From: Bishop Chrysostomos [of Etna]
Subject: Re: Bishop George Khodr, Sunday of Orthodoxy 2016 - English
Date: 2 April 2016 16:43:38 GMT+01:00
Dear Michael:
Evlogia Kyriou. Thank you for translating the sermon
by the Antiochian Prelate.
He is right. His “Orthodoxy" is no different from the
confessions of other Christians. He gives no credence to Holy Tradition, gives
no heed to the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and apparently shows
no honor to the Fathers and Saints and Martyrs who gave their lives for the
cause of correct faith and correct confession. Why bother to be Orthodox? While
I am the first to follow the Fathers in fostering respect and toleration
between religions, I do not do so in a cognitive vacuum where such respect and
toleration, instead of rising out of thought, inner formation, and civilized
discourse, come forth from equating truth with falsehood, good thought with
superstition, and haplessly imagining that religion is not a search for the
truth of Truths.
I am not surprised at this man's ecumenical platitudes,
but I have never read such a clear expression of heresy and disbelief in the
context of a “piety” that is totally empty, since the very things that he says
that he upholds—such as prayer to the Theotokos—he
also dismisses as ultimately meaningless or insignificant. Astonishing. He at
least reveals to us that ecumenism, where he is a well-known voice, is an
intellectually empty farce, when taken to the extreme of simply reducing all
things to one common statement that is devoid of content. Ecumenists apparently
accept any belief, as long it does not impede their own belief, however
ignorant and the opposing belief and however unexamined and superficial their
own “confessionless” confession. The folly of mere religion and “official”
Orthodoxy in pure form.
These people are insidious, ignorant in the Faith, and
“ecclesiastical” diplomats more than anything else. It is a tragedy for their
souls that such clergymen teach what is false and condemnable, and we must pray
for them. But think of the innocents who, looking to them for leadership, are
led to religious syncretism of the most base kind, “ecclesiological
agnosticism,” as another ecumenical clergyman once described his beliefs to me,
and the destruction of souls. A teaching about belief and spiritual experience—which
for Orthodox are empirical (part of an encounter with God and the Truth)—that
mocks the conceptualization of the truth in principles, dogmas, and theological
truths is like a science that equates superstition with observable, replicable,
and operative laws and formulae.
With affection in Christ, Least Among Monks, † BC
Orthodoxy By Bishop George Khodr
Translator's Note. The
following is a translation of an article written in Arabic for the Sunday
of Orthodoxy 2016 by the veteran Antiochian arch-ecumenist Bishop George Khodr.
It appeared in the Lebanese Al-Nahar Newspaper* on Saturday March 19, 2016 (New
Style).
As the enlightened true Orthodox
reader will see, this ecumenist's heretical and delusional ideology spills out
of the page!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Great Lent in my church, and
it is called Sunday of Orthodoxy, which, in Arabic, means the Sunday of Right
Belief. Since the fourth century or around that period, right belief for its
proponents has meant the un-adulterated tradition which they have
received from the ancients. And contrary to this right belief is heresy. In
this article, Right Belief means maintaining the sound dogma featured in the
Gospels for Christians who accept the Seven Ecumenical Councils, and these are
seven for the Catholics and the Orthodox, and for others they are less than
that, with the reassurance that all Christians do not differ in the tenor (i.e.
content/meaning – trans.) of their
faith, even if some confess only four councils that are binding and others
seven or more.
To put it very simply, there is no essential difference in
dogma between Christians. They all believe in the Crucifixion of the Master,
His Resurrection, and the Trinity, and anything else is just details. Generally
and surely, the faith of the Christians is one or used to be one before the
[Roman – trans.] Catholic Church
declared the primacy of the Pope and his infallibility a dogma in 1870.
We and the Catholics and the Evangelicals, speak one thing
in Christ. However, if most of us declare that He has two natures, and some of
us that he has one nature, the essence of the speech is one, that is God
and man together. There isn't a group that fuses the Divinity of the
Master with his humanity, by separating one from the other. In the truth of the
meaning intended, even if the expressions differ, there is absolutely no
difference between us when talking about the essence of Christ. We have differed
in speech but not in the truth of our faith. So, if faith was faith in what is
Christ, then there is no difference between any Christian group and another
group.
When it comes to speaking of Christ, we are all of correct
belief. The rest is speech other than Christ. The declaration of the Church of
Rome in 1870 that Papal Supremacy and Infallibility is a dogma was something
new. Does the Catholic Church today exclude us from Right Belief if we don't
speak of a dogma she declared in the year 1870 only as an official declaration,
and by that I mean the supremacy of the Roman Pope and his infallibility? What
I do know is that the Church of Rome does not consider the Orthodox Church in a
state of heresy. She sees it as in a state of schism, and the
schism occurs in the one church and does not constitute two churches. To
be precise, the Orthodox and the Catholics are in a state of estrangement as
long as no official position is declared from either one, wronging (or
criticizing – trans.) the other
dogmatically.
Does the dogma of Papal Supremacy and Infallibility declared
in 1870 comprise an express criticism of the Orthodox Church? Each one calling
the other a 'sister church' is not a naming out of politeness, but of
conviction. It does not mean another independent entity. Until now, I have not
found a Catholic text accusing the Orthodox of dogmatic and ecclesiastical
deviation. We are then in a state of symmetry between brethren. In
theology we don't use terminology for social civility. And no matter how much
the dispute tightens among the fanatics, what is important is their unity,
which Christ sees.
I accept from among the Christians whoever does not address
Mary in prayer, as long he does not blaspheme [literally, “consider an infidel”
– trans.] those who do address her. Pray as you wish and don't separate me from
you. I know from among the Protestants those who love Mary very much. They
don't address her in prayer; that is their business as long as they don't
blaspheme me if I address her. I have nothing against whoever does not love nor
address Mary, as long as he leaves me free to address her. I am saddened
that a Christian refuses to address Mary, but I do not compel him if he sees
that in doing that he becomes lacking in his love for Christ.
Whoever sees that in his intercessions of the Saints, he
diminishes from his love for Jesus, that is up to him, and whoever sees that he
loves the Saints with Jesus, that is up to him also. Let us not blaspheme each
other (i.e., declare each other infidels – trans.)
for no reason. God shall judge whomever He wishes if His judgment is at
hand. Don't rush in judgment according to your own will. Who am I to judge
anyone? God alone is the judge.
---------------------------------------------
Translated from Arabic by Michael Chacra.
* The original can be found here:
http://www.ortmtlb.org.lb/index.php/an-nahar-articles/an-nahar-archives/113-an-nahar-2016/1440
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