Metropolitan Agafangel: On the "New Style" Liturgical Calendar

May 19 / June 1, 2023

The Church of Christ derives its existence from Christ and His disciples. All Church Tradition is handed down in sequence from generation to generation; we receive it from our fathers in order to pass it on to our descendants—as our fathers believed, so we also believe; what our fathers received, that we also receive; what they rejected, we also reject. “Hold fast what thou hast” is said in the Revelation of John the Theologian (3:11), and these same words were left as his testament by our hierarch St. Philaret, the third First Hierarch of ROCOR. Tradition is sequential and monolithic in its development; cardinal, “revolutionary” innovations are wholly excluded from it, and it is precisely toward such innovations that ecclesiastical modernism and the accompanying “new style” are directed.

***

The decree of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council (see also Apostolic Canon 7 and Canon 1 of the Council of Antioch) prescribes that all Christians celebrate Pascha on one and the same day; naturally, this also applies to other significant feasts. Later, Canon 7 of the Second Ecumenical Council and Canon 95 of the Council in Trullo explicitly called those who do not observe this rule—namely the Quartodecimans, who celebrate Pascha with the Jews on the 14th of Nisan—heretics. That is, those who reject the calendar accepted by the Church are, according to the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, heretics.

***

The Catholics fell away from the Church of Christ in 1054, and from that time to our own day they have accepted, and continue to accept, many innovations which remove them ever farther from the Church of the Holy Fathers. One such heretical innovation was the “correction” of the church calendar in 1582 at the initiative of Pope Gregory XIII. Thanks to this “reform,” the heretics celebrated Pascha together with the Jews on the 14th of Nisan (and even earlier than they did) many times.

The new calendar adopted by the papists was rejected in the very year of its appearance (1582) by Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremiah II, and was then condemned by three Pan-Orthodox Councils (in 1583, 1587, and 1593) “as a pernicious papal innovation.” These conciliar decrees remain in force to this day and directly excommunicate from the Church all “new-calendarists.”

The very introduction of the “new calendar” from the outset served to deepen the division between the Orthodox and the papists.

***

To our great regret, after the fall of the Orthodox Russian Empire, the Eastern Local Churches, having been deprived of material support from the Empire, sought other financial sources to maintain the accustomed comfort of their existence. At first, some of them, hoping for continued funding, even supported the Soviet authorities and the renovationist church created by it. But, realizing that they would receive no money from there, they turned to the Masons and to the various associations created by them, similar to the present-day World Council of Churches. These agreed to help, but demanded certain concessions. It is evident that one of these concessions, aimed at bringing about a schism in the Church of Christ, was the transition of the Local Orthodox Churches under their control to the “new style.”

Despite its obvious harmfulness, the reform of the church calendar was carried out in 1924 in the Churches of Constantinople, Greece, and Romania, and then in certain other Local Churches as well. This departure occurred after nineteen centuries of the entire Orthodox Church’s life according to the one Julian calendar common to all. The very fact that the “new style” was accepted by some group, and not by the whole Church, contradicts the dogma of the conciliarity of the Orthodox Church, as well as the dogma of the Unity of the Church, the visible form of which has always been a common calendar.

It is evident that the new calendar was adopted within the framework of the pan-heresy of ecumenism, with the aim of destroying the Church of Christ and creating in its place a worldwide global mega-church. Thus, those who accepted the “new calendar” for the sake of unity with heretics and those of other faiths fell away from Sacred Tradition and the Holy Fathers and went after the papist heretics.

The Church has its own boundaries, and the destruction of those boundaries signifies falling away from the Church—truth, once mixed with falsehood, ceases to be truth.

***

The transition to the new style means the loss of connection with one’s past—beginning with one’s believing parents and forefathers, and further, with all one’s Christian ancestors, and thus with Sacred Tradition and with the Church founded by Christ.

Of course, to unbelieving people, who are accustomed to celebrating two Nativities of Christ as they do the New and Old New Year, this is a matter of indifference. But believing people will find themselves faced with a dangerous temptation, with a choice between two paths: to remain in unity with their pious forebears and with the Church in which they abode, or to go the way of a world free from faith in God.

***

It must be acknowledged that the Moscow Patriarchate is not only its leaders, but also millions of ordinary believing people who, unfortunately, in their blindness follow a corrupt caste of false shepherds selected and appointed by the Soviet special services. Ordinary people have been misled by Soviet propaganda, which for many years instilled in them the idea that the leadership of the MP is the true and lawful hierarchy. But this is not so at all—the present leadership of the MP is analogous to the Pharisees of the Gospel, whom Christ rebuked and who became the initiators of His crucifixion. Today the Orthodox Church must decisively depart from the Pharisees and follow Christ, just as it once did two thousand years ago.

In Ukraine the Orthodox Church has need not of reform, but of a return to the conciliarity established by the Ecumenical Councils and the Holy Fathers, from the loss of which the Church, unfortunately, proceeded from the reforms of Peter I to the formation by Stalin in 1943 of the Soviet Moscow Patriarchate, when conciliarity was finally destroyed by the God-fighting authorities together with traitors from among the pure hierarchy of the MP. After that, ALL bishops and abbots of the largest churches and monasteries of the MP were appointed not by the Church itself, but by her enemies, from among the faithful supporters of the satanic power. This, unfortunately, continues in the Russian Federation to this day.

***

A reform is now planned in Ukraine, aimed at the destruction of Orthodoxy already in our own country. To our great regret, it has so come about on our land in the last century that the questions of the Church are decided by people far removed from her and hostile toward her—and to the question of with whom one should be, with Christ, His Church, and our pious forefathers, or with the world which lieth in evil, they give a perfectly definite answer: one must keep step with the world that has rejected Christ.

Of course, this new reform will cut off from the presently emerging “official” Ukrainian church the majority of believing people. Will there be those who replace them? I think not.

