By Archbishop Averky of Syracuse and Holy Trinity Monastery (+1976)
In the time we are living
through, when so many erroneous speeches are heard about the so-called “union
of the churches,” when the “ecumenical movement,” delighting many, is spreading
and strengthening, and when the [Second] Vatican “Ecumenical Council”
periodically gathers for its next “session,” it will be timely for all truly
Orthodox Christians to recall what opinion our just recently radiantly
glorified great righteous one and wonderworker, Saint John of Kronstadt, held
concerning Roman Catholic papism.
Thus, for example, he writes in
his Thoughts on the Church (p. 13):
“Not a single
confession of the Christian faith, apart from the Orthodox, can lead a
Christian to the perfection of the Christian life or to holiness, nor to the
complete cleansing of sins and to incorruption, because the other confessions,
non-Orthodox ones, contain the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18), have mixed
idle philosophizing and falsehood with the truth, and do not possess those
God-given means for cleansing, sanctification, rebirth, and renewal which the
Orthodox Church possesses.
The experiences
of the centuries, or the history of the Orthodox Church and of the other
churches, have shown and continue to show this with astonishing clarity. Recall
the multitude of saints of our Church, of former and present times—and their
absence, after the division of the churches, in the other, non-Orthodox
churches, the Catholic, the Lutheran, and the Anglican.”
And here are the striking
thoughts of the holy righteous father John, directed precisely against the
latest “ecumenical” decree of the Vatican council:
“There exists a
multitude of separate confessions of Christianity, with differing external and
internal structures, with differing opinions and teachings, often contrary to
the divine truth of the Gospel and to the teaching of the holy Apostles, the
Ecumenical and Local Councils, and the holy Fathers. It is impossible to regard
them all as true and salvific: indifference in faith or the recognition of
every faith as equally salvific leads to unbelief or to a cooling toward the
faith, to negligence in the fulfillment of the rules and statutes of the faith,
to a cooling of Christians toward one another. Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has
desired you, that he may sift you as wheat (Lk. 22:31). It is he, Satan, who
has done and does this, that is, has given rise to schisms and heresies.
Strictly hold to the One, True Faith and Church: One faith, one baptism, one
God and Father of all (Eph. 4:5)” (p. 31).
What is the immeasurable
superiority of our holy Orthodox Church?
“The Orthodox
Church surpasses all non-Orthodox churches, first, by its truth, by its
Orthodoxy, preserved and won by the blood of the apostles, hierarchs, martyrs,
venerable ones, and all the saints; second, by the fact that it guides most
faithfully to salvation (by an even, straight, and true path); that it
faithfully cleanses, sanctifies, and renews through the hierarchy, divine
services, sacraments, and fasts; third, that it guides in the best manner to
repentance, correction, prayer, thanksgiving, and glorification. Where are
there such prayers, glorifications, thanksgivings, and supplications, such
wondrous worship, as in the Orthodox Church? Nowhere” (p. 38).
How powerfully and expressively
the holy righteous Father John speaks of the utter absurdity of the cornerstone
of the dogmatic system of papism—the false teaching about the primacy of the
Roman pope as the infallible “Vicar of Christ”! Here are his words:
“I am with you
always, even unto the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). The Lord Himself is always
present with His Church—so for what purpose is a vicar—a pope? And can a sinful
man be a vicar of the Lord? He cannot. A viceroy of a king, a vicar of a
patriarch in some city can be and does exist, but a vicar, a substitute of the
Lord, the Beginningless King and Head of the Church, no one can be. True. The
Catholics are in error. Instill it in them, O Lord, that those who thus affirm
are absurd and are adorned with pride as with a necklace.” (pp. 43–44).
From this ruinous false “dogma,”
according to the thought of Fr. John, there originates, as from its root, all
the evil in papism:
“The most harmful matter in
Christianity,” he says,
“in this
God-revealed heavenly religion, is the primacy of a man in the Church, for
example, the pope, and his supposed infallibility. Precisely in the dogma of
his infallibility lies the greatest error, for the pope is a sinful man, and
woe if he imagines of himself that he is infallible. How many of the greatest
errors, destructive for human souls, has the Catholic, papal church invented—in
dogmas, in rites, in canonical rules, in divine worship, in the deadening,
malicious relations of Catholics toward the Orthodox, in blasphemies and
slanders against the Orthodox Church, in insults directed at the Orthodox
Church and at Orthodox Christians! And in all this the supposedly infallible
pope is to blame, his and the Jesuits’ doctrine, their spirit of falsehood,
double-mindedness, and all manner of improper means ad majorem Dei gloriam
(to the greater glory of God)” (p. 44).
