Comments on Ecumenism

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. 1 (1984), No. 3, pp. 48-51, 54.

 

 

Before the advent of ecumenism, so much religious bigotry and hate marked the relationship between people of different religions that one is, on first glance, suspicious of anyone who questions the contemporary ecumenical movement. This is natural, since no real Christian—no really humane person—wishes to live in an atmosphere of hate or animosity. This is antithetical to Christian principles, contrary to spiritual laws, and a real hindrance to personal growth in the religious realm.

One might ask, then, why we traditionalist Orthodox are so wholly opposed to ecumenism, which we find to be not only a heresy, but a “pan-heresy.” Certainly we do not want the hate that marked the relations between religions before the ecumenical movement was popularized, many will ask. And our answer is that indeed we do not want such hate. Accepting the religions of others, whether we agree or not with those who hold beliefs contrary to our own, is a necessary part of civilized living—a necessary part which even here in America, which preaches religious freedom, is not adequately respected. No, our real objection to the ecumenical movement is that it does not stop at mutual understanding and mutual acceptance. It has a philosophy, if not an actual goal, behind it that frightens us and that compromises our witness as Orthodox.

In the first place, we Orthodox believe that Christ established a Church on earth, that it has never been divided, that it has never been lost, and that, Christ not being a liar, the Gates of Hell have never prevailed against it. We believe that we constitute that Church: founded by Christ, preached by the Apostles, and preserved in our Holy Tradition. We believe that our ancient customs began in the Apostolic Church, matured through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and reach us as the authentic voice of Christianity. We do not deny that other Churches exist, nor do we deny that much of what they practice they received from us, the Christian East, the birthplace of Christianity. However, we believe that they are separated from the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church which is preserved within the Orthodox national Churches, and that they are without the fullness of Christianity which is passed on to us in the Grace of God’s Church. This is the very cornerstone of our beliefs. And if anyone should wish to join us, we ask simply that he return to the tenets which belonged to the undivided Christian Church of the first seven Ecumenical Councils, these being the very tenets which guide and constitute our Church.

In claiming to be the historical Church, the standard of Christianity, the “Mother Church,” we feel a great need to understand our brother Christians and to draw near to them, it being a natural thing for a mother to draw near to her children. Our claim to primacy is not an exclusivistic one, but one which embodies a sincere invitation: an invitation to return to the true Church established by Christ on earth. And this exclusive claim moves us to compassion for our fellow Christians, imprinting on our hearts with particular force a sense of responsibility. It is, to be sure, part of our self-understanding that we are responsible for the preservation of the Faith, so that our fellow Christians, who have in our eyes strayed from the true standard of Christianity, may measure themselves against that which we have preserved. It is an act of love which prompts us to desire to extend the perimeters of the Church, this love guided in the wisdom by which we extend those perimeters only within the defined limits of the Church as the Apostles and the Fathers have defined it for us.

To the view of us Orthodox traditionalists the ecumenical movement has grown increasingly hostile, revealing to us the real intentions and goals of many ecumenists. In fact, some ecumenists have stated that they will not tolerate any religion which claims to embody the criterion of truth! In the name of understanding each other’s religion, the ecumenical movement is now preaching an intolerable intolerance of its own. It is no longer acceptable for me, as a sincere Orthodox Christian, to stand up in ecumenical circles and say that, while I believe that my Church is the true Church, I wish to know and understand other Christians, if not, in love, to attract them to the standard of Christianity preserved over the centuries in our Faith—not by proselytizing or “pushing” my views on others, but by maintaining the true Faith, which has an internal power of its own. And herein lies the problem of the ecumenical movement. Its ultimate goal is not understanding and dialogue, but (as official statements now indicate) the formation of one world religion, in which no single religion can claim to have primacy, but in which all religions, theoretically containing some aspects of the truth, will join together in finding a single truth.

We Orthodox Christians believe that the Church already exists and that what the ecumenists will produce in these schemes is, at best, an ugly mosaic of half-truths or suppositions about the truth. And, to be sure, if elements of truth can be brought together in a composite, so too can elements of untruth. And if each religion, in addition to containing aspects of the truth, contains also elements of falsehood, then the end result may be something monstrous: a giant composite of every conceivable human error about religion. We Orthodox conceive of the truth as an absolute, inseparable whole, indivisible and present as a single principle, from which all relative truths are derived. That our view should not be allowed is, again, a demonstration that the modern-day ecumenical movement is more than meets the eye.

