nevertheless perish together through communion with the
heresy.”
(PG 99, 1164)
And in another place:
“Not even if
someone should provide all the money in the world, yet be in communion with
heresy, does he become a friend of God, but an enemy.”
(PG 99, 1205A)
And St. Photios the Great clearly
commands:
“Is the shepherd a heretic? He is
a wolf. One must flee from him and leap away, and not be deceived or approach
him, even if he seems to fawn gently. Flee his communion and communion with him
as the venom of a serpent.”
Saint Mark of Ephesus says the
same things:
“Flee also,
brethren, communion with those who are not in communion, and the commemoration
of those who are not to be commemorated.”
(PG 160,
1097D–1100A)
In another place he says
concerning the Latin-minded of his time:
“I was confined
by the Emperor. But the word of God and the power of truth are not bound;
rather, it runs and prospers all the more, and most of the brethren, taking
courage from my exile, strike with reproofs those criminals and transgressors
of the right Faith and of the Patristic ordinances, and drive them away from
every side as refuse, neither enduring to concelebrate with them nor
commemorating them at all as Christians.”
And now let us also see what
stance the confessing clergy and laity maintained toward those who preached
heresy without yet having been condemned by an episcopal council.
Our Orthodox Church had received
by Tradition the naming of our Panagia as Theotokos. This
Tradition was set aside by Nestorius, who, coming from Antioch, became
Patriarch of Constantinople in the year 428. He was a disciple of Theodore of
Mopsuestia and, unfortunately, also received his heretical opinions concerning
the Christological dogma: two natures, two persons.
Having become Patriarch, he began
little by little, through his representatives—clerics from Antioch who had been
brought with him—to call our Panagia “Mother of Man” or “Mother of Christ.”
This teaching, as was to be expected, brought great disturbance and confusion
upon the clergy and people of Constantinople. Many severed ecclesiastical
communion with him, as well as his commemoration, following the Tradition of
our Church. Nestorius, exercising his Patriarchal authority, deposed and
excommunicated them as schismatics.
Perhaps someone might claim that
these people were fanatical zealots, lacking ecclesiological knowledge, and
many other things which today’s Ecumenist sympathizers also say against us.
But the great Cyril, Patriarch of
Alexandria, who also served as President of the Third Ecumenical Council, comes
forward—and concerning him we do not believe anyone would dare even to imagine
that he did not know ecclesiology—and writes to the portion of the clergy and
people of Constantinople which had repudiated Nestorius as soon as it became
aware of his false doctrine:
“Rekindling this
within yourselves, neither communing with the aforementioned Nestorius, nor
paying heed to him as a teacher, if he remains a wolf instead of a shepherd…
And as for those
of the clergy or laity who have been separated or deposed by him for the sake
of the right Faith, we are in communion with them; we do not ratify his unjust
sentence, but rather praise those who have suffered, and say this to them: If
ye are reproached in the Lord, blessed are ye, for the Spirit of the power and
of God resteth upon you…”
(Mansi, IV,
1096)
One of those who ceased
commemorating and communing with Nestorius as soon as he began to proclaim his
heresy was our venerable Father Hypatios, who is commemorated on June 17. His
life relates:
“When the
venerable one learned of the heretical opinions of Nestorius, he immediately
erased his name from the diptychs, so that he would not be commemorated in the
Liturgies. The most devout Bishop Eulalios said to Hypatios: ‘Why did you erase
his name before seeing what would happen?’ The venerable one answered: ‘Since I
have learned that he speaks wickedly about my Lord, I cease communion with him
and do not even mention his name; he is no longer a bishop.’ Then Eulalios said
to him in anger: ‘Go and correct what you have done, for I can also punish
you.’ And Hypatios replied: ‘Do whatever you wish, for I have decided to suffer
everything, and with this decision I did this.’”
Equal to our ancient confessing
Fathers was also Saint Mark of Ephesus, Bishop of Ephesus. After his refusal in
Florence to sign the union, the saint returned to the Imperial City and in no
way accepted ecclesiastical communion with the Latin-minded Patriarch and his
followers. His watchword was: “There is no concession in matters of the Faith.”
Behold what he himself says concerning this stance of his:
“I do not wish,
nor do I accept communion with him or with those with him, absolutely, in no
way… just as I do not accept the union that has taken place, nor the Latin
dogmas which he and those with him accepted… For I am precisely convinced that
the more I separate myself from him and from such men, the nearer I draw to God
and to all the faithful and holy Fathers; and just as I separate myself from
these, so I am united to the truth and to the holy Fathers, the theologians of
the Church.”
The holy Father was pressured in
various ways, as were other Orthodox hierarchs and priests, to accept the
commemoration of the Patriarch. Let us follow a brief dialogue between him and
the Patriarchal attendants, who, with “words of flattery,” were trying to trip
up the athletes.
Representatives:
“Nor do we say that what took place in Florence was done well… nevertheless,
for the sake of economy and the welfare of the Homeland… accept the
commemoration… which is a mere word…”
But those with
Saint Mark answered:
“No! For the
matter of commemoration is very great and not small, because those who are
commemorated in the churches are those who are Orthodox and in communion with
the same Church. But those who are not in communion are not commemorated; nor
does any of the clergy have permission to pray in the churches for those who
are not in communion. How, then, shall we commemorate him, being
Latin-minded?…”
(Dositheos, Dodekabiblos,
p. 907)
From all that we have set forth
up to now—the sacred Canons, the teachings and examples of saints—one single
conclusion is drawn: that it is worthy of praise for every faithful cleric,
monastic, and layperson to sever ecclesiastical communion with, and the
commemoration of, his bishop when he publicly preaches some heresy or some kind
of new religion, as unfortunately happens today; and not to wait, as the
Ecumenist sympathizers maintain, for his condemnation “by the whole body of the
bishops of the Church.”
Perhaps someone may wonder: if
this is how matters stand, what meaning do councils have in the Church? We
answer: As faithful children of our Church, by all that we have written we in
no way intend to call into question her synodal institution. Our purpose was to
demonstrate the right and, at the same time, the duty of clergy and laity to
cease the commemoration of, and communion with, Bishops or Metropolitans or
Patriarchs who publicly preach teaching opposed to Orthodoxy; and not, we
repeat, to call the synodal institution into question. May it not be so.
