Fr. Theodoros Zisis: "I am trying to find a justification for myself..." (for not ceasing communion)

 

 

I am not certain that if God were to call me tonight and I were to depart from this life, I would find a justification before the Saints, the Confessors, the Martyrs, for this stance which we are all now maintaining. Heresy is overflowing, the Latin-minded and the Ecumenists are all among us, wolves in sheep’s clothing, and we make distinctions and apply economia. I am trying to find a justification for myself…

...Since the bishops commemorate the Patriarch, they also fall under the canon: “he who is in communion with the excommunicated shall also be excommunicated”; and I commemorate my bishop, who commemorates the Patriarch, who is in communion with the Pope; and you, the laity, come to me, who commemorate the bishop, and you commune and accept me. Therefore, a sequence—this sequence of the transgression that begins with the Patriarch—slowly begins, like interconnecting vessels, to reach us as responsibility!

But who among the people knows these things? Most of the laity will say: “Well, since the Patriarch does it, since the Pope does it, what fault is it of mine?” You are at fault too! Ignorance is not justified...

We are all responsible. It is not only the Patriarch who is responsible. It is not only the bishop who is responsible, he who remains silent—and such silence is a third form of atheism. We presbyters are also responsible, and along with us, you the laity are responsible as well, who join together with us and do not declare: “We are leaving” [i.e., ceasing communion].

- Protopresbyter Theodoros Zisis

 

Greek source: https://paterikiparadosi.blogspot.com/2016/06/