ORTHODOX MISCELLANY- History, Ecclesiology, Spirituality, and the Struggle Against Ecumenism

Is it beneficial for a newly initiated Christian to reflect on lofty spiritual matters?   A beginner on the path of faith faces a certain danger: instead of studying the simple and necessary rules and foundations of an active Christian life, they may deviate into pridefulness, begin studying complex spiritual subjects, striving with their feeble intellect to comprehend that which cannot be grasped by reason; they may dare to delve deeply into the Holy Scriptures, interpreting mysterious prophecies. Our mind is so sick and damaged that it must not be given freedom to decide spiritual matters; it is with a simple, almost childlike eye of faith that one must accept the already prepared and thoroughly explained spiritual teachings, as presented by the Church and the holy fathers. It is very dangerous for one to dare, with an unpurified mind and without yet understanding the very foundations of faith, to grasp the roots of subtle and profound truths. "Faith is not blind, but it i...

  Concerning the Persons Administering the Mysteries Source: St. Nektarios of Pentapolis, "On the Divine Mysteries of the Holy Church of Christ: Part A—On the Mysteries in General," in Collected Works , Vol. VI, ed. Holy Metropolis of Hydra, Spetses, and Aegina, Holy Monastery of the Holy Trinity (St. Nektarios), Aegina, Athens, 2012, pp. 155-158.   1. For the divine Mysteries to be performed and completed mystically, the following are required: (a) A priest, who must be canonically ordained by the Church and commissioned by the Church of Christ, which is the only entrusted authority, having received the command from the Greatest High Priest, Christ, who is the sole celebrant of the Mysteries. For it is not the persons who perform the Mysteries and transmit Grace, but Christ, the Great High Priest Himself, who both offers the mystery of the Eucharist and is offered, and both gives and is given, and sanctifies those who partake. (b) They must be performed accordin...

Official translations of the 2014 Common Ecclesiological Statement, The True Orthodox Church and the Heresy of Ecumenism • Dogmatic and Canonical Issues, signed by representatives of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece, Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Romania, Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria, and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.   Greek: https://drive.google.com/file/d/167masKXebn_O0rB-Ni1A3iwMlAV9ma1s/view?usp=sharing English: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1kmphsNVFP5dVJrdW4xSnU4cmc/view?usp=sharing&resourcekey=0-JkHL-v86f3WZiAYYWlBEVQ Russian: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K6gWPDMJXK78A8x_Z7d0IdIkxNI5nOnz/view?usp=sharing Romanian: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1DBg_2L6siNiTfrKQEpqqyYquaye1Uk2n/view?usp=sharing Bulgarian: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P2FW66la7_07_9iQYRcW2bV9-nPehYZD/view?usp=sharing Serbian: https://drive.google.com/file/d/154TtcG7OvwEIaugibdE7Ypff2cvHOepL/view?usp=sharing Arabic: https://drive.goo...

  The Evil Communion Source: Orthodox Christian Witness , August 25, 1980. Sulpitius Severus (363-420), long famous for his Life of St. Martin of Tours , has recorded in his Sacred History an interesting and revealing episode in church history. In his second book, chapter 46, he writes that a certain Priscillian (4th century) was converted to the teachings of a Gnostic-Manichaean sect first introduced into Spain by Marcus, an Egyptian from Memphis. Severus tells us that Priscillian was a man of noble birth, of great riches, bold, restless, eloquent, learned through much reading, very ready at debate and discussion – in fact, altogether a happy man, if he had not ruined an excellent intellect by wicked studies. Undoubtedly, there were to be seen in him many admirable qualities both of mind and body. He was able to spend much time in watchfulness, and to endure both hunger and thirst; he had little desire for amassing wealth, he was most economical in the use of it. This man was the...

Post on 3 Aug 2022 on the “Church of the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece and America GOC-K” Facebook discussion group:  Stavros: I have a copy of the original GOC archive containing all documents from 1926 to 1948. I wish to make it public one day. The truth is that [Metropolitan] Chrysostom, [and Bishops] Germanos and Matthew all had their faults, but the most vile and nasty and careless one of all was Germanos of Cyclades. But all three of them could have been better and it would have allowed the spiritual struggle to succeed. But the archives proved to me that Chrysostom was right and Matthew was wrong regarding ecclesiology. It prompted me to leave the Matthewites and eventually join the Synod in Resistance who were the continuers of Chrysostom's ecclesiology. But then the entire SiR merged with GOC-K. I wish all the factions would reunite, but with Chrysostom of Florina's ecclesiology, not Matthew's. Then without a doubt all the conservatives within the Orthodox Chur...

We must make a decisive break with ecumenism, and we must not have anything in communion with its co-travelers. Our path is not theirs. We must say this decisively and show it in our deeds. A time of genuine confession is coming for us, a time when perhaps we will remain alone and will be in the position of being persecuted. Insofar as all the Orthodox Local Churches have now entered into the ranks of the “World Council of Churches” and have thereby betrayed Orthodoxy and bowed down to satan, the time of our complete isolation has come. We cannot and we must not have any communion with apostates from True Orthodoxy, and we must be ready, if required, to depart into the catacombs, like the True Orthodox Christians in our homeland. Our position as fighters and confessors of the pure and undefiled truth of Christ places us under great obligation, more than at any time in the past. We must always remember that a true pastor of the true Church of Christ can never and must never have any oth...

  Extremism Out of Necessity… The Old Calendar movement in Greece was from its inception, it is true, a reaction of the simple Faithful to the calendar innovation and ecumenism. But its clerical and lay leaders included some of the best theologians and scholars of the Greek Church. Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Florina, who subsequently became the “Father” of the movement, was, for example, a refined man of tremendous erudition. Many of the Athonite Fathers who served the movement early on, though not educated in secular institutions, were virtual “professors” of the spiritual life, trained in that authentic theology which only the monastic state properly provides… It is an unfortunate fact that, largely out of necessity, the Old Calendarist movement eventually veered away from the influence of more moderate and circumspect leaders – as evidenced by the “Matthewite” schism – and fell into the hands of perhaps sincere, but less gifted leaders. The result of this lapse is, today, the...

INTERVIEWER [Tatiana Matchkovska]: There is in Bulgaria a group of Old Calendarists who consider the Mysteries of the "official" Church, which follows the new liturgical calendar, to be thereby wholly deprived of Grace. ANSWER [Bishop Photii of Triaditsa]: This is an extreme position which is not ours. We are well aware that, to the extent apostasy progresses, Grace disappears. But we are not so bold as to decide this matter in a decisive manner. Only a council can do such a thing. Our task is to separate ourselves, but without assuming the role of judges. Source: Труд , No. 20. English Translation: Orthodox Tradition , Vol. 10 (1993), No. 3, pp. 9-10.

  Thoughts on the Church, Grace, and Schism Protopriest Lev Lebedeff | February 17, 1998 Dear N! Let us still determine the essence of the disputes and the methodology of approaching them. It has been as clear as day since the time of the Ecumenical Councils that gnosis is not an instrument for the knowledge of divine things. Before refuting Nestorius, St. Cyril of Alexandria and some others called for the complete abandonment of intellectual reasoning and views regarding the mystery of the Incarnation and for accepting it solely by faith. For from the beginning, this was how it was in the Church: they did not theologize or philosophize about it; they saw it . How? With the eyes of faith. "Enlighten the eyes of my mind," or—"the spiritual eyes of the heart." You are, of course, aware that in addition to the external mind, sometimes defined as ratio , there is also a spiritual mind in a person. Its distinction from the external mind is that it is capable of seeing t...