It only remains to hope that those carrying out these reforms in Ukraine do so out of ignorance and truly strive, as they suppose, to bring benefit to our fatherland. May God grant that their eyes be opened to the fact that the path to Christ and Eternal Life is one, and every other path is a road leading to Hell. True Christians will not go by such a road, nor will they wish it for others.

 

Russian source:

http://internetsobor.org/index.php/stati/avtorskaya-kolonka/mitropolit-agafangel-o-perekhode-na-novyj-stil

 

Blessed Archbishop Averky of Jordanville: A Sign of the Times

“Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times” (Matt. 16:3).

 

 

Every time, every era in the life of mankind has its own distinguishing feature, which is especially characteristic of it, predominantly before all other eras.

Observing the events taking place in the present century, we cannot but come to the conviction that the most characteristic feature of the time we are living through is the loss of the fear of God, and in close connection with this, the loss by the majority of modern people of God’s voice in the human soul, that is, the conscience.

The modern era, more than any in the past—we mean, of course, chiefly the Christian period of the history of mankind—may be called godless and conscienceless. And an entirely natural consequence of this is the now so widespread lack of principle, indifference to good and evil, immorality, opportunism, the pursuit of material goods with complete disregard for spiritual goods, shameless, almost open debauchery, and ever-increasing crime, against which the authorities find it ever more difficult to struggle.

And all this is completely contrary to the rosy forecasts and enthusiastic “predictions” which we so often heard at the beginning of this century, that the twentieth century would be an age of extraordinary flowering and all-round progress for mankind, when there would be neither wars nor civil strife, but a universal life happy and joyful for all would set in, universal well-being and prosperity, almost a paradise on earth.

Now we see well what all those rosy “predictions” were worth, and to what kind of “progress” and “paradise on earth” we have lived to see!

There has, of course, been progress in technology and in various scientific discoveries and inventions, but all these airplanes, radio, television, and along with them atomic and hydrogen bombs, etc.—the “delights” and “achievements” of our century—are these really what can give people unprecedented “prosperity,” “well-being,” and “happiness”?

And instead of the promised “peace of the whole world” and the end of wars and civil strife, there have in fact been two terrible world wars, unprecedented in the history of mankind, bloody revolutionary civil conflicts that have swallowed up millions of victims, and now the looming threat of an even more terrible third world war, already being called in advance an “atomic” one!

All this is the consequence of sin progressing more and more.

Usually people object to us: people, they say, have always sinned and do sin, and there is supposedly nothing especially new in what is happening now.

Yes, sin has always, to some extent, been and remains characteristic of men who inherited from our first parents a nature corrupted by sin, and therefore “there is no man who lives and does not sin,” and only God alone is without sin.

But sin is not always the same. Formerly, for the most part, people sinned in secret—so that no one would know—for every sin brought upon itself universal condemnation; and having sinned, they very often afterwards repented sincerely, with all their soul, and amended themselves, radically changing their life and disposition for the better. Repentance, of course, when sincere and deep, is capable of blotting out all sins and healing their destructive consequences, regenerating a man to a new life. We have many examples when great sinners became great righteous ones, saints.

It is not so now. Now almost no one is ashamed of sin and no one condemns it, sometimes even cunningly making use of Christ’s saying: “Judge not, that ye be not judged” (Matt. 7:1), as though sin did not in itself deserve condemnation. And now people sin openly—brazenly and shamelessly—without thinking in the least about repentance, but quite the contrary, justifying themselves in every possible way and cynically arrogating to themselves, as it were, a right to sin.

The very concept of sin among modern people, with few exceptions, has been eradicated from consciousness: sin has become something ordinary and no longer subject to society’s condemnation, nor even to the voice of conscience.

To those who assure us that there is nothing special, nothing new in our days, we shall reply with these questions:

When before, and especially in the era of Christian history, has there existed a vast and powerful state, stretching over a sixth part of the world, whose leaders were guided in their activity by a God-fighting ideology and made one of the chief aims of their work the planting everywhere of atheism, or godlessness?

Where and when have representatives of state authority proclaimed an “anti-divine front” and recruited members into a “League of Militant Atheists”?

Where and in what other century, after the final victory of Christianity over the darkness of paganism, did there arise such a frenzied, fierce persecution of the true faith and the Church of Christ, such a horrifying terror prevailed, and the innocent blood of millions of people was shed?

All this is among the vaunted “achievements” of the “progressive” twentieth century!

Where and when in Christian countries was such shameless, almost open debauchery permitted, such an almost complete nakedness of everything connected with carnal sin, and such moral dissoluteness?

Where and when in the past did state authorities legalize the mass killing of unborn children, solely at the whim of their depraved parents, who do not wish, in accordance with the law of nature, to bear, raise, and bring up the children they have conceived, and thus to bear full lawful responsibility for their conception?

Where and when in Christian mankind were people morally perverted, morally maimed—human degenerates—recognized as having rights to the sin of Sodom, that sin for which God Himself so sternly punished the ancient cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, sending upon them a rain of fire and brimstone, in order to burn out with fire this vile impurity, this loathsome unnatural sin?

Where and when was it ever seen in the past that people not only were not ashamed of these carnal sins, but even brought them literally out into the streets, shamelessly advertising themselves and even agitating among others?

And all this is the “progress” of the vaunted twentieth century!

But the most terrible thing is that this moral decomposition has already entered into the religious life of people. In the religions of the West, which long ago fell away from the true faith and the Church, this is not so surprising, although it cannot but especially attract our attention that this moral decomposition has advanced at an especially rapid pace precisely in our own time. The monolith of Roman Catholicism has been shaken to its foundations by the last two popes and by the Second Vatican Council, while the Protestants have already gone so far as to deny many of the basic dogmas of the Christian faith and are ready to merge completely with this world, which lieth in evil, in which all is “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16).