“It is necessary
to belong to the Church of Christ, whose Head is the Almighty King, the
Conqueror of Hades, Jesus Christ. His Kingdom is the Church, waging war against
the principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this age,
against the spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places, who skillfully form
an organized kingdom and wage war most expertly, intelligently, precisely, and
powerfully against all people, having well studied their passions and
inclinations. One man here is no warrior in the field; and even a great
society, but non-Orthodox and without a Head—Christ—can do nothing against such
enemies—cunning, subtle, constantly vigilant, excellently having mastered the
science of their warfare. An Orthodox Christian needs strong support from above
from God and from the holy warriors of Christ, who conquered the enemies of
salvation by the power of the grace of Christ, and from the earthly Orthodox
Church, from pastors and teachers, then—from communal prayer and the
sacraments. Such, then, is precisely the helper of man-the-Christian in the
struggle with invisible and visible enemies—the Church of Christ, to which, by
God’s mercy, we belong. The Catholics invented a new head, humiliating the One
True Head of the Church—Christ; the Lutherans fell away and remained without a
Head; the Anglicans as well: they have no Church, the union with the Head has
been broken, there is no all-powerful help, and Belial wages war with all his
power and cunning and holds all in his delusion and perdition. The number of
those perishing in godlessness and debauchery is great” (p. 52).
And here is what, as the holy
righteous John points out so profoundly and precisely, is the primary cause of
evil in Roman-Catholic papism:
“The cause of
all the falsities of the Roman Catholic Church is pride and the recognition of
the pope as the actual Head of the Church, and moreover—as infallible. From
this comes the entire oppression of the Western church. Oppression of thought
and faith, deprivation of true freedom in faith and life—upon everything the
pope has laid his heavy hand: from this—false dogmas; from this—duplicity and
cunning in thought, word, and deed; from this—various false rules and
prescriptions in the confession of sins; from this—indulgences; from
this—distortion of dogmas; from this—the fabrication of saints of the Western
church and of nonexistent relics, not glorified by God; from this—taking
captive the understanding to God (2 Cor. 10:5) and every opposition to God
under the guise of piety and zeal for the greater glory of God” (p. 58).
“The pope and
the papists have become so proud and have exalted themselves to such an extent
that they presumed to criticize Christ Himself, the very Hypostatic Wisdom of
God, and have extended (under the pretext of the development of dogmas) their
pride to such a degree that they distorted some of His words, commandments, and
ordinances, which must not be changed until the end of the age, for example,
the word about the Holy Spirit, the commandment concerning the Chalice of His
most pure Blood, of which they deprived the laity; they set at naught the words
of the Apostle Paul: ‘For as often as you eat this Bread and drink this Cup,
you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes’ (1 Cor. 11:26); instead of
leavened bread they use unleavened bread at the liturgy” (p. 59).
This pride became the source of
immeasurable fanaticism and murderous hatred toward all who think differently,
for which Roman-Catholic papism has become so notorious throughout history:
“Hatred toward
Orthodoxy, fanaticism, and persecutions of the Orthodox, murders run like a red
thread through all the centuries of the life of Catholicism. By their fruits
you shall know them. Is this the spirit bequeathed to us by Christ? To whom, if
not to Catholics, Lutherans, and reformers, can one always say: ‘You know not
what spirit you are of’ (Lk. 9:55)” (p. 58).
This is what the substitution of
the Head of the Church, Christ, with the pope has led the Roman Catholics to!
“Among the
Catholics the head of the Church is in fact not Christ, but the pope, and
Catholics are zealous for the pope, and not for Christ; they fight for the
pope, and not for Christ; and their zeal for the faith always turns into
passionate, man-hating, frenzied fanaticism, a fanaticism of blood and the
sword (the stakes), of irreconcilability, double-mindedness, falsehood, and
cunning” (p. 87).
In our Orthodox Church, according
to the thought of the holy righteous John, even the very divine service
constantly reminds us of our spiritual unity under the common Head for all of
us Christians—Christ—which has been completely violated both among the Roman
Catholics and among the Protestants, who have distorted the very idea of the
Church.