To lower clergy and laity, only
this right is granted, and nothing more. It remains for the episcopal body,
assembled in Council, to take the appropriate measures against the one who
speaks perverse things. That is, to summon him to give an account, to admonish
him, to grant him time for repentance, to suspend him, to depose him, and to
anathematize him, if he does not repent and does not renounce his deluded
opinions. At the same time, it must also inform the whole fullness of the
Church to avoid him as a “heathen and a publican,” according to the Lord’s
commandment, as a bearer of a deadly spiritual infectious disease. All these
things are the competencies of episcopal councils, and not of lower clergy and
laity.
The sorrowful thing in the
present case is that in earlier times, as soon as someone made his heretical
opinions public, other Bishops, Metropolitans, and Patriarchs immediately
protested. They would write letters to him in which they pointed out his delusions
and called him to repentance; they enlightened the faithful and exhorted them
to distance themselves from him. Then they would convene local councils in
which they condemned the heresy being preached, and at the same time they would
act so that a Great or Ecumenical Council might be convened to take up the
matter.
In our days, unfortunately,
nothing of the sort is happening! Everyone is asleep! More than seventy years
have passed since the Ecumenist encyclical of the Patriarchate of
Constantinople, which also marked the beginning of the religion of the “New
Age” of Ecumenism; so many betrayals against our Faith have taken place, and
none of the Patriarchs or Archbishops has taken those practical measures
against this new religion, with the result that its bearers have occupied all
the key positions in the Church and are corrupting everyone.
Now who is to call whom to
account? Who is to judge whom? “They have all turned aside; together they have
become corrupt,” one might say. And if some bishop dares even to stammer
something against this great betrayal, he is characterized as ultra-Orthodox,
provincial, and so forth.
An exception in our days has been
the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad, which, after first
repeatedly protesting strongly against the treacherous course of the leaders of
Orthodoxy and not being heeded, severed relations with all the “Orthodox”
Churches, and at the same time also issued the following Synodal Anathema
against Ecumenism:
“To those who
attack the Church of Christ and teach that the Church of Christ is divided into
so-called ‘branches,’ which differ from one another in doctrine and manner of
life, or that the Church does not visibly exist, but will be formed in the
future, when all the ‘branches’ or sections or confessions, or even religions,
shall be united into one body; and who do not distinguish the priesthood and
the mysteries of the Church from the priesthood and mysteries of the heretics,
but say that the baptism and eucharist of the heretics are sufficient for
salvation; likewise, to those who knowingly have communion with the
aforementioned heretics, or who advocate, spread, or defend their
newly-appeared heresy of Ecumenism under the pretext of brotherly love or the
supposed union of separated Christians: ANATHEMA!”
These Russian Bishops, having
refused to cooperate with the atheistic Communist regime of that time, left the
Soviet Union together with thousands of people for the free countries of the
West, and established the Russian Church Abroad. Thus, it seems, God ordered
matters so that this Orthodox Synod might exist for the support of Orthodox
Christians everywhere, and might transmit the Priesthood also to other local
Churches which wished to struggle against the heresy.
OBJECTION II
The Ecumenist sympathizers say: The
struggle against Ecumenism must be waged from within, and not outside the
Church, that is, by severing communion with and commemoration of the Ecumenist
Bishops.
The tragic error of all these
people who say these things is that they believe that whoever severs communion
with, and commemoration of, a bishop who preaches heretically places himself
outside the Church of Christ. No, beloved! The one who places himself outside
our Church is he who publicly preaches new religions and heresies, and those
who follow him—not he who remains within her Ecclesiastical Tradition and
teaching.
It must be understood by all of
us that the Church of Christ is absolutely identified with the Truth; and those
who remain in the Revealed Truth, “once delivered unto the saints,” according
to the Apostle Jude, are those who also remain within the Church. Saint Gregory
Palamas writes concerning this:
“Those who are
of the Church of Christ are of the Truth; and those who are not of the Truth
are not of the Church of Christ either.”
Saint Maximos the Confessor said
the same thing when he was asked to which church he belonged. Let us see what
he himself wrote in a letter to his disciple Anastasios:
“Yesterday… the
patriarch addressed me, saying: ‘Of which church are you? Of Byzantium? Of
Rome? Of Antioch? Of Alexandria? Of Jerusalem? Behold, all of them, together
with the provinces under them, have been united. If, therefore, you are of the
Catholic Church, be united, lest, by taking a strange path in life, you suffer
what you do not expect.’
To them I said:
‘The God of all declared the Catholic Church to be the right and saving
confession of faith in Him, blessing Peter for having rightly confessed Him.’
‘Therefore
listen,’ they said. ‘It has seemed good to the master and to the Patriarch,
through the Pope of Rome’s representative, that you, if you do not obey, be
anathematized, and that the death prescribed by them be brought upon you.’
And the saint
replied: ‘May what has been ordained by God before all ages come to its end in
me, bringing Him the glory known before all ages…’”
(PG 132AC)
The Apostle of the Gentiles,
Paul, in his wondrous address at Miletus, speaking to the presbyters of the
church of Ephesus, said among other things:
“And from among
your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away
disciples after them.” (Acts 20:30)
That is, from among you
yourselves men shall arise who will teach perverse and false teachings, in
order to draw the disciples away from the right road of salvation and lead them
over to their own side as their own followers (interpretation by Ioannis Th.
Kolitsaras).
Here we observe that the pastors
themselves will teach perverse things and will separate the disciples. If,
according to the Ecumenist sympathizers, these presbyters, although they
distort the Truth of the Church, will remain within her, then from where will
they separate these disciples? From the Church? But they themselves would also
be within her! From the Truth? Is there Truth outside the Church, and Church
outside the Truth? Certainly not!
For the Apostle of the Gentiles,
Paul, and for us, from the moment these presbyters began to speak perverse
things, they would cease to belong to the Church; and it would follow that they
would separate their disciples from her in order to make them their own
followers. This is the actual truth; and let these people cease speaking about
“inside” and “outside” the Church.
