Sunday, June 14, 2009
To the respected clergy of the Editorial Committee of the text A Confession of Faith Against Ecumenism:
Elder Joseph of Mount Athos, Fr. George Metallinos, Fr. Theodoros Zisis, Fr. Markos Manolis, and Fr. Sarantis Sarantos
by John Kornarakis (+2013),
Professor Emeritus at the School of Theology,
University of Athens
I received and read with particular attention both the text
of your entreaty that I participate in your anti-ecumenist endeavor, as well as
that of your declaration. In the text of your entreaty, you address me
personally and by name, and you state: “We fervently ask, since you agree with
the content of the Confession, that you add your signature to the document, so
that we might gladden and reassure the faithful, who are in agony over what is
underway and who await words of truth.”
The goal of your anti-ecumenist endeavor, I thus take it, is
to allay the fears of the faithful concerning the constant intensification of
the ecumenist maelstrom in the ranks of the Orthodox Church and to reassure the
faithful that you guarantee the protection of the Church from the catastrophic
consequences for her of the ecumenical activities of her Orthodox leaders.
Unfortunately, I must tell you that I cannot attach my
signature to this document, which you characterize as a “Confession of Faith,”
since this confession is not in keeping with the terms and dicta of the treasury of the Church’s Sacred Canons, or of the
Patristic Tradition, inspired by the Holy Spirit, of witness by blood and soul,
by which alone the Divine Fathers, as most genuine servants of Christ,
“bringing together all their pastoral knowledge and moved to righteous anger,
expelled from the plenitude of the Church the grievous and pernicious wolves of
heresies, hurling them far off with the sling of the Spirit,” as one of the
Church’s hymnographers puts it.
The grievous wolves of heresies, then, and especially of the
pernicious disease of the pan-heresy of ecumenism, are not to be exorcized by a
tedious and unholy paper war of anti-heretical texts. Such verbal warfare,
every time, simply informs the flock what the heresy in question is and the
catastrophic results that it causes in the life of the Church.
To date, a large number of such texts have been circulated by
the Sacred Community of the Holy Mountain, by your own group of clergy and
monastics, and also by other anti-ecumenist initiatives. Much ink has been
spilled and much paper expended on the same issues and for the same motive –
putatively a combative one – without a single substantive loss on the part of
the ecumenists in the Church.
Ecumenism is advancing in the domain of the Church, and is
constantly reinforced, precisely because the Orthodox ecumenists, whose names
are not disclosed, go untouched. For this reason, they are not disquieted and
are sure that they will achieve their goals, thanks to your timidity in failing
to struggle in a God-pleasing manner, with the spirit of the sacrificial
martyrdom of the Cross.
In your entreaty to me, you write: “The Holy Martyrs,
Hierarchs, Ascetics, and Confessors struggled for Orthodoxy and suffered much
in confessing the Faith.”
And you – what have you
suffered up to this day?
Your anti-ecumenist endeavor is limited to the confines of
your personal safety, so that you remain untouched by any consequences that
would be unpleasant for you.
For example, on p. 17 of your text, you write: “This
pan-heresy (of ecumenism) has been accepted by many Orthodox Patriarchs,
Archbishops, Bishops, Clergymen, Monks and laity.”
Who are they? You do not name them, as you ought to have
done, in keeping in fact with a decision made by your own assembly of clergy
and monastics.
Allow me to remind you of the facts: sometime after the
sacrilege of the Papal incursion into the Phanar, and this with the blessing
and collaboration of the Patriarch, this group convened – I myself was also
present – in Pelion, at the Metochion
of the Athonite Monastery of the Great Lavra, in order to consider its new
goals. Throughout the gathering, the predominant proposal embraced by all
present was that a document be composed in which, at long last, all of the
names of the Orthodox ecumenists would be made public. You permitted many
laypeople, men and women, to attend this gathering, and all present
enthusiastically applauded this proposal.
