The Ecumenists are Becoming Bolder

Metropolitan Klemes of Larissa and Platamon

November 14/27, 2025

 

In the holy Orthodox Church of ours, we are members of the Body of Christ. Among ourselves, as “members one of another,” we are of the same spirit and have and preserve an unbroken unity, as the Holy Apostle Paul affirms: “One body and one Spirit” (Eph. 4:4). There must be no discord, because we receive from the same source the Holy Spirit, who constitutes the institution of the Church and preserves us in concord and like-mindedness.

Saint John Chrysostom emphasizes that, “when all believe in the same way, then there is unity” (Homily 11 on the Epistle to the Ephesians, 3).

This, however, is disturbed when friendship with heretics appears and is formed (ibid., 1). Then division begins in the cohesion of the body, and the spiritual unity is disrupted.

Things worsen when certain individuals—either personally or collectively—begin to teach and act heretically. And especially if they are Shepherds, then they are transformed into harmful and dangerous wolves. Our Patristic Tradition is clear, which for us Orthodox Christians constitutes a guiding line of direction throughout our history. When someone behaves impiously with regard to the Faith and teaches error “within the Church,” persists in innovations, and acts arbitrarily, then “he has no place of communion” with the right-believing clergy and laity, “but shall be a stranger to all” (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Epistle XVIII, “To the clergy and people of Constantinople”).

Those who persist in foreign and alien doctrines, which the holy Orthodox Catholic Church neither knows nor accepts at all, must be shunned as corrupters and destroyers (ibid.), and it is necessary that the appropriate procedure of Synodal confrontation and judgment be set in motion.

This is precisely what has been happening for decades now with the impious Ecumenists, who shamelessly trample upon the entire Tradition and Ethos of the Church, participating in and promoting the path of Apostasy. Some characteristic recent actions of theirs overwhelmingly confirm, for the umpteenth time, this tragic conclusion—especially in view of what they are preparing in Nicaea and Constantinople before the whole world in the coming days (28–30 November 2025).

A. Sweden – Ecumenical Anniversary

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the “Faith and Order” Conference (an early Ecumenical Organization), which was convened in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1925, Patriarch Bartholomew on Saturday, 23 August 2025, “was present and spoke at a grand ecumenical service in the Lutheran Cathedral of Stockholm, in the presence of the Royal couple, the Prime Minister of the country, representatives of Churches and Confessions, and a multitude of faithful.” “The event culminated in a common prayer and the recitation of the Symbol of Faith by those present, highlighting the historical continuity and the commitment of the Churches to unity and reconciliation” (Orthodox Times, 25 August 2025).

 

On the following day, Sunday, 24 August 2025, in the Lutheran Cathedral of Uppsala, an “ecumenical prayer” also took place under the title: “A Time for the Peace of God,” in the presence of “church primates” from all over the world. Patriarch Bartholomew recited the Symbol of Faith in Greek, “just as Patriarch Photius of Alexandria had done 100 years earlier in the same church.” An “Ecumenical Call for Peace” was also presented, with the declaration: “God calls us—as Churches, brothers and sisters in faith, fellow human beings—to become bearers of His peace… We stand together—different in traditions, languages, cultures—but united in Christ… Our unity is not uniformity, but reconciled diversity that reflects the love of God” (Orthodox Times, 25 August 2025).

These Ecumenical foolish opinions and erroneous doctrines are entirely unknown to our Orthodox Faith and Tradition, unacceptable and condemnable.

B. Rome – Interfaith Meeting

On Sunday, 26 October 2025, Patriarch Theodoros of Alexandria traveled to Rome as an official guest of the Community of Sant’Egidio, to participate as one of the speakers in the established annual Interfaith Meeting of this Community, which had the general theme: “I Dare for Peace.”

On Monday, 27 October, the Patriarch of Alexandria visited the tomb of Pope Francis, and in the afternoon, he was a speaker at the meeting with the theme: “Christian Unity – Rediscovering the Way.” There, “he urged the participants to engage in dialogue with mutual respect and mutual understanding, as well as in the recognition of each one’s contribution with Christ as the criterion. He called for rallying together and striving for the future course. In the effort to once again become an authentic family of Christ, a traditional, united, and loving family of our Savior…” (Romfea, 30 October 2025).

Also present were the new Archbishop of Tirana and All Albania, Ioannis, representatives of local Orthodox Churches, as well as of the Patriarchate of Moscow. Together with the Patriarch were the Metropolitans Gregory of Cameroon and George of Guinea, and Bishop Panaretos of Nyeri and Mount Kenya.