OBJECTION III
The Ecumenist sympathizers say: We
may have different views from our bishops, even on matters of Faith, but it is
not permitted to cease commemorating them, because otherwise the mysteries
remain invalid, that is, without sanctifying grace.
These people brandish this
argument as a scarecrow in order to make simple and well-intentioned clergy and
laity afraid, when they wish to distance themselves from the Ecumenists. But
where, beloved, in the Holy Scripture and Tradition of our Church, are these
things which you say to be found?
We have learned from Saint Mark
of Ephesus, who expresses the general spirit of our Church, that:
“All the
teachers of the Church, all the Councils, and all the divine Scriptures exhort
us to flee those of other mind and to separate ourselves from communion with
them.”
When the faithful clergy and
people of Constantinople severed every ecclesiastical communion with, and the
commemoration of, the heretical Patriarch Nestorius before a synodal
condemnation, were their mysteries invalid? And how, then, does Saint Cyril, Patriarch
of Alexandria, praise them and receive them into full communion, as we saw
above?
Were the mysteries of Saint Mark
of Ephesus invalid, since he did not accept communion with, and commemoration
of, the Latin-minded Patriarch of his time? Many Athonite Monasteries, Sketes,
and Hesychasteria, during the period 1971–1972, had ceased commemorating
the great Ecumenist Patriarch Athenagoras; were their mysteries then invalid?
Quite the contrary!
For today’s Confessors, the
question of validity arises concerning the mysteries of those who commemorate
the heretics, and not of those who sever every spiritual relationship with
them.
OBJECTION IV
Some Spiritual Fathers and Elders
who are Ecumenist sympathizers, proposing what they consider a middle solution
on the matter of commemoration, say: Let us commemorate our bishop or the
Patriarch aloud, but secretly, at the Proskomide, let us not commemorate
him; during the Turkish occupation they commemorated the Sultan and even
chanted his Polychronion.
A marvelous way of confession!!!
A marvelous middle solution! If the holy Martyrs and Confessors of our Faith
had discovered it, they would have avoided tortures, imprisonments, exiles, and
death!
Beloved, do not mock yourselves
and those who listen to you. Do not “play with things not to be played with.”
Either you believe that the Patriarch is a heretic and must not commemorate
him, or that he is not, and you are obliged to commemorate him canonically. The
rest is from the evil one. Do not try, in an indirect way, supposedly both to
make a confession and to avoid the consequences of confession: “Be not
deceived; God is not mocked.”
As for the fact that during the
Turkish occupation they commemorated the Sultan and chanted his Polychronion,
this has no relation whatsoever to the commemoration of the Patriarch. For the
Sultan was a political ruler, having no spiritual relationship whatsoever with
the Church of Christ and the faithful; whereas the Patriarch, if he is
Orthodox, is the spiritual father of the faithful and representative of the
Church.
If, of course, those who say
these things regard him as a Sultan, let them commemorate him and chant his Polychronion,
in the manner and in the place of the Ecclesiastical service in which the
Sultan was commemorated during the Turkish occupation!
OBJECTION V
Some other, more naïve Ecumenist
sympathizers, wishing to present themselves as an example of ecclesiastical
good order, say: We, in our Hesychasterion, do not commemorate the
Patriarch; but when we are in a church where he is commemorated, we say
inwardly: “Remember, O Lord, every Orthodox bishop rightly dividing the word of
Thy truth.”
Those who say these things
resemble the previous ones, who propose some middle solution. What we said
concerning them applies also to these.
It is possible that those who say
such things are resorting to the old Jesuit method of reservatio mentalis, that
is, mental reservation. Naïve arguments, which serve to deceive themselves and
those who pay attention to them. Unfortunately, this is where those end up who
do not wish to see the actual truth and follow it.
The great Confessor Theodore the
Studite called such people “nighttime pious men, unable to speak openly in the
light.” (Letter 31, PG 99, 1009)
OBJECTION VI
We must not, they say, call
the Ecumenists heretics, but rather heresy-sympathizers; and they say that they
do not believe the things they do, but are making various political maneuvers
which serve the interests of the Church and the Nation.
The Ecumenists, beloved, are not
merely heretics or heresy-sympathizers, but people of another religion. They
are, as we have mentioned, co-founders of the religion of the “New Age,”
through which the devil is worshipped. They are bearers of this fearful
spiritual disease, and in some cases, in their manifestations, they surpass
even the Protestants themselves. These unfortunate people themselves, after
all, boast that they are founding members of the W.C.C.
The charter of the Ecumenical
movement is the 1920 encyclical of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, whose
ecclesiological basis is the Protestant false doctrine of the “branch theory,”
which means that all Christian “churches” possess partial truth, and only if
all are united together can they possess the truth.
From the year 1971 onward, those
of other religions also entered into the “branch theory,” as supposedly
possessing venerable spiritual traditions, and common prayers, dialogues, and
collaborations began. Papism follows the same pan-religious course, which,
although it is not a member of the W.C.C., cooperates closely and organizes
pan-religious meetings of the Assisi type—seven so far since 1981—with the
participation, of course, always of the “Orthodox Ecumenists.”
As for the claim that all these
things they do are political expediencies and that they do not believe them, we
do not agree. First of all, what relation can the shepherds of our Church have
with political expediencies? And secondly, how far, finally, can these go? When
did our Church ever become involved with politics and come out the winner?
For us, the Ecumenists are
conscious members of the new religion and are trying by every means to spread
it and impose it. They themselves do not hide it; wherever they are found, they
proclaim it by their words and by their deeds. They do indeed serve political
expediencies, but not for the good of our Church; rather, for the swifter
domination of the Antichrist. They are corrupted individuals who consciously
act for the destruction of the Church of Christ!
Therefore, all these things which
the Ecumenist sympathizers say are “excuses in sins”!
OBJECTION VII
Another argument which the
Ecumenist sympathizers put forward is the multitude of people who follow their
own line, saying: “So many Hierarchs, so many Priests, so many Monks and
laypeople, educated and uneducated, do not sever spiritual communion with the
Ecumenists; have all these been deluded, and only you few are with the truth?”
