Archimandrite Pavlos Dimitrakopoulos
Head of the Office
for Heresies and Sects, Holy Metropolis of Kythira and Antikythera
April 2, 2025
Ecumenism is “galloping,”
proceeding unimpeded and leveling everything. It has spread its deadly
tentacles everywhere and mortally threatens our holy Orthodoxy. High-ranking
ecclesiastical figures have openly enlisted in the implementation of its
demonic goals. They pray together with heretics, as if they had renounced their
heresies, and despite the prohibitions of the Holy Canons. They erase with a
single stroke the two-thousand-year tradition of our Church, which defines the
saving truth from delusion. They have ceased to consider heresy as a path of
perdition and spread the notion that salvation is not the exclusive privilege
of the Orthodox Church, but also of the heresies, even of the religions of the
world! They have reached the point of denying even self-evident and
indisputable historical facts in order to pave the way toward the “Union of
the Churches.”
The many-headed beast of this
dreadful heresy appears, for the time being, to be triumphing, to be at the
peak of its glory, since it even managed to obtain synodal legitimization at
the peculiar Council of Crete (2016). “Who is like unto the beast? Who is
able to make war with him?” (Rev. 13:4), since the majority of Bishops
today, throughout Orthodoxy, have bowed before it—some out of fear and
cowardice, and others out of conviction. The shipwrecks concerning the Faith
among clergy, monastics, and laity are endless and continually increase with
geometric progression. The God-inspired word of Saint Basil the Great
illuminates the present ecclesiastical condition: “Love has grown cold, the
teaching of the Fathers is being ravaged, shipwrecks concerning the Faith are
frequent, the mouths of the pious are silent…” [1]
Recently, new statements by
Ecumenical Patriarch kyr Bartholomew came to light in the public sphere,
which surprised us and at the same time deeply saddened us, because they cast
doubt upon major historical events which no ecclesiastical historian has ever
thought to question. According to a publication on the internet, the Patriarch “during
a meeting in Constantinople with the Greek-Catholic Melkite Patriarch Gregory
III, [March 12, 2025]… spoke about the theory that there was no real schism
between Rome and Constantinople in 1054.” According to his assertions, “rather,
there were tensions which intensified over time… However, these tensions are
not insurmountable.” [2]
The Patriarch, with the
above-mentioned statements, initially comes into contradiction with his own
self, because they nullify his earlier statements on the same subject. More
specifically, during the “thronal feast” of the Phanar on November 30,
2015, in his address to the head of the papal delegation, Cardinal Kurt Koch,
he said among other things the following: “…From these dialogues, the
dialogue of love began with an especially symbolic act of both Churches, the
mutual lifting in 1965 of the anathemas, through which, by judgments known to
the Lord, the Churches of Rome and Constantinople became separated from one
another at the Schism of 1054 A.D., this beginning of the sorrowful events
which followed in the relations between the Churches of East and West for
approximately one thousand years.” [3] The existence of a real Schism
between East and West was not denied even by his predecessor, the late
Athenagoras, who in a statement in August 1971 said: “In ’65 we lifted the
schism, in Rome and here, with our representatives there and their
representatives here…” [4] Beyond these, if the Patriarch believes that
there never was a Schism between Orthodoxy and Papism, then why, one wonders,
does he not proceed to the common Chalice with the Pope? Why does he not move
forward with the restoration of full ecclesiastical communion with Papism,
officially and publicly?
It is also evident that he is
attempting to attribute the causes of the Schism to other, non-dogmatic
reasons, to “tensions,” disputes, and conflicts between individual
persons. As will be shown by what we shall present below in utmost brevity, the
primary causes of the 1054 Schism were not external or personal factors, as
many ecumenists claim today, but clear doctrinal heresies on the part of the
Papists. On the one hand, it was the papal primacy, and on the other,
the Filioque. Let us, however, take things in order.
The first and fundamental cause
of the Schism was, according to the testimony of numerous eminent historians
and theologians, the papal primacy—that is, the Pope’s demand to possess
absolute and complete ecclesiastical authority over the entire universal
Church. This papoceasarism of Rome, which in time became a dogma of
faith, today constitutes the cornerstone of Roman Catholic ecclesiology. The
Bishop of Rome, as successor of the Apostle Peter, was regarded as the head of
the Church, as the representative and vicar of Christ on earth (Vicarius
Christi), standing above all Bishops and Primates, and even above the
Ecumenical Councils themselves, judging all and being judged by none. This
tragic distortion of Roman Catholic ecclesiology—resulting from the
transformation of the simple primacy of honor of the Bishop of Rome into a
primacy of authority—became clearly evident in the person of Pope Leo IX
in the events of 1054, which led to the definitive Schism between East and
West. Of these events, for the sake of brevity, we mention the letter which
the Pope sent to the then Ecumenical Patriarch Michael Cerularius, in which,
more or less, he called upon the Patriarch to accept the papal myth concerning
the primacy of the Apostle Peter, to adopt the forged text of the
Pseudo-Donation of Constantine, and to recognize the Pope of Rome as the
supreme sovereign of the entire inhabited world. [5] We also mention the libellus
which Cardinal Humbert placed upon the Holy Table of the Church of the Wisdom
of God (15/7/1054), during the Divine Liturgy, in the presence of the
Patriarch, in which the Patriarch and all the Orthodox were anathematized and
described as Simoniacs, Arians, etc. With this libellus, the Patriarch
was called to unconditionally accept the papal primacy, the Filioque, and the
other Latin innovations.
Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis,
in his esteemed study on the causes of the Schism, referring to the great chasm
between Western and Eastern ecclesiology, writes: “The Popes became Roman
emperors, and the Roman Church became the imperial Church, the Church of the
Churches, and the bishop of Rome the bishop of the bishops of the whole world…
Who shall resist them? Who can gaze upon the height of the papacy? Who can look
directly at their majesty? The entire West, having already fallen down,
worshiped him, but the East does not submit…” [6] The late professor of
Dogmatics at the University of Athens, Ioannis Karmiris, referring to the
causes of the Schism, writes: “The deeper cause of that sorrowful event was
Papism both as a system in general and especially through its attempt at
expansion and domination also over the Orthodox East, and the imposition upon
it of papal primacy of authority and Latin dogmas and traditions.” [7]
The other fundamental cause of
the Schism was the unbiblical and uncanonical addition of the Filioque
to the Symbol of Faith, which had been composed by the First and Second
Ecumenical Councils. This addition was made for the first time by Pope
Sergius IV of Rome in 1009, and since then it continues to remain in place
up to the present day, despite the explicit command of the Ecumenical Councils
and the God-bearing Fathers that the Symbol of Faith remain untouched and
unaltered. The Third Ecumenical Council, through its Seventh Holy Canon,
explicitly forbids any alteration to the Symbol of Faith, which was closed
and sealed forever by the first two Ecumenical Councils: “After these were
read, the holy Synod determined that it is not permitted to anyone to produce,
that is to write or compose, another Faith besides that which was defined by
the holy Fathers who were gathered in the city of Nicaea with the Holy Spirit.”
Likewise, the Eighth Ecumenical Council under the great Photios, in
879, similarly forbids any alteration to the Symbol of Faith: “Removing
nothing, adding nothing…” It should be noted that the Acts of both the
above-mentioned Ecumenical Councils were signed by the representatives
(legates) of the Pope. As the late Archimandrite S[pyridon] Bilalis
observes: “Instead of Pope Leo IX (at the time) rejecting the
‘blasphemous dogma’ of the Filioque, he used it as a banner in order to
combat and excommunicate, through his envoys, the Eastern Church as heretical
for not accepting the Filioque… In 1014 the Filioque was added to
the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed in Rome, under pressure from the Emperor of
Germany, Henry, and, only forty years later, in 1054, the falsifiers of the
Creed, which had been ratified by all the Ecumenical Councils, accused the
Orthodox as heretics for supposedly having removed from the sacred Creed the
heretical innovation of the Filioque.” [8] The late professor of
Dogmatics Ioannis Karmiris characterizes the Filioque as a
substantial dogmatic innovation and a primary cause of the Schism. He
writes: “When it was added uncanonically even into the holy Symbol of Faith…
the Orthodox East rose up to such a degree that the Filioque became the
fatal cause of division (along with papal primacy and other causes), both at
the beginning of the Schism of the Church of Rome in the 9th century and at its
completion in the 11th century, and furthermore, even after that, it became the
great sustaining and perpetuating factor of the Schism…” [9]
Beyond these, if, as the
Patriarch claims, there never was a real Schism, but merely “tensions,”
then how is the condemnation of Papism as heresy for ten centuries, throughout
the entire second millennium, to be explained—by a multitude of Orthodox
Ecumenical and Local (Endemousa) Councils? The late struggler and
confessor Metropolitan of Eleutheroupolis, blessed kyr Ambrosios,
in a related work, lists a series of Holy Councils which condemned Papism and
its errors. He wrote: “...So then, are the heretical teachings of the West
‘condemned’ by Councils or Fathers? Let us see: The great Council of 879 in
Constantinople, which many consider as the Eighth Ecumenical, having received
the Creed without the addition of the Filioque, defined: ‘We all so
think, so believe. Those who think otherwise than these, or who dare to propose
another formulation in place of this one, we subject to anathema. If anyone
should dare to write another symbol apart from this sacred Creed, or to add or
to subtract, and to call it a definition, let him be condemned and cast out of
every Christian confession…’” Behold, then, a most grave, most official,
most solemn, and almost Ecumenical condemnation of the heretical and
blasphemous Filioque! When Pope Sergius IV of Rome used the Creed with
the addition of the Filioque (1009), Patriarch Sergius of
Constantinople, by synodal decision, erased the name of the aforementioned
Sergius of Rome from the diptychs of the Eastern Church, and since then until
today, no papal name has been entered therein (Vasilios Stefanides, Ecclesiastical
History, 1st ed., p. 344). The names of the Primates of the Churches are
not removed, of course, due to “local customs,” but because of heresies!
