August 6, 2025
Today, the most populous Skete of
Mount Athos, the Skete of Saint Anna, celebrates, honoring according to the
Orthodox ecclesiastical calendar the feast of the Dormition of Saint Anna, the
mother of the Theotokos. The Athonites call Saint Anna “their
grandmother,” as she is the mother of the Mother of the Lord and of all the
faithful, of our Panagia.
In the Skete of Saint Anna dozens
of monks dwell and practice asceticism. The center of the Skete is the Kyriakon,
that is, the large central church of the Skete, where the wonderworking icon of
Saint Anna is kept, as well as the great treasure of the Skete—the
wonderworking and fragrant holy relic of the Saint. Specifically, it is the
left foot of the Saint, which was dedicated to the Skete in the 17th century.
Unfortunately, the papal
innovation of the new calendar, which was applied in the 16th century and
subsequently imposed in the West by the fallen-from-the-Church heretical
Papism, was adopted—through the influence of Ecumenism and Masonry—by the
Patriarchate of Constantinople in the early 20th century. As a result, the
festal unity of the Orthodox East was broken, and today we experience division
and un-Orthodox, uncanonical disorder, with some (those who followed the
innovation) practicing the Dormition fast, while others honor the memory of
Saint Anna.
Some of those who introduced the
innovation attempt to persuade others that there is no problem arising from the
application—or rather the imposition—of the new calendar. This is despite the
fact that the order and tradition of the Church, according to both the spirit
and the letter of the decisions of the Holy Councils and of the God-bearing
Fathers, is concord and uniformity in the life of the Church with regard to
feasts, fasts, and days of rest, which together constitute the festal unity of
the Church. They claim that it is sufficient for all to have communion among
themselves, regardless of what they follow.
However, this apathetic,
innovating view of matters is deficient from an Orthodox standpoint, because it
limits the criteria of ecclesiality to spiritual communion and administrative
mutual recognition, overlooking order, Tradition, and even the prerequisite of
the Faith without innovation, as essential for the true unity in the Body of
Christ, which is His Church. Essentially, this view expresses the spirit of
Ecumenism, which, on a practical level—beyond its heretical
ecclesiology—considers that unity and communion are not hindered by particular
differences, even if these concern matters of the Tradition and the Faith of
the Church.
Today, this morbid spirit of
Ecumenism has, unfortunately, also afflicted Athonite monasticism, and indeed
to a dangerous degree. Thus, a large percentage of Athonites have come to
support that the foremost criterion and prerequisite of ecclesiality and Orthodoxy
is not unity in the Faith once delivered, but the commemoration of the name of
the Patriarch of Constantinople, regardless of whether he rightly proclaims or
not the word of Truth—that is, whether he is Orthodox or a heretical ecumenist.
It is characteristic of the
alteration of the Orthodox ecclesiastical mindset of many contemporary
Athonites (abbots, hieromonks, and monks) that there is the extremely grievous
and discouraging fact of their complete indifference concerning the Faith and
their tolerance toward Mr. Bartholomew, resident of the Phanar, whom they
commemorate and recognize as an Orthodox Patriarch, although he himself,
openly, in word and deed, orally and in writing, has proclaimed his “faith” in
the heretical ecclesiology of Ecumenism (according to which there are
Mysteries, Grace, and salvation also outside Orthodoxy—as, for example, in
Papism, which he considers to be within the Church, etc.). Moreover, as a true
torchbearer of the treacherous course of his Masonic and pan-religionist
predecessor Athenagoras, he considers that “each one of the religions is a
bearer of a unique experience of the Sacred,” “the Sacred itself, the absolute
reality, which is expressed in various ways, as God, Allah, Brahman, or as the
Luminous Void” (!!!), as he stated verbatim only recently, proposing a “Common
Sacred Worldview” at the Meeting of the World Council of Religions for Peace
(Constantinople, July 29, 2025).
Greek source: https://epistrofi-sotiria.blogspot.com/
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