Indeed, dreadful for us, and most terrible of all for all true believers, is the fact that enemies have already entered into the very midst of our Orthodox Church and are attempting, and not altogether without success, to blow it up from within. Of course, we believe that according to the promise of Christ the Savior Himself, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18), and that it shall remain until the end of the age (Matt. 28:20), but for how many weak souls there threatens the mortal danger of losing the faith and perishing forever! It is not without reason that Christ the Savior called His true followers a “little flock” (Luke 12:32), and said moreover that when He comes again to the earth, He will hardly “find faith on the earth” (Luke 18:8).

In the Orthodox Church, as has become especially clear in recent years, from the beginning of this twentieth century there has been observed a striving for reformation in a purely Protestant spirit, with essentially but one aim: to legalize lawlessness.

Freedom and moral looseness, increasingly coming into fashion under the influence of society’s dechurching, appeared all too seductive.

And so, under the cunning and deceitful pretext of “returning the Church to Apostolic times,” there arose a desire not only to cast aside, as already “outlived” and “not corresponding to the spirit of the times,” the whole of Church discipline, divinely and wisely worked out by the pillars of our Church—the holy fathers—over the course of many centuries, but also to remake much of it in order to indulge laziness and the lowered moral life; they have even gone so far as to speak of the supposed necessity of re-editing the text of Holy Scripture in accordance with their perverted tastes—as a concession to their passions.

These attempts began long ago and finally resulted in the creation of the so-called “Living Church,” and then “Renovationism” among us in Russia during the years of general ruin in the time of the revolution. But at that time the Russian people, still strong in spirit and faith, decisively rejected the “Living-Churchists” and the “Renovationists,” and this whole undertaking, ruinous for souls, collapsed disgracefully, despite the powerful support of the godless Soviet authority interested in the destruction of the Church.

In place of the “Living-Churchists” and the “Renovationists” there appeared “Sergianism,” which at first did not so openly break with true Orthodoxy, but immediately set itself openly in the service of the God-fighting authority. Gradually, however, it too (and it could not have been otherwise with so close an alliance with the God-fighters!) took shape as an apostasy from true Orthodoxy through the merging of its ideology with the ideology of this world, which lieth in evil, and through recognizing atheism as having a right to exist.

This is eloquently testified to by the public statements and declarations of its “leaders,” and by the very fact of their entry into the “World Council of Churches.”

This movement soon spread to other Churches of the Orthodox East as well, beginning with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which in 1923 officially recognized the “Living Church” in Russia as the lawful Church.

In 1923, the “Pan-Orthodox Congress” was convened by Patriarch Meletios IV of Constantinople, at which the following “reforms” were proposed for the abolition of the existing canonical rules and institutions of the Orthodox Church:

• A married episcopate;

• The remarriage of clergy;

• The new calendar;

• The shortening of the divine services;

• The abolition of the fasts and of monasticism;

• The simplification of clerical dress, that is, permission for the clergy to wear secular clothing and to adopt a secular manner of life.

At that time these “reforms” provoked many protests and objections, including from other Eastern patriarchs, who declared that for the implementation of such “reforms” an Ecumenical Council was necessary, since it alone is the one authoritative supreme authority in the Church.

With the passage of time, such attitudes and tendencies not only did not disappear, but became even more firmly entrenched in various local Orthodox Churches, and now their supporters are vigorously advocating the convocation of an “Eighth Ecumenical Council” in order to implement them.

Knowing the present disposition of many Church “leaders” and their aggressiveness in carrying out their destructive plans, we can clearly imagine what sort of “Ecumenical Council” this will be! Even without waiting for official decrees, many have already put some of these “reforms” into practice, ignoring in their activity very categorical Church canons. But of course, in some cases conscience still speaks, and therefore they would like to “legalize” the lawlessness they are committing on their own authority.

For this is the reason why these cunning men, though bearing an outward form of piety but having denied its power, so press for the convocation of this “Eighth Ecumenical Council.” They are confident that at the “council” those like themselves will be in the “majority,” and therefore that by a “majority of votes” they will carry through everything they desire—that is, they will, quite officially, with every appearance of legality, formally legalize lawlessness.

But will such an “Ecumenical Council” truly be authoritative for all and an indisputable expression of the voice of the Holy Spirit (“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us”...), as were the former seven Ecumenical Councils recognized by our whole Church?

Of course not!

All the former Ecumenical Councils began their decrees by affirming all that had been decreed at the preceding Councils, whereas this one, as can already now be seen, will set as its chief task the overthrow of the entire former order of the Church, of everything that was decreed before. And therefore, this will not be the “Eighth Ecumenical Council,” but a “Second Robber Council,” after the model of that council of the year 449 in the city of Ephesus, which entered the history of the Church under the name of the “Robber Council.”

Who needs such a “council”?

Of course, only the enemies of the Church, both open and hidden.

All the true children of the Church of Christ will not recognize it as lawful and will not accept its decrees, and there will occur only new schisms and divisions—which is precisely what the enemies of the Church, preparing the triumph of Antichrist, desire.

Their first trial attempt has already been made in the form of the arbitrary and self-willed introduction of the new calendar by certain individual churches, which everywhere brought about only enmity and divisions among the faithful, as for example in Greece, where the people have been split into two groups: the “Old Calendarists” and the “New Calendarists.”

All this is a sign of the times!

And yet we are called “to serve,” as the great father of Orthodoxy, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, taught, “not the times, but God.”

Therefore, fear this deceit and flee from it, all faithful children of the Holy Church!

 

Russian source:

https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Averkij_Taushev/hristianin-v-sovremennom-mire/#0_5

Shared by: https://rocor-observer.livejournal.com/412329.html

 

1986: ROCOR reaffirms the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece as the canonical Church of the Greek nation

Greek source: Ἡ Φωνὴ τῆς Ὀρθοδοξίας (“The Voice of Orthodoxy”), Issue 811, January-February 1987, p. 18.

 

 

RECONCILIATION

The Holy Synod of the Russian Church Outside of Russia, being in communion with our Church in Greece, in order to restore order in accordance with the Holy Canons of the Church, has communicated to us the following documents, which we are publishing for information and compliance in the interest of our struggling Church.