The Latin heresies were also
condemned by the Council of Constantinople in 1054, at which the definitive
Schism took place, which specifically called the Filioque not a “local
custom” but a “blasphemous dogma” (ibid., p. 344). The Latin heresies
were also condemned by the Councils that dealt with Hesychasm in 1341, 1347,
and 1351.
The Council in Constantinople
around 1440, the Council in Russia around 1441, the Council in Jerusalem around
1443, the Council in Constantinople around 1450, and the Council in
Constantinople in 1484, condemned and rejected the pseudo-council of Florence,
which had accepted the “union” on a false and baseless foundation—that is, not
having regarded the innovations of the West as heresies.
The Council in Constantinople
around 1722 condemns “the dogmas of Latin heresy and wicked-mindedness” and
declares that through them “the Latins deceive the simpler ones, leading them
away from the pious Dogmas of the Church of Christ and dragging them miserably
into the abyss of perdition” (ibid., vol. II, pp. 823–824). The Council
in Constantinople around 1727 rejects the heterodox teachings of the Latins,
both old and new, and characterizes them as “a lengthy nonsense and
soul-harming inventions of flattery and products of a deluded mind” (ibid.,
p. 867).
The Council in Constantinople
around 1838 strongly condemns the heterodox teachings of Papism as “blasphemies
against the Evangelical truth,” as a “Luciferian delusion,” and as a “departure
from God and from the immaculate and pure Faith of Jesus Christ,” etc. (ibid.,
pp. 896, 902).
Council in Constantinople
around 1848 condemns Papism as heresy! “Among these heresies which have spread
widely, by judgments known to the Lord, throughout a great part of the
inhabited world, once it was Arianism, but today it is also Papism,” which it characterizes
as overturning all the Ecumenical Councils through its delusions! (ibid.,
p. 906). Council in Constantinople around 1895 condemns the heterodox teachings
of Papism as “notions of arrogant pride,” as “unlawful and anti-evangelical
innovations,” as “essential differences concerning the Faith that pertain to
the God-given Dogmas of the Faith,” as “anti-evangelical and utterly unlawful,”
as “grave and essential differences concerning the Faith,” including the
corruption of the writings of the Church Fathers and the misinterpretation of
both Holy Scripture and the definitions of the Holy Councils,” and it
concludes: “Therefore, it has justly been rejected and continues to be
rejected, as long as it persists in its delusion” (ibid., pp. 933, 935,
936, 938, 942). [10]
Among the holy Fathers, who most
clearly condemn Papism as heresy, we mention Saint Gregory Palamas,
Archbishop of Thessalonica, and Saint Mark of Ephesus, the great
champion of Orthodoxy and opponent of Papism—he who utterly crushed the papal
heresies and bore the entire weight of defending the Orthodox dogmas during the
proceedings of the pseudo-council of Ferrara–Florence. In a letter he addressed
to the “Christians throughout the world,” he wrote: “So long as the Papists
continue to err concerning the theology of the Holy Spirit (that is, the heresy
of the Filioque), which ventures into the gravest danger of blasphemy,
they are therefore heretics, and we, the Orthodox, have cut them off as
heretics.” [11] The Bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, kyr Chrysostomos
of Rodostolou, in his recent publication of the Memoirs of Sylvester
Syropoulos (Chronographer and Great Ecclesiarch of the Great Church of Christ),
writes the following about the great figure of Saint Mark of Ephesus: “…I
declare my conviction that Saint Mark of Ephesus, and he alone, on the one
hand, strongly and boldly before the hearing and in the presence of all rightly
defined the Word of Truth, proclaiming what was fitting and proper, and thus
preserved unharmed, uncorrupted, and wholly radiant the honor and perfection of
the Faith of our one and only Orthodox Church; and on the other hand, again he
alone brought down the arrogance of the Pope, showing the Synod of
Ferrara–Florence to be altogether vain, utterly hollow, and a ‘gathering of
evildoers’ (Psalm 21:17), and therefore could in no way escape the vengeful
rage of Eugenikos…” [12]
We present, finally, in support
of our position regarding the avoidance of a common celebration of Holy Pascha
with the heterodox Roman Catholics and Anglicans—which the Ecumenical Patriarch
hastened to announce in preparation—the text of the distinguished Canonist of
our Church from the past century, the late Archimandrite Epiphanios
Theodoropoulos, which reads as follows: “The Church of Greece, if it is
faced with a proposal for a common celebration of Pascha or any other feast
with the heterodox, must refuse even to discuss the matter. Such a discussion
must be excluded with all strength and at any cost, because it constitutes a
fundamental overthrow of Orthodox Dogmatics and especially of Ecclesiology.
