2013 Letter of Metropolitan Cyprian II to Metropolitan Agafangel

2013 Letter of Metropolitan Cyprian II (Holy Synod in Resistance) to Metropolitan Agafangel (ROCOR-A)

(Letter of Metropolitan Cyprian II of Oropos and Fili, sent in response to the greeting of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia regarding his election as Primate of the Synod in Resistance. In this letter, it is specifically stated that the Synod in Resistance fully adheres to the ecclesiology outlined by the Old Calendar Bulgarian Church, which is included in the appendix. [https://www.imoph.org/pdfs/2013/05/29/E20130519aEkklesTheseisBulgaria.pdf]

 

To His Eminence, the Most Reverend Agafangel, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Odessa, Ukraine.

October 11, 2013 (Ecclesiastical Calendar) Fili, Attica.
Holy Apostle and Deacon Philip

 

MESSAGE OF PEACE

 

Your Eminence, beloved brother in Christ and our concelebrant, Metropolitan Agafangel, First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, we greet you with joy, firmly believing that Christ is in our midst, and He is and will be forever. Amen!

Following our elevation, by the Grace of God, through the vote and insistence of the Members of the Hierarchy of our Holy Synod, during its recent 40th Session (October 4/17, 2013), to the position of Metropolitan of Oropos and Fili and President of the Synod, we hasten to officially inform Your Eminence with this Message of Peace, as well as the Sister Russian Orthodox Church Abroad under your leadership. We address you with a heartfelt greeting and a kiss of Love, Peace, and Unity, with deep gratitude for the Synodal congratulations we received from you, requesting your Holy prayers.

The sanctity of the person of our Most Reverend Metropolitan and Father Cyprian, who reposed in Christ five months ago, and the highly significant legacy he left, make our ministry exceptionally responsible and difficult.

Considering our own weakness, we rely on the help and support of God, through the intercession of the Most Holy Lady Theotokos and all the Saints, and especially on the love in Christ and the brotherly prayers of Your Eminence.

We consider it our duty, venerable and Most Reverend Brother in Christ, to assure you that we stand firmly and unwaveringly in the Orthodox Faith, by the Grace of God, believing as our Spirit-bearing Fathers decreed at the Seven Ecumenical Councils, neither adding nor subtracting anything, striving to observe unalterably the prescriptions of the Sacred Canons and Holy Traditions. Under their guidance, we proclaim that ecumenism is an ecclesiological heresy, and the reform of the Church calendar is an innovation subject to condemnation.

The Lord did not grant us the joy of seeing you here at the Patronal Feast of our Metropolitan Center last week, but we hope that the grace of our Lord will inspire within you noble zeal, so that we may soon be deemed worthy of the blessing to proclaim our unity together—in the unity of our hearts through the common Confession of Faith, by the joint celebration of the Mystery of the Divine Eucharist, for the edification in Christ of ourselves and all.

We also take this opportunity to inform Your Eminence that our Holy Synod, sincerely wishing to put an end to the confusion regarding the misunderstanding of certain expressions of its ecclesiology—expressions which it certainly does not insist upon dogmatically or unyieldingly—hereby declares that it fundamentally (in principio) agrees with the "Ecclesiological Position" of its Sister Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Bulgaria, headed by His Grace Bishop Photii of Triaditsa. As is known, this document has been available online for almost a year in its Russian translation, a copy of which we are attaching to this letter. These positions could serve as a satisfactory basis for a meeting and union of Orthodox Old Calendarist Anti-Ecumenists worldwide. [Emphasis added.]

We also assure you that our official dialogue with the Church of the G.O.C. (Genuine Orthodox Christians) of Greece under Archbishop Kallinikos continues, by the grace of God, responsibly and seriously, in a spirit of mutual respect and with well-founded hopes for positive results.

Hoping and fervently praying that the Divine Steward of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ, may grant us the richness of His saving Truth, so that we may proclaim it to the whole world in peace and harmony, we once again embrace Your Eminence, and in your honorable person, all the faithful with you—clergy and laity—in the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father, remaining with respect and sincere love.

Your Eminence's loving Brother in Christ and Concelebrant,

† Cyprian [II], Metropolitan of Oropos and Fili,

President of the Holy Synod in Resistance

 

Russian source: 

http://internetsobor.org/index.php/novosti/starostilnye-tserkvi/sinod-protivostoyashchikh/otvetnoe-poslanie-grecheskogo-sinoda-protivostoyashchikh

 

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