The sophism is old, refuted and
laid bare by almost all our holy Fathers and by Holy Scripture. The misfortune
for those who say all these things is that the truth does not always go
together with the many, but often with the few. Our Lord Himself said: “For
wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many
there be who go in through it. For narrow is the gate, and straitened is the
way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. 7:13–14).
And in another place: “For many are called, but few are chosen.”
Our holy Fathers answered as
follows when the heretics put forward as an argument the multitude that
followed them:
“Do you
strengthen falsehood by numbers? You have shown the increase of the evil; for
the more there are in evil, the greater is the calamity.”
“For me, the
venerable multitude is not that which rejoices in innovation, but that which
preserves the paternal inheritance.”
(St. Theodore
the Studite, PG 99, Letter 45)
In another place he says:
“Let us not set
up a stumbling block for the Church of God, which exists even when defined by
three Orthodox, according to the saints.”
(St. Theodore
the Studite, PG 99, 1049B)
Saint Nikephoros the Confessor
wrote:
“Even if very
few remain in Orthodoxy and piety, these are the Church, and the authority and
guardianship of the ecclesiastical ordinances rests in them.”
Professor G. Florovsky wrote:
“Very often the
measure of truth is the witness of the minority; it is possible for the small
flock to be the Catholic Church. It is possible for the heretics to spread
everywhere and for the Church to end up on the margins of history, or to
withdraw into the desert. This has happened repeatedly in history, and it is
very possible that it will happen again.”
Therefore, the many do not
constitute the Church of Christ, but those who preserve the right and saving
confession of the Faith, however few they may be.
OBJECTION VIII
Saint Theodore the Studite,
they say, ceased commemorating and communing with the Patriarch and the
Emperor because the woman whom the Emperor took as wife, after the dismissal of
his first lawful wife, was his cousin, and he regarded it as a personal insult;
otherwise, he would not have done it.
A sorrowful state of affairs!
This is how far the Ecumenist sympathizers have gone: to doubt the pure and
selfless motives of our holy Fathers. This, of course, happens because they are
reproved by the life and stance of our saints for what they themselves do
today. Saint Maximos the Confessor and Saint Theodore the Studite in particular
are very disagreeable to them, and they try by every means to diminish them.
Saint Theodore the Studite,
beloved, this great Confessor and teacher of our Church, the faithful keeper of
all the Patristic traditions, did nothing while being overcome by human
weaknesses. Study carefully his various letters and apologies, and you will see
how he fully justifies his stance against the Emperor and the Patriarch on
account of this unlawful marriage.
His biographer, Michael the Monk,
writes concerning this:
“Having
therefore discerned these unlawful things… he was grieved, he was distressed
within himself, he lamented the destruction of all together, both of those then
living and of those after them; for he rightly feared lest the irrational
conduct of the ruler, being accepted as law by the senseless, should transmit
to later generations an incurable rule of action. For this reason, then, he did
not keep silent so as not to rebuke the calamity, but severed himself, together
with his own Father, from communion with them.”
(PG 99, 253A).
In simple words, the saint feared
lest this lawlessness of the Emperor should become an evil example for others
as well. For this reason, he did not remain silent, but reproved both the
Patriarch, who did not punish the Priest who performed this unlawful marriage,
and the Emperor, severing every communion with them.
Such were our saints: in deed and
word they denounced every lawlessness, and did not remain merely at simple
protests, as today’s Ecumenist sympathizers do.
In the general decline in which
we find ourselves today, it seems inconceivable to us that, over an unlawful
marriage, the saint reached the point of severing every ecclesiastical
communion with the Patriarch and Emperor. Where are those who claim that a
council must first be held to judge someone acting unlawfully, and only
afterwards may we cease commemoration and communion?
Of course, what the saint did had
consequences: imprisonments, tortures, and exiles, which we, unfortunately,
today are not disposed to undergo; for this reason, we “keep quiet”!!! Let us
at least keep quiet, then, and not slander our saints.
OBJECTION IX
The Ecumenist sympathizers ask
and say: “Are we like Saint Maximos the Confessor, or Saint Theodore the
Studite, and the other saints, so as to do what they did?”
Yes, beloved, we contemptible
ones are not like our saints, and we have never claimed any such thing; but
should we not obey them? Whom, after all, shall we obey? The Ecumenists, who
try by every means to persuade us that Orthodoxy is one among many religions,
whose purpose is the improvement of man? Or our saints, who tell us to flee far
away from heretics?
We, though the least of all, have
made our choice: obedience to our holy Fathers and absolute respect for our
Ecclesiastical Tradition, and not to today’s men who distort the truth.
Saint Maximos the Confessor
writes concerning this case:
“But no one
ought to adulterate the word of God on account of his own negligence; rather,
he must confess his own weakness, but not conceal the truth of God, lest,
together with the transgression of the commandments, we also become liable for
the misinterpretation of the word of God.”
And Saint Theodore the Studite
says:
“Not only if
someone is preeminent in rank and knowledge is he obliged to contend by
speaking and teaching the word of Orthodoxy, but even if he holds the rank of a
disciple, he is bound to speak openly and to declare the truth freely.”
(PG 99, 1120G)
Just as we generally make an
effort to keep the commandments of our Lord and do not say, “Who are we to do
what He commands us?” so also, and much more indeed in matters of our Faith, we
must obey our saints and imitate them as far as possible.
OBJECTION X
The Ecumenist sympathizers say: “The
Patriarch, whatever he may say and do, does not cease to be a symbol of the
unity of the Church; for this reason, we must not separate ourselves from him,
but only protest.”
These too are deceptive
arguments, offspring of their diseased mind. Beloved, every Bishop or Patriarch
is a symbol of the unity of the Church of God when he remains a faithful keeper
of the Apostolic Traditions and dogmas, and rightly divides the word of the
Church. Otherwise, he becomes a symbol of division and schisms!
The Papists too have the Pope as
a symbol of unity of their pseudo-church, but all heretics and people of other
religions have some “Patriarch” as a symbol of unity. What comes of this?
Absolutely nothing!
As for the claim that we must not
separate ourselves, but only protest, we repeat that without the practical
reaction of ceasing commemoration and communion, nothing is accomplished. Just
as “faith without works is dead,” according to the Apostle James (James 2:17),
so also protests without practical measures are dead.