We went away from that meeting place with the expectation of
receiving this document so that we could sign it, so that it could be put into
circulation as soon as possible. However, time passed, and no activity was
evident from any quarter to sustain the functioning of this group of clergy and
monastics; nor was any document sent out. Thus, the activity of the group was
reduced to uncertainty and inertia for a long period of time. This protracted
inactivity and silence and, now, the thwarting of the publication of the
awaited document, containing the names of the ecumenist leaders of the Church,
are proof positive that the group has ceased any longer to be active. What
could have happened?
For me this puzzle was solved when, in September of the past
year (September 8, 2008), a front-page article was published by one of you in Orthodoxos Typos on the subject of
“Points of Orthodox Opposition.” In the first paragraph of this article,
entitled “1. The strugglers have faltered,” the author writes: “There is a
widespread feeling that Orthodox opposition to the continuing maelstrom of
syncretistic ecumenism has diminished; very few voices are now to be heard.
Dynamic and organized circles, comprised of traditionalist clergy and
monastics, who in the past strove with vigor, boldness, and purpose of
confession, and who endeavored, by way of petitions, the organization of
conferences, lectures, and other events, to maintain a vigilant self-understanding
among the Orthodox, are no longer in the forefront. It seems as if they have
become internally weakened and have given up the struggle.”
It was obvious what the article was talking about: the
“funeral” of your group.
It ascribed responsibility for silence to its members. The
group had to be disbanded in order to appease the ecumenist Church leaders. If
the activity of this group of clergy and monastics has revived through a new
paper war, this is for reasons about which I must remain silent for the
present.
At any rate, the spirit that prevails among all of those in
charge of this group is revealed in the futility of its anti-ecumenist efforts,
in the emptiness of its witness, and in the general ineffectuality of its
struggle. A war of words and nothing else – only for show. This fact is
confirmed by p. 17 of the declaration. You write, Reverend Fathers, that the
ecumenist Patriarchs et hoc genus omne
“teach it ‘bareheaded,’ and that they apply it and impose it in practice,
associating with heretics in every possible manner, in joint prayers, the
exchange of visits, and in joint pastoral ventures.”
In this text, you set forth verbatim the Fifteenth Canon of
the First-Second Synod, which gives you the right to break off the
commemoration of Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops.
But you do not do so, and you never will!
Moreover, by this stand of yours, you are acting
irrationally. For you state that the ecumenists “place themselves outside the
Church,” since they violate the Canons of the Church. But alas, those Priests
who denounce Patriarchs, Archbishops, and Bishops without naming them, but
simply through a sapping and unsacred paper war: are they within the Church?
And especially when they recognize such Prelates, sometimes offer them gifts,
and publicly characterize them as Orthodox theologians?
These same clergymen who fail to apply the standard of which
they are aware, but go along with those whom they recognize and denounce as
ecumenists, must not themselves be members of the Church. They would be in the
Church, provided they were to cease commemoration of their ecumenist superiors;
indeed then, in accordance with this Canon, they would be “worthy of the honor
due to Orthodox Christians,” since “they have not caused any schism in the
Church by their separation, but have, rather, delivered the Church from the
schism and heresy of their false bishops” (Pedalion,
p. 358).
Reverend Fathers:
The basic problem of our existence is
the extent to which our life is lived in Christ Jesus. Christ, the preeminently
unsurpassable Truth, calls us, if we so wish, “to walk behind Him,” to be true
in every way. When we do not do this, “we trifle with things not to be trifled
with” at the table of Gospel truths. Shady dealings, covering up the truth with
a veil of falsehood, diplomacy, and sundry expedients for self-protection are
not made holy by a paper war of anti-heretical documents – [as though] the sole
solution in struggling for the Faith! I am unable to subscribe to such a
solution at this advanced time of my life, which is bringing me near to the
judgment of God.
Original Greek print source: Ιερά Παρακαταθήκη,
July 2009.
Original Greek online: https://web.archive.org/web/20100112051111/http://www.ekklisiastikos.com/2009/08/blog-post_20.html
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