Photios Kontoglou (+1965): To the Unionists

 

The desire of Your All-Holiness [Patriarch Athenagoras] and those with you that the Orthodox Church should be subjected to the Pope, and the inexplicable zeal on your part toward this, has filled our hearts with inexpressible sorrow, and despondency has seized us, according to the Prophet-King, because of sinners who forsake the law of God. Our ears still ring from hearing this dreadful thing.

The Orthodox flock has been divided, and you bear the blame. Some followed you upon the broad road that leads to destruction, while others remained firm and immovable in the Orthodox faith of their fathers, turning their faces away even from the mere thought that the Ecumenical Patriarch embraced and kissed the woman-faced Pope and was defiled by this abomination of impiety.

Those who followed you had already been beforehand judged that they would follow you, being material-minded, vain, faithless, arrogant, servants of foreigners, flatterers and those who are flattered. Therefore they hastened to gather themselves with the “world,” the sinful world of earthly comfort, of a life without hardships and struggle, believing only in “the city that now remains here, but not seeking the one to come,” as something nonexistent and not believable to them.

But the others, the faithful, remained in the land of poverty, of deprivations, of temptations, of persecutions, being certain that in the midst of them stands the Lord, Who said that His Church will be bound up with martyrdom, contempt, poverty, and mockery, which will be the recompense for the steadfast confession of those in this world. In their ears day and night resound the comforting words of Christ: “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” Persecution, suffering, and death are the blessed lot of the true disciples of Christ. His all-holy mouth also said: “The Kingdom of God suffers violence, and the violent take it by force.” How is it possible that there should be men of force and strugglers in the ranks of those who hastened to come to terms with falsehood, in order to live in quietness and in the enjoyment of worldly goods?

And you, the shepherds of the people—what kind of shepherds are you? The sheep which the Lord entrusted to you, behold, you deliver to the wolves. You associate with the rulers of this vain world, which is passing away, because you have envied their glory and not the glory of God. You have subjected the faith to sinful men of worldly desires, whose guide is Satan. You have surrendered yourselves and have handed over the sheep to the prince of this world, to him who possesses material power—gold, inventions, and machines which astonish the multitudes as miracles of the Antichrist. You have surrendered yourselves and have handed over the sheep to falsely named knowledge, “the empty deception,” which is taught in the lands of atheism and despair, where there exists not even the scent of eternal life and of true knowledge, the knowledge of God.

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“Hear this, O priests, and give heed; listen attentively, for the judgment is against you” (Hosea 5:1).

“Woe to them, the shepherds have slumbered” (Nahum 3:18).

And this is so because you are not the good shepherds, those who sacrifice their life for the sheep and lead them to the fragrant meadows of immortal life. You are “hireling shepherds,” and according to the all-holy mouth of the Lord, “the hireling shepherd is not a shepherd” (John 10:12). You are hirelings of the rulers of this world, for whose glory and wealth you labor.

And since you are servants of such masters, you are armed with the weapons of violence, with which you threaten the faithful sheep of Christ, in order to force them to follow you.

But these blessed sheep await martyrdom as a deliverance and as an unfailing sign that they will receive the unfading crown from the Judge of the contest, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Yes! We are ready to bear witness with joy and gladness for the Orthodox faith, which we hold as a great treasure. We count ourselves blessed because we shall be persecuted and shall die for the sake of faith and truth.

Sharpen the sword of shame. Send forth the instruments of violence that accompany you, and with which apostasy is always fully armed. Already the blood-stained blade of violence has appeared, in order to sow terror in the holy hearts of the elders, the ascetics, and the hermits, who lived in trials, in deprivation, in the denial of their flesh, so as to please the Lord. The dreadful face of violence appears, like that of the mythical head of Medusa, in the sanctified Garden of the All-Holy Mother of God. And behind this terror stand you, “the hireling shepherds,” the thrice-enslaved servants of the rulers of the dark world of money, of atheism, of degeneration, and of every kind of licentiousness.

Tear apart the innocent and holy confessors, since you yourselves, the shepherds, have become wolves. Devour holy Orthodoxy within the Colosseum, in which stand the Caesars of today’s wicked atheism.

But it is now time for you to cast off the sheep’s skin, since it deceives no one any longer.
What you do, do quickly!

 

Source: https://katanixi.gr/fotis-kontogloy-pros-enotikoys/