The Patriarch of Alexandria also participated together with Pope Leo in the gathering of Christians at the Colosseum in Rome for common prayer for the peace of the world, where he was once again a speaker. Among other things, he said: “Here today we are one family to protect life, to seek new paths of dialogue… In the name of the Lord, let us dare to strive for peace, let us dare to pray for peace…” (ibid.).

Later, he had a meeting with the Pope at the Vatican, where, among other things, they renewed their upcoming meeting in Nicaea on 28 November and at the Phanar on 29 November (Orthodox Times, 30 October 2025; National Herald, 30 October 2025).

C. Rome – Presentation of the Renewed “Ecumenical Charter”

From 4 to 6 November 2025, an Ecumenical Meeting of the Joint Committee was held in Rome, namely of the “Council of European Bishops’ Conferences” (CCEE – Papists) and the “Conference of European Churches” (CEC – composed of Orthodox Ecumenists, Anglicans, and Protestants).

The highlight of the Meeting was the joint signing of the renewed Charta Oecumenica (Ecumenical Charter) on Wednesday, 5 November (25 years after its first signing in Strasbourg in 2001), at the Church of the Martyrdom of the Apostle Paul in the Abbey of the Three Fountains. The document was signed by the Presidents of the two Organizations: on behalf of the CCEE, the Papist Archbishop of Vilnius, Gintaras Grušas, and on behalf of the CEC, Archbishop Nikitas of Thyateira and Great Britain (Romfea, 7 November 2025).

Already from its first publication in 2001, the “Ecumenical Charter” was described as “a foundational text that expresses the basic directions and the principal goals of the ecumenical cooperation of the Churches in Europe” (Kath’ Hodon periodical, issue 17/December 2001, publ. Paratiritis, Thessaloniki, pp. 71–81, where the text of the first edition of the “Charter” is presented in Greek translation).

Again in Rome, on 6 November, “the representatives of the Christian Churches of Europe” were received in a special audience by Pope Leo XIV in the Consistory Hall at the Vatican, where the Pope regarded the “Charter” as “a milestone for European ecumenical cooperation” (Romfea, 7 November 2025).

In an interview with Vatican News, Nikitas of Thyateira described the Vatican experience as “an honor, a privilege, and a blessing.” “It shows that we have overcome the differences of the past… The walls of separation have collapsed. Now we are working together. We speak the same language, the language of Christ, the language of love” (ibid.).

We perceive that these statements demonstrate the extent of the absolute spiritual darkness of the Ecumenists, who are categorical and leveling. They have no relation whatsoever to the Orthodox Faith and Tradition. We know that in their arrogance they believe that whoever does not accept their destructive line is regarded as cowardly and unrealistic. However, these unfortunate “fighters” in the alien and extra‑ecclesial ecumenical gloom are in reality striking the air and laboring in vain in spiritual chaos—or rather, more accurately, on chessboards of geopolitical interests in order to salvage institutions and thrones and to preserve privileges and titles, deprived of charism and life.

● It is to be noted that the Presidium of the CEC, under Nikitas of Thyateira, visited earlier—on 30 September 2025—the Deputy Regional Governor of Chania, in Chania, Crete, within the framework of preparations for its upcoming General Assembly, which is to be held in Kolymbari in May 2028 (Zarpanews.gr, 30 September 2025).

For the same reason, a subsequent meeting was also held with the Regional Governor of Crete in Heraklion, where in the related commemorative photograph—Nikitas of Thyateira being absent—there is seen at the center, in clerical garb, the member of the CEC Presidium, Ms. Dagmar Winter, “bishopess of the Anglican Church.” Also present on behalf of the Church of Crete was Bishop Methodios of Knossos (Region of Crete, Press Release, 2 October 2025).

So then, bishopesses and bishops together, in the name of “Orthodox witness” and “pan-Christian unity”! How hardened must one have become to consider all these things as natural and necessary for the advancement of a supposed “divine purpose and vision”? How deluded must one be to regard the institutionalization of these things as “divine gifts and blessings”?!…

Nevertheless, the utterly unfortunate Ecumenists, emboldened in their shamelessness, regard the joint signing of the revised “Ecumenical Charter” in Rome, at the beginning of November 2025, as “a historic step toward the unity of Christians in Europe and a new milestone in the ecumenical dialogue, as it expresses the desire of the Churches to walk together in a spirit of dialogue, mutual understanding, and common witness in the face of the challenges of the age” (Panorthodox Synod, 6 November 2025, ed. Io. Lotsios).