Either we believe that we are the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, or
we do not believe. The Orthodox Church, being convinced that it alone is the
Body of Christ, the pillar and ground of the Truth, the Treasury of Grace, the
Workshop of Salvation, is indeed most zealous concerning the return of the
deluded to itself, but it is entirely indifferent to their internal matters, so
long as they remain in delusion. The First Ecumenical Council wished to
establish a common celebration, but for the members of the Church, not for
those outside of it. It did not negotiate with the Gnostics, nor with the
Marcionites, nor with the Manichaeans, nor with the Montanists, nor with the
Donatists, in order to find a basis of agreement concerning common
celebrations. And when later the Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites, Iconoclasts,
etc., were cut off from the Body of the Church, the Church never conceived the
idea of entering into discussions with them to establish a common celebration
either of Pascha or of any other feast. The Church regulates Its own matters,
taking into account exclusively and only the benefit of Its own members, and
not the wishes of those outside of It. If the celebrations of the heretics
coincide with those of the Church, let them coincide. If they do not coincide,
let them not coincide. The Church does not deliberate on equal terms with
heretics. It indeed dialogues with them—but in order to show them the path of
return. That ‘Ecumenical Symposia’ or other types of Conferences are organized
between the Orthodox and the multitude of heretics, and within them we
deliberate on determining common celebrations, while both sides (Orthodox and
heretics) persist in their respective dogmatic domains—this is unknown and
inconceivable in the history of the Church, and it reeks of vile religious
syncretism and tends toward the establishment of a harmonious and undisturbed
coexistence of truth and delusion, of light and darkness, and can only be
interpreted as a ‘sign of the times.’” [13]
In closing, we wholeheartedly
pray that God may raise up, in these last and apocalyptic times in which we
live, new Saints Mark of Ephesus and champions of Orthodoxy—Bishops imitators
of the Holy Fathers, worthy of the spiritual stature of Saint Mark, shepherds
with a heroic, courageous, and self-sacrificial spirit, who will struggle with
all their strength against the present dreadful heresy of Ecumenism, to the
glory of our holy Orthodoxy. Amen.
NOTES
1. St. Basil
the Great, Letter 164, P.G. 32,636D–637A
3. See
publication of the Office for Heresies and Sects of the Holy Metropolis of
Piraeus titled: “Commentary on the reference of Ecum. Patr. Mr. Bartholomew to
heretical Papists regarding the lifting of the anathemas.”
4. Orthodoxos
Typos, issue 176, 15 December 1972, p. 4.
5. See
Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome, Athens
1930, p. 192.
6. Nektarios
of Pentapolis, Historical Study on the Causes of the Schism, vol. A,
Athens 1911, pp. 199–200.
7. Ioannis
Karmiris, Two Byzantine Hierarchs and the Schism of the Roman Church,
Athens 1950, p. 48.
8. Archim.
S. Bilalis, The Heresy of the Filioque, publ. “Orthodoxos Typos,” vol.
A, Athens 1972, p. 82.
9. Ioannis
Karmiris, Synopsis of the Dogmatic Teaching of the Orthodox Catholic Church,
Athens 1960, p. 21, footnote 1.
10. https://www.impantokratoros.gr/BD7FE22A.el.aspx
11. Mark of
Ephesus, Letter to the Christians throughout the world (…), CFDS, Ser.
A΄, Vol. X, fasc. II, p. 144 (29–33).
12. See
Sylvester Syropoulos, Great Ecclesiarch and Keeper of the Laws of the Great
Church of Christ, The History of the Council of Ferrara–Florence,
Introduction by Adamantios Diamantopoulos, professor of the Evangelical School
of Smyrna, Editor: Rodostolou Chrysostomos, Bishop of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate, Mount Athos 2021, p. 19.
13.
https://www.hristospanagia.gr/%cf%80%ce%b5%cf%81%ce%af-%ce%ba%ce%bf%ce%b9%ce%bd%ce%bf%e1%bf%a6-%e1%bc%91%ce%bf%cf%81%cf%84%ce%b1%cf%83%ce%bc%ce%bf%e1%bf%a6-%cf%84%ce%bf%e1%bf%a6-%cf%80%ce%ac%cf%83%cf%87%ce%b1-%ce%bc%ce%b5%cf%84/
Greek source:
https://aktines.blogspot.com/2025/04/blog-post_45.html
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