How many protests have been made
up to now, and what has been the result? “They do not even break a sweat,” as
the popular expression says. The Ecumenists consciously proceed, with plan and
coordination, in their destructive work, which is the dissolution of the Church
of Christ and the creation of the “church” of the Antichrist.
Do not you also, O Ecumenist
sympathizers, cooperate by your stance in its creation?
OBJECTION XI
Those who sever communion
with, and commemoration of, every Bishop and Patriarch, they say, are
uneducated, deprived of ecclesiological formation, and fanatics.
It may be, beloved, that we who
have severed every ecclesiastical communion with the Ecumenists are, most of
us, uneducated and ignorant; but we are not traitors to our Orthodox Faith. We
remain faithful to all that we received from our holy Fathers, and we do not
follow the strange shepherd, because we do not know the voice of the stranger,
as our Lord also says. We do not know his voice; it is foreign to us.
Nor does one need much worldly
education in order to see and understand what the Ecumenists are and where they
are leading those who follow them. Assisi, Canberra, Uppsala, Rome, Geneva,
Lebanon, and other cities in which their conferences took place, as well as
their works and declarations, bear witness to their aims and intentions.
We are not fanatics; indeed, we
would say that we are very lukewarm. Where among us are the struggles of our
holy Fathers on behalf of the common deposit and inheritance of our Orthodox
Faith? We are simply trying to show a small obedience to the Apostolic
injunctions: “Now we command you, brethren,” writes the Apostle Paul, “in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye withdraw yourselves from every brother
who walketh disorderly, and not according to the tradition which they received
from us” (2 Thess. 3:6).
And the Evangelist John the
Theologian says these things: “If anyone cometh unto you and bringeth not this
doctrine,” that is, does not teach the Orthodox Faith, “receive him not into
your house, neither bid him greeting; for he that biddeth him greeting
partaketh in his evil deeds” (2 John 10–11).
We do nothing more than avoid all
those who walk disorderly.
And let the Ecumenist
sympathizers not forget this either: that the preaching of the Gospel too was
accepted, for the most part, by simple and uneducated people, and only very few
of the wise according to this world accepted it. Behold what the Apostle Paul
writes:
“Ye see your
calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty,
not many noble are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world,
that He might put to shame the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the
world, that He might put to shame the strong; and the lowborn things of the
world, and the things which are despised, hath God chosen, and the things which
are not, that He might bring to nought the things that are, so that no flesh
should boast before God” (1 Cor. 1:26–29).
As for ecclesiastical formation,
we have as much as we need. We know how to respect, love, and obey our
spiritual shepherds and teachers when they preserve the Faith once delivered to
the saints; and we know when we must separate ourselves from them with a
grieving heart, when they, setting aside the revealed Truth of our Faith,
“speak perverse things,” according to the Apostle.
Ah, then we do not follow them,
because we do not wish to become their followers and fellow-travelers toward
eternal perdition. We remain within our Church, as faithful members, which, as
“the pillar and ground of the truth,” provides us with all the means for our
salvation.
OBJECTION XII
Many Ecumenist sympathizers say
that “we must not examine Hierarchs, teachers, Elders, and Spiritual Fathers
concerning what they tell us, but only obey everyone with simplicity,”
putting forward that Apostolic saying: “Obey them that have the rule over
you, and submit yourselves.”
Unfortunately, this argument
calms many clergy, monastics, and laypeople who are sensitive in matters of our
Faith, with the thought that, by obeying their spiritual fathers, they are not
responsible for today’s betrayal.
Great indeed and wondrous is the
virtue of obedience, which is the practical application of humility, provided,
of course, that it is done with knowledge and discernment, toward Hierarchs,
Elders, and Spiritual Fathers who know, respect, and preserve the whole
Ecclesiastical Tradition and teaching of our Church. Otherwise, obedience has
no meaning. Elders and Spiritual Fathers, disciples and spiritual children, are
proceeding to perdition! “Can the blind lead the blind? Shall they not both
fall into the ditch?” says our Lord (Luke 6:39).
But let us see what our holy
Fathers wrote and handed down to us. We cite passages of Saints Basil,
Chrysostom, and Meletios the Confessor, translated by Saint Nikodemos.
Basil the Great:
“The preacher of
the word, whether he is a teacher or a Hierarch, must, with much reflection and
much testing, and with a purpose pleasing to God, speak every word and do every
work; and, accordingly, he must also be tested concerning his word or deed by
those subject to him.”
And again:
“The hearers, as
many as are instructed in the Scriptures, must test with sound judgment what
the Teachers say; and whatever is in agreement with the Scriptures, they must
accept, but whatever is not in agreement, they must reject; and those who
persist in such teachings, they must turn away from all the more.”
And again:
“Every word and
every deed must be confirmed by the testimony of the God-inspired Scripture, so
that the good may be assured, and the wicked may be put to shame.”
(Christian
Morality)
Saint John Chrysostom,
interpreting the Apostolic saying, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and
submit yourselves,” writes concerning this:
“Anarchy is
indeed an evil everywhere, and the cause of many calamities and the beginning
of disorder and confusion; but the disobedience of those under authority is no
less an evil. But perhaps someone will say to us that there is also a third
evil, when the ruler is evil. And I know that this is not a small evil, but is
much worse than having no rulers at all; for it is better for someone not to be
ruled by anyone than to be ruled by an evil ruler. For he who has no ruler over
his head is sometimes saved and sometimes is in danger; but he who has an evil
superior will certainly be in danger, falling into pits and precipices.
How, then, does
Paul say, ‘Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves’? The
reason Paul said this is the following. Since he had already said above these
praises concerning the rulers, namely: seeing the good results of the virtuous
life and conduct of these rulers, imitate them in the Faith; after this, once
he had established that they were upright in all things, then he said: obey
your rulers and superiors, and submit yourselves to them.
But you answer
me: if he is evil and we do not obey, what are we to do? In what respect do you
say that your superior is evil? If he is erring concerning the Faith, flee and
avoid him, not only if he is a man, but even if he is an angel from heaven. But
if he is erring in his conduct and deeds, do not meddle… For from their conduct
and morals no one is harmed, since they are evident to all, and because neither
he nor the teacher, however wicked and sinful he may be, can ever teach people
to do evil. But the Faith and whatever evil doctrines he has are neither
evident to all, nor will he cease teaching them. Therefore also the commandment
which the Lord gave, namely, ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged,’ refers to life
and not to the doctrines of the Faith.”