 

16/29 December 1986

Reverend Lazarus Hatzigiannakis
c/o Dr. Alexandre Kalomoiros
38 Themistoklis Sofouli
Thessaloniki, Greece.

Dear Father Lazarus,

The Holy Synod of Bishops, at its recent meeting in Montreal, Canada, on November 25-27, 1986, deliberated concerning your ordination to the rank of priest by His Eminence Metropolitan (Archbishop) Vitaly, so that you might serve the Monastery [of the Annunciation of the Theotokos] in Oinousses and the community [of the parish of St. John the Theologian] in Thessaloniki. The Bishops consider it inappropriate and uncanonical for a cleric ordained by us to commemorate the Archbishop [i.e., Metropolitan] of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia while residing in the territory of another local autocephalous Orthodox Church.

Taking this into consideration, therefore, we recommend that you ask to be received by the leadership of the true Church of Greece, which is under the guidance of Archbishop Chrysostomos [Kiousis].

+ Hilarion
Bishop of Manhattan
Deputy Secretary of the Holy Synod

***

Honorable Reverend
Hieromonk Theodoretos (Mavros)
Holy Monastery of the Holy Theodores
Paros, Greece.

Dear Father Theodoretos,

Our Holy Synod has been informed that you no longer reside on the Holy Mountain of Athos, for which you were ordained by His Eminence Metropolitan (Archbishop) Vitaly, but instead reside on Paros.

We consider it inappropriate and uncanonical for a cleric ordained by us to commemorate the Archbishop [i.e., Metropolitan] of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia while residing in the territory of another local autocephalous Orthodox Church.

Therefore, taking into account the change in your residence, we recommend that you request to be received under the leadership of the true Orthodox Church of Greece, which is under the guidance of Archbishop Chrysostomos [Kiousis].

+ Hilarion
Bishop of Manhattan
Deputy Secretary of the Holy Synod

Pascha in Dachau

by Gleb Alexandrovitch Rahr

Source: In Communion, Pascha/Spring 2011, Issue 60.

 

 

Dachau concentration camp, opened 22 March 1933, was the first Nazi concentration camp in Germany. Over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were held there during the years of the Third Reich, of whom two-thirds were political prisoners and nearly one-third Jews.

Dachau, April 27, 1945: The last transport of prisoners arrives from Buchenwald. Of the 5,000 originally destined for Dachau, I was among the 1,300 who survived the trip. Many were shot, some starved to death, others died of typhus.

April 28: I and my fellow prisoners can hear the bombardment of Munich taking place. As the sound of artillery approaches ever nearer, orders are given proscribing prisoners from leaving their barracks. SS-soldiers patrol the camp on motorcycles as machine guns are directed at us from the watch-towers.

April 29: The booming sound of artillery has been joined by the staccato bursts of machine gun fire. Shells whistle over the camp from all directions. Suddenly white flags appear on the towers, a sign that the SS would surrender rather than shoot all prisoners and fight to the last man. At about 6:00 p.m., a strange sound can be detected emanating from somewhere near the camp gate which swiftly increases in volume. Finally all 32,600 prisoners join in the cry as the first American soldiers appear just behind the wire fence of the camp.

After the electric power is turned off, the gates open and the American GIs make their entrance. As they stare wide-eyed at our lot, half-starved and suffering from typhus and dysentery, they appear more like fifteen-year-old boys than battle-weary soldiers...

An international committee of prisoners is formed to take over the administration of the camp. Food from SS-stores is put at the disposal of the camp kitchen. A US military unit also contributes provisions – my first taste of American corn. By order of an American officer, radio receivers are confiscated from "prominent Nazis" in the town and distributed to the prisoners. The news comes in: Hitler has committed suicide, the Russians have taken Berlin, and German troops have surrendered in the South and in the North.

Naturally, I was ever cognizant of the fact that these momentous events were unfolding during Holy Week. But how could we mark it other than through our silent, individual prayers? A fellow prisoner and chief interpreter of the international prisoner's committee, Boris F., paid a visit to my typhus-infested barracks, Block 27 to inform me that efforts were underway, in conjunction with the Yugoslav and Greek National Prisoner's Committees, to arrange an Orthodox service for Easter, May 6th.

Among the prisoners there were Orthodox priests, deacons and monks from Mount Athos. But there were no vestments, no books, no icons, no candles, no prosphoras, no wine. Efforts to acquire all these items from the Russian parish in Munich failed, as the Americans could not locate anyone from that parish in the devastated city.

Nevertheless, some of the problems could be solved. The approximately 400 Catholic priests detained in Dachau had been allowed to remain together in one barrack and say mass every morning before going to work. They offered us Orthodox the use of their prayer room in Block 26. The chapel was bare, save for a wooden table and an icon of the Theotokos hanging above the table.

A creative solution to the problem of the vestments was also found. New linen towels were taken from the hospital of our former SS-guards. When sewn together lengthwise, two towels formed an epitrachilion and when sewn together at the ends they became an orarion. Red crosses, originally intended to be worn by the medical personnel of the SS-guards, were put on the towel-vestments.

On Easter Sunday, May 6, Serbs, Greeks and Russians gathered at the Catholic priests' barrack. Although Russians comprised about 40 percent of the Dachau inmates, only a few managed to attend the service. By then "repatriation officers" of the special "Smersh" units had arrived in Dachau by American military planes, and began the process of erecting new lines of barbed wire for the purpose of isolating Soviet citizens from the rest of the prisoners – the first step in preparing them for their eventual forced repatriation.

