The Falling Away Today...

The Falling Away Today - The Ecclesiological Aspect: Spiritual Authenticity as the Source of Canonicity

A Letter to a Theology Graduate Student at the University of Shumen

Bishop Photii of Triaditsa | July 27 / August 9, 2000 | Sofia

Dear in the Lord N.,

May the mercy of God be with you

Thank you for your letter and for the information regarding the interconfessional seminar in the city of Shumen on May 23 (new style) this year. Your observations provide yet another confirmation, though not as strong and vivid, of the fact that the truth of Orthodoxy cannot be preserved externally, formally, declaratively, or "politically." The cessation of membership in the World Council of Churches [by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church - trans.] remains an extremely limited, opportunistic, faceless church-administrative act unless it is followed by a truly conciliar condemnation of the heresy of ecumenism, based on serious theological analysis and a conciliar church evaluation of its essence. Orthodoxy does not tolerate the category of "external correctness," detached from the fullness of Truth, from the Spirit, from faith, from life, and from the conciliar conscience of the Church. This is probably where the dark essence of the modern falling away lies: under the powerful pressure of contemporary anti-Christian civilization — with all its possible dimensions, levels, and driving forces — even among the Orthodox themselves, the sense of holy Orthodoxy is being lost or severely distorted. In the souls of bishops and priests, the cancerous metastases of coldness, insensitivity, indifference, and disdain for holy Orthodoxy are grotesquely spreading, or they are filled with intellectually self-satisfied impulses to "reinterpret," "update," or "modernize" it. As a result, varying degrees of alienation from the spirit of Orthodoxy are growing among a vast number of bishops, most of the clergy, and the theological cadres of the so-called official local churches. The result of this process dynamically manifests across the spectrum: from a folkloric caricature of Orthodoxy, through various revisionist passions for its "modernization," to the fully conscious undermining and destruction of it at the highest church-administrative and theological levels, sometimes hidden under the guise of church-political "traditionalism." From this perspective, ecumenism is the predominant and globally encompassing but by no means the only expression of the falling away today. Thus, our goal is not merely to "restore the old calendar" or "leave the WCC" but to preserve ourselves in this spiritual authenticity, in this sacred fullness of Orthodoxy, which generates, nourishes, and fulfills all church teachings, traditions, and customs, giving meaning to the entire visible structure of the Church with its canonicity and officialdom. Among the apologists for "official" Orthodoxy, we see the opposite tendency: they appeal to canonicity and officialdom as self-sufficient guarantees of authentic Orthodoxy and as the supreme criterion of its unity. However, it is impossible for the conscientious among them not to notice that under the cover of canonicity and officialdom, Orthodoxy is being intensely destroyed on a global level and is simultaneously being replaced by a distorted double, a new, formal, "institutional" or "earthly" "Orthodoxy," reshaped "according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ" (cf. Col. 2:8). The hierarchs of the "official" local churches do not actively and systematically resist this process. Indeed, this "Orthodoxy" sometimes uses the sacred language of true Orthodoxy with assertiveness, as if it were an elevated but existentially non-binding theological metaphor. Thus, the category of "correctness" unnaturally disintegrates, loses internal credibility, and turns into a metaphorical veil for incompatible content. I will attempt to explain this with a concrete example. A high-ranking Orthodox hierarch [in one city] not only refrains from spreading ecumenical or neo-renovationist ideas but even organizes the public burning of books containing such ideas. At the same time, this hierarch has scandalized the public of the said city for years with his homosexual actions. You might say, this is not a matter of confession, but of personal sins, for which we cannot judge him. Yes, it is true — we indeed cannot judge him for this. But if an Orthodox hierarch commits this sin and continues to perform and teach the holy Sacraments to himself and Christians without disturbance, then this is no longer merely his "personal sin"; such bold and sacrilegious behavior inevitably casts deep doubt on the Orthodoxy of this hierarch’s convictions about faith and salvation. This is how, beyond a certain limit, confessional convictions are difficult to "distill" in pure form, independently of a person’s spiritual and moral state. I emphasize this with the important caveat that these two categories — confession of faith and spiritual-moral state — must be handled with utmost responsibility, with a worldview, spiritual, ecclesiological, and pastoral sense of boundaries. One must never unscrupulously and indiscriminately substitute one for the other with an unclean intention to disgrace and slander an opponent. However, in this case, there arises significant confusion and doubt regarding the Orthodoxy of the convictions and actions of the governing body of the respective local church, which remains silent for a long time, conceals the truth, and resorts to conciliar falsehood and lies to "preserve" the authority of canonical church power. Is it possible to act uncanonically in the name of canonicity? Can falsehood be a conciliar-approved means of preserving the authority of church truth?

We must not forget that it is precisely the spiritual authenticity of Holy Tradition, teachings, and customs that is the source of canonicity and officialdom in the Church, and not the other way around — canonicity and officialdom are not themselves the source of this spiritual authenticity. However, these categories should not be in mutual contradiction. Yet it is precisely their degrading reversal, breach, and contradiction that characterizes the main course of falling away among the Orthodox in our days. Spirit-bearing Church Fathers, the Orthodox hierarchy, and the faithful, to whom the hierarchy ministers and who entrust it with administrative authority in the Church, constitute this primordial ecclesiastical structural unit, which is the bearer of the mystical unity of the heavenly-earthly Church, that is, the unity of Christ with His Body — the Church, the unity of the faithful with their shepherds, the unity of the local with the universal, and the eternal with the temporal. In this sense, our effort to abide in the fullness of Orthodoxy, the effort to remain in the Conciliar Church, which, according to St. Maximus the Confessor, is in the correct and salvific confession of faith in God, has as its goal the preservation of this wholeness. United by the bonds of Grace and love, this wholeness forms the heart of Orthodoxy, the true Body of Christ.

Your humble intercessor in Christ,
Bishop Photii

Russian source: https://bulgarian-orthodox-church.org/pravoslavie/rus/ef/otstuplenie_segodnja.html