(Homily 34)
And the great Meletios the
Confessor says concerning this:
“Do not obey
either monks or priests in those things in which they counsel you wrongly. And
why do I say monks and priests? Do not obey even bishops when they counsel you
to do and say and think things that are not profitable for your soul.”
These things, and many others,
our holy Fathers say concerning obedience. Let us also strive to obey them, if
we wish to have a share with them.
OBJECTION XIII
We, the Ecumenist
sympathizers continue to say, follow the great Elders of our age, who did
not sever spiritual relations with the Ecumenists, but worked within the Church
and were filled with grace by our Lord, so that various miracles were performed
through them.
For us, beloved, the criterion of
every person’s sanctity is an upright life, accompanied, however, by the right
Faith. However many miracles someone may perform, when the above prerequisite
is not present, we cannot accept him as a model for our imitation.
“If we wish,” writes Saint John
Chrysostom, “to be delivered from gehenna and to attain the Kingdom, we must
adorn ourselves with the right doctrines and with care for our life.” (Homily
13 on Genesis)
And our Lord says in the holy
Gospel:
“Many will say
to Me in that day: Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name? And in Thy
name cast out demons? And in Thy name done many mighty works? And then I will
confess unto them: I never knew you. Depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.”
(Matt. 7:22–23)
From these words of our Lord we
see that there will be people who, in His Name, will perform various miracles,
but will be workers of iniquity!
Saint Ignatius the God-bearer,
wishing to safeguard the faithful of his time from false teachers, wrote:
“Everyone who
speaks contrary to what has been ordained, even if he fasts, even if he
preserves virginity, even if he prophesies, even if he performs signs, let him
appear to you as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, working the destruction of the
sheep.”
Even after death, it is possible
for miracles to occur at the tombs of sinful people, either because of the
faith of those who approach, or even by demonic activity, for the deception of
the faithful. Saint Meletios the Confessor writes concerning this in verse:
“And again, another
woman, having departed from life in dissoluteness,
had her tomb as the source of wonders and signs;
and this was a craft of Satan, in order to establish as a law,
deceiving the simpler people, that fornication does no harm…
Nor, I think, are you
ignorant of that monk either,
who fell asleep in passion and beside a nun,
with whom he was then being corrupted,
and, being handed over to the tomb,
as she later reported to the Patriarch,
performed strange signs after death,
showing his tomb to be the source of wonders and signs.”
Why God permits miracles often to
be performed by heretics and sinful people, even after death, is unclear to us.
We must not be led astray by such phenomena without first examining very
carefully the life and teaching of these people. The Antichrist will perform
wonders and signs and will try to deceive even the elect.
Concerning the reputed “great
Elders” of our age, we can say, without wronging them at all, that they did not
take, and do not take, a clear and categorical position against the Ecumenical
movement. Of course, one cannot accuse them of being Ecumenists, but one can
readily accuse them of being Ecumenist sympathizers. They often spoke and speak
against Ecumenism, but in practice they did and do nothing. Many times, indeed,
when they met high-ranking Ecumenists, they made prostrations to the ground,
asking for their blessing.
In ecclesiological matters they
too had, and have, the entirely erroneous view that everyone should remain
within the Church of the Ecumenists. The only mitigating factor which one might
perhaps accept for them is that, being much occupied with the improvement of
their personal life, and with the many people who came to them, they did not
have, and do not have, time to concern themselves personally and seriously with
the great betrayal of the Church which is taking place in our days. Our Lord
also judges ignorance with condescension.
Let us imitate their good works,
but reject their stance toward Ecumenism, as being inconsistent with the whole
Ecclesiastical Tradition. In this way we too do not run the risk of being lost
by following the heretics, and we do not further burden their position by
adopting some of their errors.
As is known, some saints of our
Church were mistaken on certain matters and said something different from what
our Church professes. Yet no sensible person ever thought to support these
positions and say that such-and-such a saint said this, and so forth. All
people, even the wisest and holiest, often make mistakes. The charism of truth
belongs only to an Ecumenical Council that speaks in the Holy Spirit.
OBJECTION XIV
Many clergy and lay Ecumenist
sympathizers, having no Patristic testimonies with which to support their
stance, resort to personal “assurances,” saying: We prayed and were not
assured that we must sever communion with, and commemoration of, the
Ecumenists.
This too is another naïve
argument—as though our Faith were only now revealed and we needed a special
assurance concerning what we must do when it is betrayed. And if we, who have
severed every spiritual relationship with the Ecumenists, should say that after
prayer we received assurance that what we are doing is right and pleasing to
our Lord, what would they have to say? Why should their assurance be true and
not ours? What is the criterion of such assurances? Do they not realize that
personal assurance is something subjective and cannot stand as an argument? Why
do they invoke it?
In studying the proceedings of
the Ecumenical Councils, we did not find any of the holy Fathers who spoke
there invoking his own assurance and saying that, according to my assurance,
this matter which we are discussing is thus and so. No one said anything of the
kind; rather, all of them invoked Scriptural and Patristic testimonies in order
to prove the truth.
Woe to us if our Church, in
matters of Faith, were founded upon the personal assurances of this or that
believer. Let us study Holy Scripture, the sacred Canons, and the writings of
our holy Fathers, and from there we shall learn what our stance must be toward
heretics and people of other religions.
OBJECTION XV
The Ecumenist sympathizers
discourage their disciples and spiritual children from reading the sacred Pedalion,
saying that this book is only for Bishops and Spiritual Fathers, and not for
monastics and laypeople. Unfortunately, these people emphasize this to
excess, with the result that they deprive many people of knowledge of the
sacred Canons of our Church.
