About those who promote a wrong path following the example of hierarchs who maintain communion with heretical hierarchs

[Question:] One of the important reasons why priests and believers do not join us on the path of ceasing communion with the ecumenist heretics is that they follow the example of hierarchs who, although they did not sign the documents from Crete, still maintain communion with heretical hierarchs. How do you explain this scandal, and how could it be removed?

Elder Sava [Lavriotis:]

Orthodoxy must not only be confessed in words; it must also be confessed in deeds. These people—bishops or clerics—who claim to be against ecumenism but bow to these Bartholomew [of Constantinople] or Daniel [of Romania], or any other patriarch, do the greatest harm to the Church. We will try to address this situation with examples from the Holy Fathers.

There was an abbot during the time of St. Theodore the Studite, when everyone was being persecuted. We have the example in the letter of St. Theodore the Studite to Abbot Eustratius, whom he accuses of confessing the faith but not being persecuted in his monastery. In the letter, he asked him: "How is it that you remain in the monastery and are not expelled, while we are persecuted and all of us have been deposed? This means that you have an understanding with them; you are in communion with them."

Here, most of our fathers and sisters are being expelled for their faith. Bishops and other priests who claim to be Orthodox—why are they not persecuted? Do you think that if a bishop in Romania had an Orthodox mindset and had ceased communion with Daniel, he would not have been expelled, would not have been persecuted? Of course, he would have been defrocked. That is the true confession.

What these people are doing is simply deceiving the world. And unfortunately, we have such people in Greece as well, like Seraphim of Piraeus or Hierotheos Vlachos, the metropolitan of Nafpaktos, who comes here and gives speeches, telling you to follow your bishops because they are good, even those who accepted the council of Crete. In Greece, he said the council was not so good. Now, he has started to say there that the council is good. These are the bishops and clerics who waver when it comes to the faith.

But those who follow them are also at fault because they follow them since their position suits them. They say: "We fight for the faith, and we are not even persecuted. We have both. You, the persecuted ones, pull the snake out of its hole."

 

Original Romanian source: https://ortodoxlogos.ro/2018/08/14/despre-cei-care-promoveaza-o-cale-gresita-dupa-modelul-ierarhilor-care-pastreaza-comuniunea-cu-ierarhii-eretici/