In the entire history of the Orthodox Church there has probably never been an Easter service like the one at Dachau in 1945. Greek and Serbian priests together with a Serbian deacon wore the make-shift vestments over their blue and gray-striped prisoners uniforms. Then they began to chant, changing from Greek to Slavonic, then back to Greek. The Easter Canon, the Easter Sticheras – everything was recited from memory. The Gospel – "In the beginning was the Word" – also from memory. The Homily of St. John Chrysostom also from memory. A young Greek monk from the Holy Mountain stood up in front of us and recited it with such infectious enthusiasm that we shall never forget him as long as we live.  St. John Chrysostomos himself seemed to speak through him to us and to the rest of the world as well!

Eighteen Orthodox priests and a deacon, most of them Serbs, participated in this unforgettable service. Like the sick man who had been lowered through the roof of a house and placed in front of the feet of Christ the Savior, the Greek Archimandrite Meletios was carried on a stretcher into the chapel, where he remained prostrate throughout the service.

The priests who participated in the 1945 Dachau Easter service are commemorated at every Divine Service held in the Dachau Russian Orthodox Memorial Chapel, along with all Orthodox Christians who lost their lives "at this place, or at another place of torture."

Within the Dachau Resurrection Chapel is a large icon depicting angels opening the gates of the Dachau concentration camp and Christ Himself leading the prisoners to freedom.

Should you ever come to Germany, be sure to visit our Russian chapel at Dachau and pray for all those who died "at this place, or at another place of torture."

Khristos voskrese! Christos anesti! Christ has risen!

Bishop (Metropolitan) Agafangel of Odessa: The Cause of Church Divisions (1996)

 

During times of ecclesiastical disorder, what is of decisive importance for a Christian is the confession of the right faith and remaining within the bosom of the true Church. This was not so difficult to maintain in the period of peace and stability in which the Orthodox Church remained from the Baptism of Rus until the beginning of the present century. However, the “rebellious” spirit, the spirit of pride, which has spread everywhere among us, has not only radically changed the social and economic structure of society, but has also introduced great temptation into the enclosure of the Church. The Orthodox Christian, contrary to his own desire, is constantly placed before the choice: where is the true Church?

The widespread division and fragmentation of the Orthodox Church makes a detailed analysis of each individual case of such division practically impossible. Nor would such an analysis lead to any results. The present divisions are not even a dogmatic question, since no one has invented or professes any new dogmas, but rather a psychological and, above all, a moral one. The dogmatic height of Orthodox doctrine, unfortunately, is often not even taken into account in inter-church disputes. Earthly, “human” arguments come to the fore—national, traditional, economic, and others. The spirit of the age triumphs today, and it is becoming ever more difficult for the Orthodox man to preserve his faith without distorting it under the influence of external forces. And as a consequence of this, more and more possibilities arise for new schisms and disorders.

It is impossible to explain to the flock of, for example, the Kiev Patriarchate the uncanonical nature of their position; still more impossible is it to do this for the flock of the Moscow Patriarchate. People in our time have ceased to perceive words: the word has lost all value, having been worn out in matters that are purely earthly, matters of the flesh—advertising, politics, business, and entertainment. Piety still remains a weighty argument. Every “church” tries to have as many “saints” as possible in its ranks. However, “holiness” also cannot be recognized as a decisive argument. The extreme asceticism of the Egyptian fathers proved to be convenient soil for the heresy of Monophysitism. And how many “saints,” astonishing the imagination by their “ascetic feats,” are there in the Catholic church and even in the Eastern pagan religions? The customary argument in such cases—“with us the miracles are from God, and with you they are from the devil”—may be advanced by representatives of any confession, and, gliding along the surface of consciousness, such arguments do not lead, and cannot lead, to any positive result. Because in essence this is not an argument but one of the forms of self-justification or self-defense, suitable for practically any case. “I do not want to know what you have, because everything you have is from the devil.” By similar arguments the Pharisees in the time of Jesus Christ tried to discredit the miracles and deeds of the Savior Himself and of His disciples.

This is already a kind of psychological barrier, protecting one’s self-consciousness or one’s faith. It is good for a person who is indeed within the bosom of the true Church. And it is a catastrophe for those who have erected this barrier in the path of the grace of God. In our days this barrier has become an insurmountable obstacle at the entrance into the enclosure of the true Church of Christ. However, we Orthodox Christians have a powerful means capable of destroying any barriers on the path to God. It was precisely through this, and not through miracles, that Christ conquered the world, and it was precisely this that lay at the foundation of all the Savior’s actions. This sole all-conquering means is love, which shatters every obstacle in its path—not human, passionate love, which only maims and destroys the soul, but divine, all-forgiving and triumphant love, which can exist only among truly believing people. One of the most characteristic marks of a sect is the absence of love and the extreme malice of its members, who are literally ready to destroy everyone who does not belong to it. Another mark of a sect is the imitation of love, as is seen among many Protestants, who try to wrap emptiness in attractive packaging. In Russia at first they kept repeating that they had come with good intentions to preach the word of God, but then it became clear that they were full of hatred for our history and for our Orthodox faith. Now they are no longer ashamed openly to mock the Church, while completely failing to understand the spirit and essence of Orthodoxy, attacking certain outward manifestations or else bringing forward utterly primitive arguments against the basic Orthodox dogmas, arguments long ago refuted by the Church.

One can reason in an Orthodox manner about matters of faith only by having love for God and neighbor. This is the criterion that does not allow one to slip from the right path. True love, in the word of the Apostle, does not exalt itself, is long-suffering, is not malicious. It does not impose itself on all who pass by, and does not ostentatiously vaunt its pain and its sorrows. It forgives and has mercy on those who offend it. It demands nothing. It envies no one. Love is long-suffering... It waits for hearts to gain sight, for souls to thaw, for thoughts to grow bright. Without this, a man’s conversion to God is impossible. We all have free will, and it alone determines where we turn our gaze. God loves us and waits for us—the earthly Church is the threshold of His heavenly bridal chamber. We fall away from the Church first of all when we turn away from divine love, when pride and malice enter our hearts, when earthly calculation obscures eternal truth. All who have fallen away from the Church are people with hearts grown cold, who have lost the capacity to be bearers of divine love. Or else they have simply been mercilessly deceived by their fallen-away pastors, upon whose authority the unfortunate ones have placed all their hope. It cannot be otherwise—in this case there is no alternative. Everything else—canonical justifications, various kinds of arguments and demands attached to them—is already secondary.