The answer as to whether all
Christians without exception, clergy and laity, should read the sacred Pedalion
or not is given to us by Saint Nikodemos the Athonite himself, who wrote this
book with much labor. Let us hear him:
“Turn back,
therefore, O Jacob, and take hold of it.” Turn back, Patriarchs, Hierarchs,
Priests, clergy and monastics, and all the rest, Spiritual Fathers and brethren
in Christ, and take hold of this Book with both your hands. “Walk toward the
brightness of its light, that ye may be illumined with the illumination of
eternal knowledge”… Let the following words of Baruch also be added: “Blessed
are we, O Israel, for the things pleasing to God are known to us.” Blessed are
you, Christian brethren, because through this book you have been deemed worthy
to know the Patristic and Synodal commandments pleasing to God…
Receive,
therefore, with uplifted hands this most beneficial and greatly profitable
Book, this writing necessary immediately after the Holy Scriptures; receive it,
all ye Churches of Christ. O ignorant and infant people, who formerly sat in
the darkness of ignorance of the sacred Canons, behold this great light of
knowledge and be illumined…”
(Prologue of the
Sacred Pedalion)
And the blessed-memory Patriarch
of Constantinople Neophytos VII, with a view to the common benefit of all
faithful Christians, approved and recommended this excellent book with his
patriarchal signature.
We see, therefore, that both the
author of the sacred Pedalion and Patriarch Neophytos VII, who approved
it synodally, had one and only one purpose: that the sacred Canons should
become known to simple Christians, clergy and laity.
Why, then, do the Ecumenist
sympathizers not permit their spiritual children to study this sacred Book,
when they ought to require them to do so? For just as we must study our Holy
Scripture “day and night,” so also must we study the sacred Canons of the
Church, which are her genuine Holy Tradition.
Why, then, do they wish to keep
those subject to them in the darkness of ignorance? For us there is one answer:
so that they may not rebuke them when they transgress them. A Spiritual Father
who tries as much as possible to keep the sacred Canons certainly has no reason
to hinder someone who wishes to read them.
We believe that today, when there
is such great spiritual decline, it is necessary and imperative that the sacred
Pedalion of our Church also be read daily.
OBJECTION XVI
The Patriarchate, the
Ecumenist sympathizers maintain, is today in a very difficult position; for
this reason, we must not speak against it and cut ourselves off from it. “A
bruised reed shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench,” says
Scripture.
So, then, the Ecumenist
sympathizers have also found a Scriptural passage with which to support their
delusion! But let us examine whether this passage has any relation to what they
wish to support.
This passage is from the Prophet
Isaiah (42:3), and refers to our Lord Jesus Christ. The Evangelist Matthew
cited it (Matt. 12:16–20) after describing many miracles of our Lord:
“And great
multitudes followed Him,” writes the Evangelist, “and He healed them all, and
charged them that they should not make Him known, that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: Behold My servant, whom I have
chosen; My beloved, in whom My soul is well pleased. I will put My Spirit upon
Him, and He shall announce judgment to the nations. He shall not strive, nor
cry aloud, neither shall anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed
shall He not break, and smoking flax shall He not quench, until He bring forth
judgment unto victory; and in His name shall the nations hope.”
That is, in brief, the Prophet
says that Christ will not only refrain from discouraging people broken by the
bitterness of life and the weight of sin, who are in danger of losing every
hope of their salvation, but will encourage them to receive the law and
salvation which He gives them, and they shall come forth victorious.
We see, therefore, that both the
Prophet Isaiah and the Evangelist Matthew invoked this passage in order to show
us how “meek and humble in heart” and condescending our Lord Jesus Christ
was—and is—toward people suffering from various bodily illnesses, and not
toward those who distort the Orthodox Faith, this Truth of the Gospel!
This meek and sweet Jesus of
ours, when He spoke concerning the Mystery of the Divine Eucharist, and some,
reacting against His words, departed, saying, “This is a hard saying; who can
hear it?” made no concession. And taking occasion from their departure, He said
to the Twelve Disciples: “Will ye also go away?” (John 6:67).
In another case our Lord used a
scourge, “and drove them all out of the temple, and poured out the changers’
money, and overthrew the tables” (John 2:15).
The holy Apostles and all our
Fathers maintained the same stance toward heretics. You must understand,
beloved, that one thing is the personal weaknesses and passions of each person,
toward which we must show condescension and understanding, and another thing is
heretical teaching. Toward heretics there can be no leniency, so long as they
remain in their delusion.
“A heretical man after the first
and second admonition reject,” the Apostle Paul commands his disciple, the
Apostle Titus (3:10). And the disciple of love, John the Theologian, writes in
his Second Catholic Epistle: “If anyone cometh unto you and bringeth not this
doctrine,” that is, the right teaching, “receive him not into your house,
neither bid him greeting.”
Our holy Fathers, through the
Ecumenical Councils, anathematized all heretics. They do not even permit
heretics to enter the church of the Orthodox if they persist in their heresy
(Canon 6 of Laodicea).
Let us also maintain this stance,
if we wish to be children of the Orthodox Church and of our saints.
OBJECTION XVII
All these people, say the
Ecumenist sympathizers, who have ceased commemorating and communing with the
Ecumenists, are troublemakers, lacking love and humility.
These and even more things these
people say in order to defame those who bear the Cross of Confession. And what
else can they say? Since they do not have Scriptural and Patristic testimonies
with which to support their position, they resort to insults and slanders. Of
course, this is nothing new. All heretics, by similar methods, tried to strike
at the Orthodox. Many times, when they had the means, they also used violence.
And today too, when there is assistance from state authority, this happens. An
example is the brutal manner in which they expelled the monks there from the
Skete of the Prophet Elias on Mount Athos, on May 6, 1992.
They accuse us, then, of lacking
love, of being proud and troublemakers. Yes, beloved, we do not deny that we
fall very far short, and that we have not reached the measure of these great
virtues; but by the grace of God, considering our own wretchedness, we strive
first to love our Creator and Maker, and then all men as images of God. For we
know very well that without humility and love we cannot have any relationship
with our Lord.
Who does not know the Apostle
Paul’s magnificent hymn to love (1 Cor. 13:1–13), as well as what the disciple
of love, John the Theologian, wrote concerning it, and indeed all our saints?
Or who does not know what has been written concerning the humility that exalts,
which, according to our holy Fathers, is the throne of love and of all the
other virtues?
