A Romanian New Calendar Priest Answers an Important Question

QUESTION:

After the Synod of Crete, is it still permissible to attend Church services where Patriarch Daniel and/or other hierarchs of the Romanian Orthodox Church (who have become pseudo-bishops) are commemorated without being affected by the officially institutionalized ecumenism of October 2016?

ANSWER:

The commemoration of the patriarch, who has become a pseudo-patriarch through the official institutionalization of ecumenism at the Patriarchal level, as well as of all pseudo-hierarchs who have participated in this transgression, affects the entire hierarchical structure of the Church, the entire pleroma, from the patriarch down to the layperson. This happens not because there is no longer Grace in the Church or because the Holy Mysteries have ceased to be valid after the legalization of ecumenism at Crete, but because our response to all these events that are foreign to the Truth largely bears the mark of guilt and indolence. It is a form of complicity, a participation in heresy, whether consciously or unconsciously. Something similar occurs within the human body: when an infection appears, the entire body suffers, not just the affected member. Would anyone who falls physically ill not seek healing at all costs? Why should it be any different when it comes to spiritual and doctrinal illnesses?

Ecumenism is a dreadful disease that does not heal on its own and harms the entire organism. If those most entitled to stop the infection (hierarchs, priests, theologians, monks) do not take a stand, then in the "medical manuals" of the Church (Pedalion – The Rudder of the Church, Dogmatics, Liturgics, etc.), there exists a valid therapeutic approach for the entire pleroma. That is, if the "doctor" refuses to heal, justifying his inaction with a lack of "professionalism" by claiming that there is nothing causing illness, then there are means of prevention, intervention, and recovery available to all the "patients" of the Church—the spiritual hospital—to restore health to the body. What is essential is to establish the correct diagnosis and to use the appropriate remedies for the disease: public confession of faith, separation from heresy, apostolic mission, catechesis, preaching, prayer, confession, penance appropriate to the illness, and partaking of the Holy Mysteries in a state of worthiness, not in participation with heresy! Without these, the disease spreads, and even those with "medical knowledge"—that is, those with an Orthodox, sound mind and an active life in the Church—can fall ill!

These aspects should be kept in mind, each one working toward salvation according to their conscience and spiritual counsel, in the truth of Christ!

- Fr. Claudiu Buză

 

Romanian source:

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1775804223208302&set=a.119992032122871 (dated February 14, 2025).