On the End Times and Conciliarity

Continued from "Brief assessment of an online dialogue: https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2026/01/brief-assessment-of-online-dialogue.html

Konstantinos Foundoulis:

When even we who are walled off highlight through our commentaries conciliarity (that is, the process of judgment and manifestation of the faith through the Synod) as the greatest problem of our times… then something is going wrong, and we have unfortunately still not understood that we are living in the last days of the Scriptures, in the days of the Antichrist, with the signs of the times confirming it to us!

But, for the love of God, can today’s pseudo-church of our pseudo-bishops—the pan-heresy of Ecumenism—be compared with other earlier periods of heresies and delusion so as to speak of conciliarity (consensus patrum)? We would not even be speaking of conciliarity if our pseudo-bishops had not, in their overwhelming majority, apostasized, and if even one among them had applied conciliarity and cast out the heretics and preserved the Church of Christ! But since they do not do so, as they are hireling shepherds, they care nothing for the flock, which, being uncatechized, consents to their love-speak and is persuaded by their caesaropapism! Therefore, we who are walled off likewise fall into the trap of ecumenism by supporting “conciliarities” in these last days of the pseudo-shepherds and of the Antichrist whom they are preparing!

And of course, the flock (both walled off and not) thus waits—without reacting—for the synod to clarify matters! But how many, how very many of our Christian brethren throughout all these years are dying within heresy? Who bears the spiritual responsibility for all of them? And let me repeat the words of Saint John Maximovitch:

“In the last days, evil and heresy will have spread so widely that the faithful will not find a priest or shepherd to protect them from delusion and to counsel them toward salvation. Then, the faithful will not be able to receive safe guidance from men, but their guide will be the writings of the Holy Fathers. Especially in that time, each believer will be responsible for the entire body of the Church. ‘Have you not been taught, that in difficult times, each Christian is himself responsible for the whole of Christianity? That every member of the Orthodox Church bears responsibility for the entire Church? And that today the Church has enemies and is persecuted both from without and from within?’”

Brethren, it is time for all of us to assume our responsibilities before God and history. Do not tolerate any more deviations and delusions from your priests and hierarchs! Do not “turn a blind eye”—you are co-responsible!

The Saints are warning you… It is not the pseudo-bishops of our days who will save our Church—the little flock—and certainly not “the marketplace of the walled-off,” but the very Founder of the Church Himself, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

 

Response: Fr. Dimitrios Athanasiou

The text presented expresses a deep anguish over the course of the Church in our times—an anguish that cannot be lightly dismissed. The sense of distortion of the faith, the critique of Ecumenism, the disappointment with the hierarchy, and the eschatological vigilance are elements that have historical precedents and are rooted in patristic experience. The Church has lived through periods in which the majority of bishops went astray and the truth was preserved by minorities, by monks, or even by laypeople. Therefore, vigilance and discernment are neither extreme nor foreign to the Orthodox tradition.

However, the serious theological problem of the text does not lie in its anguish, but in the way it identifies the cause of the crisis. Conciliarity is presented as the greatest problem of our times—almost as an outdated or dangerous process. Yet this constitutes an ecclesiological error. Conciliarity is not a human administrative arrangement, nor is it a neutral mechanism that becomes nullified when the bishops are shown to be unworthy. It is a structural element of the Church, a mode of its existence within history. The Fathers never rejected the synodal principle, even when they faced robber councils or widespread delusion; they distinguished between true and false synods, but they never abolished conciliarity as such.

The Saints spoke of the last times, but not in order to abolish ecclesiastical life, the institutional dimension of the Church, or its therapeutic perspective. Even in the midst of the deepest crisis, the Church remains the Body of Christ and is identified neither with the majority nor with a “pure” minority that proclaims itself as the only little flock.

The invocation of Saint John Maximovitch is serious and must not be underestimated, but it requires correct interpretation. The Saint spoke of personal responsibility for discernment in difficult times—not of an individual ecclesiology, nor of the abolition of the hierarchy. He did not teach that every believer becomes a judge of the catholic Church, but that one must not consent to delusion and must cling to the patristic tradition with humility and fear of God.