What, in actuality, has the ecumenical movement brought to Orthodoxy? Understanding? Hardly. Here in America there are so many separate Orthodox jurisdictions that one is overwhelmed in trying to understand their histories and relationship to one another. Hatred exists between some groups. And what have we done? Rather than talk to one another, we have been enticed into talking to non-Orthodox, often showing greater affection for the heterodox than our own brethren. Many modernist Greek clergy in this country believe that Old Calendarist Greeks are all miserably illiterate, self-ordained fanatics. This is not true. Many traditionalists believe that all New Calendarists follow the perilous course toward modernism and ecumenism of the majority of the modernist Hierarchy. This, too, is not true. And yet, while we do not talk to one another about these misconceptions and problems, the ecumenists among us are quick to embrace Protestants and Roman Catholics, often to the point of violating Holy Canons by joining with them in prayer and services, thereby clouding the standard of purity which we are called, as Orthodox, to uphold. No unity and mutual understanding have come to the Orthodox, then, from the ecumenical movement. Rather, the movement has diverted our attention away from unity among ourselves. If its aims were true and sincere, it would seem, ecumenism would have begun “at home.” Such, among us Orthodox, is not the case.

One must also very frankly acknowledge that the ecumenical movement has greatly compromised the stand which the Orthodox Church has for centuries taken against Papism. If there is much that Roman Catholics and Orthodox share, having once been united in the Faith, there is one truly significant difference—aside from the great divergence in spiritual life which has been evidenced since the Great Schism especially—that stands out: the Orthodox Church recognizes no worldly head of the Church, but only Jesus Christ as its Head and Founder. The modern ecumenist movement, which proposes that all religions must join together in one world religion, also opens the way for a single leader of this one world religion. And such thinking is compatible with the notions of Papism, which have plagued Christianity for many centuries. Participation by modernist Orthodox in the ecumenical movement, then, has compromised the Orthodox stand against a universal human head of the Church, just as it has compromised the very ecclesiology of Orthodoxy. We Orthodox have always stood, not against the pious Roman Catholic Faithful, whom we wish to return to the Orthodoxy of their past, but against the politics of Papism. Elsewhere in this issue of Orthodox Tradition the reader may see for himself, in Bishop Cyprian’s laconic response to Archbishop Seraphim’s Paschal address, evidence of what ecumenism has done to serve the ends of the Vatican in Greece.

We might just add that the Uniates (Eastern Christians united to Rome) have benefited little from the ecumenical movement as well. Their attempts to maintain a separate identity within the Roman Catholic world have been clouded by the uniformity demanded by ecumenical philosophies, such that the most hated attempts by the Vatican to “Latinize” the Uniates have been easily implemented, the Uniates often fearing to emphasize a unique identity within an ecclesiological atmosphere that tolerates only similarities. Likewise, the Uniate movement in Greece, as many Uniates themselves admit, has been ever bolder in the last few decades, so-called ecumenical understanding again serving the purposes of the Vatican and the Hierarchy of the State Church of Greece showing great hesitancy to resist the Uniate movement as it did in the past, fearing that this might alienate it from the ecumenical movement itself.

Somewhere, too, we Christians have forgotten what we believe. We believe Christ to be the Incarnation of the universal God. Yet, in ecumenical gatherings we act as though we did not believe this. The late and blessed Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose), a man who suffered much and endured much, spoke, out of his sorrow, some blunt words of love about what ecumenism has done to our basic Christian beliefs. Let us look at his words [Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, p. 27]:

[Many non-Christian participants in the ecumenical movement will admit that] ...Christ is an extraordinary and exceptional being and that He was sent by God. But for us Christians, if Jesus Christ is not God, we cannot consider Him either as a ‘prophet’ or as ‘one sent by God,’ but only as a great imposter without compare, having proclaimed Himself ‘Son of God,’ making Himself thus equal to God! (St. Mark 14: 61, 62.)

In effect, does not ecumenism betray itself when it extracts from unknowing (though perhaps naive) Christians views that are antithetical to its tenets —views which were so repugnant to the Early Church that the great Christian martyrs gave their blood and lives, rather than confess them? In other words, is not ecumenism extracting from us views that wholly compromise our basic Christian beliefs in the unique divinity of Christ? Does it not leave us unable to say that Christianity has a unique truth, that the Church of Christ is a unique institution, and that Christ Himself is a unique manifestation?

If, as a Christian, I cannot say that Christ is, for me, the Son of the Living God, the Truth of truths, the light from Whom all creation flows, the True God, the God beside Whom there is none, and the only God worthy of worship, then am I any longer allowed to be what a Christian is? And if this is ecumenism, then something is wrong. The result of a movement designed to promote understanding between religions—a noble end—should not destroy my Faith! Nor should it be intolerant of those who believe in an absolute. Yet this is exactly, precisely what the ecumenical movement is doing. And Christians of all denominations, who should be appalled, are sitting by as their ministers, Priests, Bishops, and Prelates ignore the insidious core of the ecumenical movement.

If you dare to hate your neighbor for what he believes, then you are not a Christian. You are basically inhumane, a cultist, and a misanthrope. But if you refuse to allow your neighbor to proclaim the primacy of what he believes, and yourself refuse to stand firm in what you believe as a Christian, then you are a contrived creature of an unknown future. Let us Orthodox beware of such a future! Let all Christians stand in fear before this new intolerance in the guise of understanding and love—an intolerance which has caused strife and dissent in the Church of Christ.