“At every church service,” says
the holy righteous John,
“domestic,
private, and public—the spiritual gaze of the Orthodox Christian is presented
with the thought, the idea of the one spiritual body, which is the Body of
Christ, the pillar and ground of the truth, whose Head is Christ God Himself;
this Church of Christ, or the spiritual Body of Christ, consists of three
ranks—the heavenly, the earthly, and the netherworldly; therefore the holy
earthly Church (or the earthly rank) daily intercedes before its Head for the
forgiveness of the sins of those who have departed in faith and repentance and
for their settlement in the Kingdom of Heaven, and as mediators of its
intercession it calls upon the members of the heavenly Church and the very
chief instructress of the noetic edification of the Church—the Mother of God,
that by their prayers the Lord may cover their sins and not deprive them of the
Kingdom of Heaven. For us, the members of the Church of God living on earth, it
is exceedingly joyful and consoling always to believe, to know, and to hope
that our spiritual Mother, the holy Church, unceasingly day and night prays
also for us, that we are always under the gracious protection of the Lord
Himself, the Mother of God, the Holy Angels, the Forerunner, and all the
saints. Among the Catholics the head of the Church is the pope, a fallible man
(although he has been wrongly proclaimed infallible), and as such he has
permitted many errors in the Church of Christ, and by his very deeds has shown
himself to be such, and has distorted the very concept of the Church of God and
shackled the spiritual freedom and conscience of Catholic Christians, at the
same time subjecting the holy Orthodox Church, the pillar and ground of the
truth, to unjust slander and hostility on the part of Catholics. Among the
Protestants—the Germans and the English—the concept of the Church is completely
perverted, for they have no grace of lawful priesthood, no sacraments except
baptism and (the most important) communion of the Body and Blood of Christ;
there is no heavenly rank—the heavenly Church: they do not recognize the
saints; nor is there a netherworldly rank—they do not recognize the departed
and do not pray for them, considering this unnecessary. Glory to the Orthodox
Church! Glory to Christ God—the Most Holy Head, the one Head of the Church of
God on earth! Glory to God in Trinity, that we did not fall into blasphemy
against God, did not recognize and do not recognize for ever as head of the
holy Church a sinful man!” (pp. 65–66).
And this is how the holy
righteous John regarded all those who do not belong to our holy Orthodox
Church:
“I thank the
Lord, who has heard and continues to hear my prayers, at the sight of the
all-saving and fearsome Sacrifice (the Body and Blood of Christ) for the great
societies wandering in the faith, called Christian, but in essence apostate:
the Catholic, the Lutheran, the Anglican, and others” (p. 59).
“The rite of
conversion from various faiths and confessions and of joining the Orthodox
Church—what does it show? The necessity of abandoning false faiths and
confessions, of renouncing errors, of confessing the True Faith and repenting
of all former sins, and of promising to God to preserve and firmly confess the
unblemished faith, to guard oneself from sins, and to live in virtue” (p. 57).
Here is a clear and categorical
condemnation by Saint John of Kronstadt of the now so fashionable “ecumenism,”
which has already seized all the local Orthodox churches; here is a strong and
decisive answer to all the “ecumenists” who, under the pretext of a supposed
“Christian love,” propagate the equal value and equal rights of all faiths and
confessions!
In conclusion, it is necessary
for us to mention, as a vivid and graphic illustration of the words of our holy
righteous father John of Kronstadt about the “spirit of falsehood” in Roman Catholic
papism, how Roman Catholic priests in our western region zealously spread
slander against the holy righteous John, alleging that he had supposedly
converted to Catholicism and therefore became so renowned for his clairvoyance
and miracle-working. This slander, despite all its absurdity, was repeated
later as well. In 1932, in the city of Vilna, in the Jesuit journal Toward
Union, a certain priest Semyatsky did not blush to print the following
lines: “Fr. John of Kronstadt performed many miracles while he was a Catholic,
but as soon as he renounced Catholicism, the power of miracle-working left
him.”