Walling off, as defined by the 15th Canon of the First-Second Council, is a defensive and temporary measure for the protection of the faith, not a permanent condition nor a new ecclesiastical ethos. When it is turned into a fixed identity, accompanied by generalized condemnations and the rejection of every possibility of healing, it is at risk of being distorted and leading—albeit unintentionally—to a schismatic mindset.

The truest phrase in the text is that the Church will not be saved either by the pseudo-bishops or by the walled-off, but by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Precisely for this reason, however, no one has the right to limit the Church to the measure of his own group or his own certainty. The path of the Saints has always been confession without panic, discernment without schism, and adherence to the truth with deep humility and trust in the providence of God.

Healthy Orthodox conciliarity, which expresses the consensus patrum, is neither a formal procedure nor a majority-based system of power, but a way of life of the Church in the Holy Spirit. It is not identified with just any gathering of bishops, nor is it automatically legitimized by titles and ranks. It is genuine only when it serves the truth of the faith and the salvation of the people of God.

Orthodox conciliarity is founded on the fact that the Church belongs to Christ and not to the bishops, who are not proprietors but servants and witnesses of the Apostolic Tradition. Councils do not “produce” truth; they confess the faith already lived by the Church. This is why the authenticity of a Council is not judged at the moment it convenes, but retrospectively—by whether it is received by the body of the Church as being in accordance with her patristic and liturgical life.

A central element of healthy conciliarity is agreement with Holy Scripture, the Holy Fathers, and the Sacred Canons. Wherever a council innovates doctrinally, compromises with heresy, or silences the truth for the sake of peace and diplomacy, it ceases to express the mind of the Church—even if it is formally “canonical.” History knows of robber councils and councils that were rejected, not because titles were lacking, but because the Spirit of Truth was absent.

Healthy conciliarity presupposes bishops rightly dividing the word of truth, with boldness and fear of God—not with a spirit of careerism, political balance, or submission to worldly pressures. The bishop within the Synod does not express himself, but the faith of the Church over which he presides, and he is judged more strictly when he remains silent in the face of delusion.

At the same time, Orthodox conciliarity does not exclude the fullness of the Church. The people of God—clergy, monastics, and theologians—do not legislate, but bear witness. The acceptance or rejection of a council by the ecclesiastical body constitutes an essential criterion of its genuineness. In this way, the balance between the hierarchy and the conscience of the Church is preserved—without populism, but also without bishop-centered authoritarianism.

Healthy conciliarity is not abolished even in times of widespread crisis or apostasy. On the contrary, it is then that its true nature is revealed: not as a mechanism for legitimizing delusion, but as a means of judgment and healing. Even when Councils fail, the conciliar principle remains, for it belongs to the very being of the Church and not to the moral quality of its bearers.

Finally, healthy Orthodox conciliarity is inseparable from humility, repentance, and eschatological hope. It does not promise historical omnipotence, nor does it guarantee that there will be no falls, but it bears witness that Christ leads His Church through crises toward the truth. For this reason, conciliarity is not an obstacle to confession, but its natural space—when it is lived in an Orthodox and patristic manner.

Orthodox conciliarity and the Christ-named fullness are in an unbroken and organic relationship, because both express the life of the Church as the Body of Christ. Conciliarity is not an administrative mechanism of the hierarchy, but the manner by which the entire Church discerns and confesses the truth in the Holy Spirit.

The bishops have the canonical role of conciliar judgment and articulation, but the genuineness of this judgment is revealed by its agreement with the conscience of the Christ-named fullness. The fullness does not legislate nor replace the Synod, but bears witness to the apostolic faith through the liturgical and ascetical life of the Church and, when necessary, through the non-acceptance of decisions that alter Tradition.

When conciliarity is cut off from the fullness, it degenerates into authoritarianism; when the fullness absolutizes its own judgment, it is led into individualism and a schismatic ethos. Healthy ecclesiastical life presupposes this dynamic balance, wherein hierarchy and fullness walk together in obedience to Christ, the Head of the Church.

 

Greek source: https://fdathanasiou-parakatathiki.blogspot.com/2026/01/blog-post_12.html