In the present case, however,
things change. These same saints of ours, who so greatly extolled love,
humility, and stillness, taught us “to flee heretics as one flees from a
serpent.” They also used very severe language against them, calling them robbers,
deceitful men, crafty men, raging and frenzied men, poisonous serpents,
accursed and abominable men, dogs, grievous wolves, shameless men, antichrists,
and so forth.
They also taught us not to obey
them: “When we are ordered by someone to do anything contrary to the
commandment of Christ, corrupting or defiling it, then it is time to say, ‘We
must obey God rather than men’” (Basil the Great, Ascetic Discourse I,
Patristic Publications “Gregory Palamas,” Thessaloniki 1973, vol. 8, p. 125).
They further taught us not to
remain silent and still when the Faith is in danger: “It is a commandment of
the Lord not to be silent at a time when the Faith is in danger” (St. Theodore
the Studite, PG 99, 1321), because, according to the same saint, “it is the
work of a monk not to tolerate even the least innovation in the Gospel.”
Saint Gregory the Theologian
wrote concerning the monks of his time:
“They cannot
bear to be moderate in this: to betray God through silence; rather, in this
they are exceedingly warlike and hard to withstand, for such is the warmth of
zeal…”
And Saint Nikodemos the Athonite
says:
“If, however,
the matter and issue concerns the Faith and the traditions of our Church, then
even the most peaceful and quiet person must fight on their behalf.”
(Unseen
Warfare, Part II, ch. 19, note 1)
There are so many Scriptural and
Patristic testimonies stating that we must not obey those who command us to do
something contrary to the commandment of God, and that we must not remain
silent and still when the Faith is in danger, that an entire volume would be
needed to set them all forth.
Therefore, he who ceases the
commemoration of, and communion with, a Bishop, Metropolitan, or Patriarch who
preaches heresy or false doctrine, and who with divine zeal undertakes the
defense of Orthodoxy, is not lacking in love and humility, nor in a hesychastic
and peaceful disposition. All our saints from ages past did this, and whoever
wishes to be called an Orthodox Christian must do this.
Pious Christians, clergy and
laity, know when they must love and when they must “hate,” according to the
Psalm: “I have hated the congregation of evildoers, and with the ungodly will I
not sit” (Ps. 25:5), and “Have I not hated them, O Lord, that hate Thee? With
perfect hatred I hated them, and they became enemies to me” (Ps. 138:21). They
know when to humble themselves and when to boast according to the Apostle: “Let
him who boasteth boast in the Lord.” And they know when to obey and when to
disobey.
“Beware of false prophets,” says
our Lord. They know that first of all, and above all, they must love God and
obey Him, keeping His divine commandments, thus showing true love toward Him:
“If ye love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15).
They know, while keeping the
commandment of our Lord, to love their neighbors as themselves and to help them
in deed when they are in need, regardless of race, nationality, color, and
religion, while at the same time striving, with the help of God and by their
Christian example, to make them know our Lord Jesus Christ, the only true God,
and His Orthodox Church.
They know also, again while
keeping the divine commandments, to respect and honor civil rulers, obeying the
laws of the state which are not contrary to the commandments of God, as well as
all the spiritual fathers and shepherds of our Church, when they too remain
faithful to the Truth handed down.
They know how to distinguish good
from evil, light from darkness, truth from falsehood, Orthodoxy from heresy,
deception, and delusion, true shepherds and teachers from those who speak
perverse things. They know how to distinguish the personal and human weaknesses
of their spiritual Fathers, and they do not separate from them on account of
these, as they do on account of their heretical opinions and delusions, from
which, necessarily and with pain of soul, they sever every ecclesiastical
communion, protecting themselves and the whole Church from the destruction of
heresies and schisms.
Therefore, they are not lacking
in love and humility, as they are accused, but they love people and humbly pray
that all may come to know the true God, because love does not desire anyone to
be condemned eternally.
“The greatest of all virtues is
discernment,” our holy Fathers said. This great virtue of discernment, which is
a gift of the All-Holy Spirit, is acquired by all pious Christians, clergy and
laity, who truly love God and with a humble heart accept all His divine
commandments without examination and criticism, as well as all that our holy
Church has handed down to us, she who is “the pillar and ground of the truth.”
By our own will and mindset, it is never possible to acquire this great virtue.
EPILOGUE
By the grace of God, we have
tried to answer several objections of the Ecumenist sympathizers against
today’s Confessors of the Orthodox Faith. This was not done from any
disposition toward contentiousness, nor in order to enlighten those who say
these things, for they more or less know the truth; but for those who, although
they have within themselves some zeal for matters of our Faith, are carried
away by these naïve arguments and remain within this spiritual destruction of
Ecumenism.
What is being done by the
Ecumenist sympathizers is sorrowful: they try by every means to prevent every
well-intentioned person from coming out from among them and joining the
Orthodox Church of Truth. They do not permit them to read various anti-Ecumenist
periodicals or to converse with today’s Confessors, lest they learn of the
achievements and wretched deeds of the Ecumenists and react.
They desire at all costs to keep
those who follow them in the darkness of ignorance, and to direct them as they
wish. This is also the basic reason why they put forward and spread so many
incoherent falsehoods and naïve arguments.
Thus the question that naturally
arises is also explained: Is it possible that these people, many of whom have
worldly education and a reputation as great Elders, say such things? And yet it
is possible! Since there is an ulterior purpose, anything becomes possible…
But, O you Ecumenists and
Ecumenist sympathizers, whatever you may do, whatever you may write, whatever
you may say, you will never be able to destroy the work of God, which is His
Church. So many bloodthirsty emperors and tyrants have passed by, who fought
against her in every way, but they were not able to make her disappear. So many
heretics have passed by, who with frenzy tried to distort the revealed Truth of
the Gospel, but they did not succeed; these gates of Hades shall not prevail
against her.
The same will happen with you. Do
not labor in vain, therefore, for “it is hard to kick against the goads.” There
will always be the “true worshippers,” who “in holiness and righteousness,” and
“in spirit and truth” (John 4:23–24), will worship God.
The only thing that remains for
you is to return with humility to the saving Truth of the Church, from which,
unfortunately, you have gone out.
Amen.
Greek source: https://orthodox-voice.blogspot.com/2013/03/blog-post_373.html