Here is how the holy righteous
John himself responds to such a fantastic falsehood in his sermon delivered in
the city of Vitebsk, in the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, on April 7, 1906:
“I greatly
desired, dear fathers, brothers, and sisters, to speak with you here, in your
city and church, to the glory of God and of our holy, spotless faith and
Church, and for your establishment on the salvific path. Why did I wish with
special desire to speak with you? Here is why. Living and serving in Kronstadt
as a priest now for the fifty-first year, in recent times I have received many
letters from the western Polish region, especially from the Grodno and Vilna
provinces, written, so to speak, with bloody tears, with bitter complaints
against Catholic priests and their accomplices, Catholic laymen, about the
persecution by them of Orthodox Christians and their coercion, by all manner of
violent measures, to convert to Catholicism, while the priests, without any
pang of conscience, slandered me, saying that I had supposedly converted to the
Catholic faith, and that even the Tsar, allegedly, had become a Catholic and
was ordering everyone to accept the Catholic faith. By so shamelessly
slandering me and the Tsar, the Catholics forced many Orthodox peasants to
accept Catholicism and imposed upon them an alien faith. Is this the spirit of
Christ? Do not the priests, by the very manner of their actions, prove that the
Catholic faith does not itself possess a vital power that subdues the mind,
heart, and will of a person to voluntary adherence to it, and that its
followers attract right-minded people only by violence and deceit?
Dear fathers and
brothers! You know my firm abiding and service in the Orthodox Church now for
fifty years; you know, perhaps, also my constant zeal for the true faith; you
know of my numerous writings to the glory of God and the Orthodox Church and of
the numerous signs of the power of God manifested not only over Orthodox
Christians, but also over Catholics and Lutherans and even Jews and
Mohammedans, when they turned with faith to the mediation of my prayers. Of
this the newspaper chronicles testify—and the unfalse, truthful testimonies of
eyewitnesses. I too now testify before all of you and before the All-seeing God
that even to this day miracles of healings do not cease among us. Does this
mean that the Orthodox Faith is a dead faith, as the Catholics slander? Does it
not continually bear witness to its vitality and salvific power, to its being
pleasing to God?
I do not wish to
call as witnesses of every untruth of Catholicism the impartial thousand-year
history: it is sufficiently known to the entire educated world. Still fresh is
the memory of the ill-fated union of the seventeenth century among us in
Russia; fresh is the memory of the fanatical hatred with which the Catholics
destroyed Orthodox churches in the western region; memorable are all the
terrible insults and revilings with which the Orthodox faith and the Orthodox
Church and the unfortunate Orthodox Christians were branded. Now the times of
the union have been renewed again. And when is this? When Catholics have been
given full freedom—freedom, of course, not for the persecution of Orthodoxy and
Orthodox Christians, but for mutual peaceful, brotherly coexistence with
Orthodox fellow citizens.
I cited at the
beginning the words of the Apostle Paul about the Church as the Body of Jesus
Christ, and about Christ as the Head of the Church, ‘…which is His body, the
fullness of Him who fills all in all’ (Eph. 1:23).
We firmly
believe in this one Head of the Church, and we cannot recognize another,
visible, infallible head, for one cannot serve two masters. It is entirely
sufficient for us to have the one Head, all-righteous, all-knowing,
all-powerful, all-filling (the fullness of Him who fills all in all). This Head
governs us, protects us, and strengthens us in the faith by the Holy Spirit,
performs the sacred rites, enlightens, saves, and leads to perfection.
And if you wish
to see the glorious and God-pleasing fruits of our Orthodox faith, then we
shall point our enemies to the multitude of heavenly eagles who have soared
from our land to heaven itself, to the very Sun of Righteousness—all our
ancient and new saints, glorified by an equal-to-the-angels life, by the
incorruption of their relics, and by countless miracles.
In conclusion, I
shall say that the truth of our faith lies in it itself, in its very being; in
it is ‘yes,’ and in it itself—‘Amen.’
And I conclude
my word with the word—‘amen.’”
For all who reverently honor our
newly glorified great servant of God, the holy righteous father John of
Kronstadt, the testimonies cited above are more than sufficient, especially
since their truthfulness and persuasiveness are confirmed by life itself and by
impartial history.
What trust, then, can we have in
Roman Catholic papism, founded upon falsehood and permeated throughout with
falsehood, until it decisively and publicly renounces its ruinous falsehood and
the soul-destroying delusions engendered by it?
There can be no compromises with
it and no communion, for what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? Or
what communion has light with darkness? (2 Cor. 6:14).
The only correct path in our
crafty time, filled with every kind of falsehood and deception, is the path
indicated by that same great righteous one of ours:
“Fight against
every evil, extinguish it immediately, wage war against it with the weapons
given to you by God—the Holy Faith, divine wisdom and truth, prayer, piety, the
cross, courage, devotion, and faithfulness!” (From a sermon of the holy
righteous John of Kronstadt, August 30, 1906.)
Russian source:
Greek translation: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2026/01/1979.html
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