 

Source: Русский Сигор, nos. 4–6, 2009.

Online:

http://internetsobor.org/index.php/stati/avtorskaya-kolonka/mitropolit-agafangel-prichina-tserkovnykh-razdelenij

Fr. Radu Bordeianu, Ph.D.: The (False) Unity We Seek

 

Thus, the first theological question related to ecumenism has to be an ecclesiological one: how do Orthodox understand the relationship between the Orthodox Church and the church described in the Creed as the Una Sancta, and what does that understanding mean for the ecclesial status of other Christian Churches? In other words, is the Body of Christ limited to Christians belonging to just one denomination—in this case, Orthodoxy—or can various denominations be considered as distinct members of the same Body of Christ? Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, Orthodoxy does not have an authoritative position on this question. In fact, Orthodox theologians and church representatives have espoused two main views of Christian unity, based on two different understandings of the boundaries of the church, broad and strict, respectively.

First and foremost, the official position of all autocephalous Orthodox churches and the view of most contemporary theologians is that Orthodoxy needs to engage in dialogue with other churches, in whom God’s grace and work of salvation are present. Accordingly, all those baptized with water in the name of the Trinity are validly baptized members of the Una Sancta. Were such persons to convert to Orthodoxy, they would not need to be baptized. If in Baptism we unite ourselves with Christ and become members of his Body, then all baptized Christians are united in their mutual identity with Christ. Consequently, Orthodox theologians agree with the two external marks of participation in the church, which were identified at the Third Assembly of the WCC in New Delhi (1961): baptism in Jesus Christ and confession of him as Lord and Saviour (Kinnamon 2003, 153).

The theological presupposition of recognizing the validity of non-Orthodox baptisms is that the grace of God is at work fully in the Orthodox Church, which represents the fullness of the Una Sancta, but also in other churches, which share in that fullness to different degrees. As will be shown later, this presupposition is worded differently by various Orthodox theologians, with various (and even conflicting) emphases. But the basic principle stays the same: Orthodoxy represents the fullness of the church.

- “The Unity We Seek,” by Fr. Radu Bordeianu, Ph.D., from The Oxford Handbook of Ecumenical Studies, edited by Geoffrey Wainwright and Paul McPartlan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), pp. 578-579.

Fr. Radu is Assistant Priest at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church (GOA) in Pittsburgh, PA, and Professor/Director of Graduate Studies at Duquesne University.

Prayer of St. Cyprian of Antioch Against Witchcraft

  

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Master Who lovest mankind, Lord Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, trusting in Thy boundless goodness, we fall down before Thee in repentance and from the depths beseech Thee, that by the intercessions of Thy Holy glorious Martyrs Cyprian and Justina, Thou mayest abolish, uproot, rend asunder, and, like smoke, dissolve and destroy every satanic bond from every place of Thy dominion; and do Thou deliver Thy servant [name] from every wrath and sickness, from witchcraft and satanic influence, from every passion and affliction, from every sorcery and enchantment, divination and evil eye, which certain persons have wrought by the cooperation of the ancient dragon.

Thou, O All-good One, as All-knowing, knowest both the methods of the inventor of evil and the places wherein he has wrought this; wherefore we beseech Thee, quickly hearken unto us, Thine unworthy children, and grant unto Thy servant [name] speedy deliverance from the power of the devil and his works, through Thy Holy Martyrs Cyprian and Justina. For Thou art the physician, the restoration, and the consolation of our souls and bodies, O Christ our God, and unto Thee we send up glory, together with Thine unoriginate Father and Thy Most-holy and Good and Life-creating Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

 

Greek source: https://353agios.blogspot.com/2013/10/blog-post_2238.html

The Resurrection of Our Savior and the Completion of the New Creation

 

Our Life as a Process of Continuous Renewal. On Great and Holy Saturday, the Orthodox Church chants with a loud voice:

This is the day of rest, whereon the Only-Begotten Son of God rested from all of His works. Suffering death in accordance with the economy of salvation, He kept the Sabbath in the flesh; and, returning again through the Resurrection to what He was, He hath granted us life eternal, for He alone is good and loveth mankind. [1]

Now, what are “all of the works” from which our Lord rested in the body? They are all of His works that pertain to our salvation: the Son of God, moved by exceeding love for sinful mankind, became incarnate. Throughout His life, He acted with such great condescension and humility that it seemed, in a certain way, that “He came out of Himself, though remaining inseparable from Himself,” “[came] forth from the dignity of His natural Divinity,” “and thus suffered, died, and was buried.” But when “He arose, He returned again to Himself and was restored to the former dignity of His Own Divinity.” [2]

After the Resurrection, the Body of our Lord became “suitable” for the manifestation, through It and in It, of the glory of His Divinity. It was, of course, Divinized from His very Conception through the hypostatic union of His two natures; but, for the sake of the economy of salvation, it was passible, corruptible, and without glory.

That is to say, after the Resurrection of our Savior, His formerly passible Body became impassible; the corruptible became incorruptible; the inglorious was made radiant, beautiful, and glorious with the same glory of Divinity with which it was hypostatically united from the beginning, without confusion or division. And it was when our Lord’s humanity became impassible, incorruptible, glorious, radiant, and beautiful, that our nature was glorified and “He granted us life eternal.” [1]

A new Creation was therefore accomplished through the life- bearing Resurrection of Christ, since what had previously been corrupted and degraded by the Fall was created anew. The Incarnation of the Logos inaugurated a new Creation; the Resurrection brought it to completion amid the uncreated Light of the Godhead.