The Ecumenists do not spare pompous expressions to emphasize the importance of the “Ecumenical Charter”: namely, that it “contributes to the formation of an ecumenical ethos,” “constitutes a strong message of unity and hope,” as well as of “the assumption of common responsibility in society,” and of “working for unity with respect for theological differences,” that it essentially achieves “ecumenical unity through common forms of action,” and that it promotes dialogue with other religions and ideologies, proposing “an ecclesiology of unity, which does not mean uniformity, but includes the diversity of traditions”; for this reason, it is also believed that the well-known Ecumenistic Encyclical of 1920 of the Ecumenical Patriarchate constitutes a “forerunner” of the “Charter” with regard to the practical steps required for the advancement of Christian unity! (cf. Maria Kouroukli, Ecumenical Charter: The Respect for Freedom and Diversity within the Framework of Inter-Christian Dialogues [CEC–WCC]…, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Joint Postgraduate Program, Master’s Thesis, Athens – August 2025, pp. 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 48).

All these things, from the Orthodox Patristic perspective, are worthy of condemnation and anathema for the magnitude of their perversity.

The hardened Ecumenists insistently regard the present renewed “Charter” as “a spiritual tool for cultivating a culture of cooperation, respect, and common mission. It is a visionary and prophetic text concerning the role of the Churches in today’s Europe… It calls for practical unity, responsibility, and common witness in a world thirsting for meaning, hope, and peace” (Panorthodox Synod, 6 November 2025, ed. Io. Lotsios).

If indeed someone expects these goods—granted only by the true God—to come from the murkiness of Ecumenical confusion, then he will receive precisely the opposite, because the source is defiled. This unchecked rhetoric of love and peace is—we fear—a forerunner of great calamities for unrepentant humanity, which nourishes false and vain hopes.

The Ecumenical endeavor neither had nor has divine and blessed foundations, and for this reason it went astray and continues to deviate constantly. Lacking Orthodox presuppositions, the participation considered as Orthodox increasingly distances the Ecumenists from among the Orthodox from the Holy Spirit-bearing Source of Truth of the Church.

We pray for the recovery of the deluded Ecumenists by a miracle of God, for they, unyielding in their aims, are preparing in these days new Ecumenical spectacles, especially in view of achieving a “Common Celebration of Pascha” with their heterodox brethren! This has been their fervent desire for a century now, which is why they changed the Ecclesiastical Calendar in 1924 with regard to the Fixed Feasts, “deceiving and being deceived.” As for their other justifications and vain arguments—supposedly to correct astronomical errors—they render themselves all the more inexcusable.

It is truly remarkable that even those among the official local Churches—and particularly that of Greece—who are generally regarded as “traditional” and “opposed” to Ecumenical heresy, maintain an almost absolute silence in the face of all that we have broadly described here. Or rather, they do the exact opposite: they attack the Genuine Orthodox Christians of the Patristic Calendar, on account of the noise made by marginal individuals—profiteers who impersonate the “Old Calendarist”—in order, according to their deluded opinion, to dismantle and weaken their God-pleasing witness and Confession. Let these hypocrites—whoever they may be—basking in their legalistic sophistries, hear the divine verdict: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites… therefore ye shall receive the greater condemnation!” (Matt. 23:14)…

The safeguarding, at all cost, of the divine “Deposit” (1 Tim. 6:20) inviolate, constitutes the foremost duty of true Orthodox Christians in our days. For the attainment of this, it is an urgent obligation to avoid communion with the fallen and uncommuned Ecumenists, as well as to abstain from “the commemoration of the uncommemorated” (St. Mark of Ephesus, Epistle to the Hieromonk Theophanes).

The Holy Fathers urge us to a courageous and unwavering keeping of the Faith, even if, for this sacred work, we suffer persecutions, slanders, insults, contempt, and every kind of affliction, which constitute signs of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Apostle Peter affirms: “If ye are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are ye; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you” (1 Peter 4:14).

May this consoling assurance resound decisively in the spiritual hearing of every true Orthodox Christian today, along the path of Witness and Confession, in the present and in what is to come, until the final breath, that we may attain divine favor and the divine blessedness!

 

Greek source:

https://imlp.gr/2025/11/27/%ce%bf%e1%bc%b1-%ce%bf%e1%bc%b0%ce%ba%ce%bf%cf%85%ce%bc%ce%b5%ce%bd%ce%b9%cf%83%cf%84%e1%bd%b2%cf%82-%e1%bc%80%cf%80%ce%bf%ce%b8%cf%81%ce%b1%cf%83%cf%8d%ce%bd%ce%bf%ce%bd%cf%84%ce%b1%ce%b9/