It is noteworthy that this is precisely the reason why, on the Great Sunday of Pascha, at the Divine Liturgy of the Resurrection, we begin to read the Gospel according to St. John, in which the Divinity of God the Logos is proclaimed most brilliantly.

The intensely theological preface to this sacred Gospel introduces us immediately into the realm of Creation, with the well-known phrase: “In the beginning was... [the Logos]” [3]

He Who brought about the first Creation was the Logos·, and He Who renewed it, thereby inaugurating a new Creation, is the Incarnate Logos.

Mankind now participates in the new creation in Christ, in that through the Church it participates in the resurrected and glorious Body of Christ.

It is blessed repentance, centered on the Divine Eucharist, that renews us. And since repentance must be continuous, our whole life is a process of continuous renewal.

‘Have you sinned today?’ asks St. John Chrysostomos; ‘Have you made your soul decrepit? Do not despair, and do not be disheartened, but renew it by repentance, tears, and confession, and by doing good deeds. And never cease from doing this.’ [4]

Through repentance, we are freed from the decrepitude of sin and the passions and we are perfected and Deified through Divine Communion.

The Saints portray our Lord as speaking to us and as saying, with a realism that is truly astonishing:

For your sake I left My Father and came to you.... I united and joined you to Myself. ‘Eat Me, drink Me....’ I am not simply mingled with you, but I am entwined with you, masticated, and refined into smal l particles, so that the blending, commixture, and union may be more complete.... I am interwoven with you.... It is My will that we both be one. [5]

Let us live in unceasing repentance, so that we might participate continuously in the new Creation and that our life might thus be an unending Resurrection!

 

Notes

1. Orthros of Great Saturday, Doxastikon at the Praises.

2. St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, Συμβουλευτικόν Εγχειρίδιου [Handbook of Spiritual Counsel] (Volos: 1969), pp. 173-175.

3. St. John 1:1.

4. St. John Chrysostomos, “Homily 20 on Romans,” §2, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. LX, col. 598.

5. Idem, “Homily 15 on I St. Timothy,” §4, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. LXII, col. 586.

 

Greek original: Άγιος Κυπριανός, No. 307 (March-April 2002), pp. 122-123.

English source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. XX (2003), No. 1, pp. 33-34.

 

Devotional Prayer before Crucified Christ

What had you done, O charming innocence, to bring you as a criminal before your enemies’ bar? Or how had you deserved to be treated with such rude and insolent, such unrelenting and triumphant barbarity? What passage of your whole life could they fix an accusation upon, what crime allege to countenance so rigorous a sentence? If none (as none they could), why then your shameful bitter death, or how did you come to be condemned as a vile miscreant? It was I, alas! It was wretched I who gave you all those pains; it was I who deserved the death you endured; and my offences gave those scourges, those nails, that spear, the power of staying and wounding, and killing you. O wonderful process! Mystery of justice! — that the wicked should offend, and the righteous be punished for it! that the guilt and the condemnation should thus be separated! that the servant should contract a debt, and the Lord to whom it was due, make satisfaction! that man should provoke the Divine vengeance, and God should feel the smart of it! How low, O Son of God, did your humility stoop! How fervent was your love! How boundless your compassion!

For I have done wickedly, and you are called to account for it. I armed an angry justice against myself, and it is discharged upon your head; mine is the crime, and yours the torture: I have been proud, and you are humbled; I am puffed up, and you have emptied yourself; I have been rebellions, and your obedience has expiated for it. I have been intemperate, and you have hungered and thirsted for it: my ungoverned appetite sinned in the forbidden, and your immense love submitted to hang on the accursed, tree: I eat the fruit, and you feel the pains: I wallow in pleasures, and you are torn with nails: the honey in my mouth is turned to gall in your stomach: the tempting Eve rejoices with me, the sorrowful Mary suffers and laments with you. Thus is my wickedness and want of love to God; thus is your righteousness and inexpressible love to man, manifested in this marvelous dispensation.

And now, my God and King, what reward shall I give, what return can I make, for all the benefits you have done to me? (Ps 116.12). Surely it is not in the power of man to find out any requital answerable to such bounty; for how should the narrowness of a finite mind extend to anything fit to be compared with infinite compassion? How should a poor creature be capable of any recompense suitable to the mercy of an almighty Creator? And yet, my dearest Saviour, so wonderfully is this matter ordered, that even man, even I — weak and worthless though I am — may find something which you are pleased to accept in return; if by your grace my soul be broken and humbled, and I crucify this flesh with its affections and lusts (Gal. 5.24). When wrought up to this holy disposition, I then begin to suffer for, and live to you; and in some way pay back what you have endured when dying for me. Thus, by gaining a conquest upon the inward man, I am enabled by you to win the crown by my outward man; and by triumphing over the flesh in spiritual trials, that very flesh has the courage to submit gladly for your sake to bodily persecutions and death. This is the utmost my condition will admit; and this, though but little in itself, yet when proceeding from the same principle of holy love, you are graciously pleased to accept, as the utmost poor mortals can do in acknowledgment of their great Maker. This is the cure of sinful souls; this, blessed Jesus, the sovereign antidote your mercy has provided for us!

I beseech you, therefore, by your tender mercies which have ever been of old, pour such balm into my wounds as may dispel the venom of my diseases, and restore me to spiritual health and soundness (Ps 25.6). Let me drink of your heavenly sweetness, and be so ravished with the taste, as ever after to disrelish the sensual delights of the world, to despise its pleasures, and cheerfully encounter the afflictions of this present life; and to so fix my heart on true noble joys, as always to disdain the empty and transitory shadows which flesh and blood is so foolishly fond of, and so fearful of parting with. Let me not, I beseech you, esteem or delight in anything but you; let all this whole world can give, without you, be counted no better than dross and dung; let me hate most irreconcilably whatever displeases you; and what you love, let me most eagerly desire, and incessantly pursue; let me feel no satisfaction in any joys without you; nor any reluctance in the greatest sufferings for you. Let the mention of your name, always be a refreshment, and the remembrance of your goodness an inexhaustible spring of comfort to my soul. Let tears be my food day and night, so I may attain to your righteousness; and the law of your mouth always be dearer to me than thousands in gold and silver (Ps 119.72).

Let me aim at nothing so much as to do you service; nor detest and avoid anything in comparison to sinning against you. And for what I have unhappily done of that kind already, I entreat you, my only refuge and hope, to pardon me for your own mercy’s sake. Let my ears be ever open to the voice of your law, and suffer not my heart to incline to any evil thing, that I never comply with those who practice wickedness, nor take shelter in trifling pretenses to excuse or indulge myself in doing what I should not (Ps 141.4). And once more, I beg you, by your own unparalleled humility, that the foot of pride may not come against me, nor the hand of the ungodly cast me down (Ps 36.11).

 

- Meditations of St. Augustine of Hippo, Chapter 7 ("An Acknowledgment that sinful Man was the Cause of Christ’s Sufferings"). Translation by George Stanhope, D.D. (+1728)

St. Philaret of New York: Sermon on Great Friday

 

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Gospel tells us that when the Lord Jesus Christ appeared on the banks of the Jordan, St. John the Baptist, pointing to Him said, “Behold the Lamb of God Who takes upon Himself the sins of the world.” and on the next day repeated this again. The Lamb of God: in ancient times, a lamb was a redemptive sacrifice for sins and this is what the Baptist was speaking of, that the One Whom he indicated is that Redemptive Sacrifice for the sins of mankind.

It is easy to say and one may write that one took some sort of sins upon oneself, but the Lord Jesus Christ, God-man, Son of God Who became incar­nate yet remaining God as God Omnipotent and at the same time joining His nature with human nature, He took upon Himself the sins of the en­tire world not in a way that we may say, but took them in essence, actually. Metropolitan Anthony loved to clarify that the Mystery of Redemption is an abyss of the Supreme Wisdom and Goodness of God and at the same time a terrible mystery. Vladika Anthony said that if a person could only see and learn what the Lord Jesus Christ under­went in this feat of His Redemption then, as Vla­dika Anthony said, a person would burn up, not being able to endure this. This is why for us it remains a mystery, a frightful and immeasurable depth of suffering which we cannot even imagine.

It becomes truly terrifying when one merely thinks what the Lord had endured then. For He, I re­peat, essentially took upon Himself the sins of the entire world. We cannot take the sins of others upon ourselves. They remain with each person in­dividually, but God Almighty has nothing that is impossible for Him and by this dreadful action of His Omnipotence, in a way which is inscrutable and incomprehensible for us, He accomplished indeed that which only faith can accept and not human reasoning. He took our human sins upon Himself, making them His own, personal sins and this is why He suffered and sorrowed so greatly.

We know how He said to His disciples prior to embarking on this path of horrible sufferings, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” and right away, purely in a human manner which is understandable for us, He asks His disciples, “stay with Me here and watch with Me.” Yes, they did stay with Him, but they were not able to stay awake and during those moments when He prayed His terrible, supernatural (as the Church calls it) prayer in Gethsemane, during that time they slept and slumbered. While the Lord was pronouncing His prayer, he turned to them for their support in friendship, support in love, He sees that they sleep. He only said to Peter, “Si­mon, could not have at least you tarried a little” for it was Peter, as we know, who swore and made an oath that he would go with Him even to death, but now he had fallen asleep at a time when it was so difficult for Him.

But remember, beloved, when you and I con­template what it is that the Lord did for us, one must never forget that it was precisely because of our sins that He ended up on the Cross and in the tomb. We nailed Him by our obstinate, unrepented sins to the Cross and because of our sins He now lies a voiceless and invisible corpse in the tomb. And when you bow down in wor­ship before Him, venerating His wounds, do this as one inexcusably guilty on account of whom He is covered in wounds, on account of whom He died in torture, rejected, covered with shame and now lies in the grave. Remember that we did this, including me and every other person by our stub­born sins and our incorrigibility. It is not in vain that the Lord Himself at one point when He par­ticularly strongly sensed the unfaithfulness of the human race and even exclaimed, as is recorded in the Gospel, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long will I be with you, how long will I suf­fer you?” This is how difficult in general it was for Him to be with us, and then, I repeat, we nailed Him to the cross and put Him in the grave by our sins.

Remember this, Christian soul, when you come to bow down before the Divine dead body lying in the Shroud, when you venerate His wounds, do this as one who is undeniably guilty, because no one besides us is guilty of this, for the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Apostle said, instead of the Glory befitting Him, He endured shame and dis­grace, the terrible, shameful and degrading death on the Cross. You and I know that now, after His death the Cross has become for us sacred and a treasure, but He was nailed to the Cross, I re­peat not by the soldiers, but by us because if our sins did not exist, He would not have had to take them upon Himself and none of this would have happened. But He accepted this dreadful super-human feat.

Remember how it says in the Gospel that He struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane to the point of bloody sweat during this dreadful prayer. Why was he covered with this terrible bloody sweat? The holy hierarch Dimitry of Rostov once said in his inspired sermon, as if addressing the Savior: “Lord, why are You covered in blood? Who wounded you so severely? There has not yet been the Cross or the scourging, why are you cov­ered in blood?” And he answers it himself: “Love wounded me,” for the God-man knew that if He Who so loved sinners did not carry out this dread­ful feat, then our lot for all ages would be fiery Gehenna in frightful, never-ending most horri­fying sufferings which we cannot even imagine. And it was He Who took upon Himself this en­tire horrifying weight, the heavy burden of sin and thanks to His holy and great podvig we now have an opportunity to hope that we will receive for­giveness of our sins and that they will be washed away, and then can we hope that He will receive us into the Heavenly Kingdom as He received the wise thief. Amen.

 

Source: Living Orthodoxy, Vol. XXXV, No. 2; Mar - Apr 2015, #206, pp. 4-6.