Testimony Concerning Orthodox Faith and Practice Concerning the Anathema Against Ecumenism

Archpriest Benjamin Joukoff [Veniamin Zhukov, +2023] | December 8, 1985

Source: Orthodox Life, Vol. 37, No. 5, September-October 1987, pp. 16-35.

 

 

The following article, by Archpriest Benjamin Joukoff, was published in French in the magazine Messager, an official organ of the Western European Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, and was translated for us by Mr. Edward Jones.

INTRODUCTION

When God came on earth in the Person of His Son, He That is Love did not find there a reciprocal love. The Son of God was crucified because the world did not acknowledge Him.

A delusion exists in the world which prevents one from recognizing Divine Love.

The truth about this life of love is contained in the teaching that has been revealed by God.

Also, “to tell the truth is the greatest act of love” (St. Photius).

And, Saint Maximus the Confessor says, “I do not call the act of supporting heretical error love, but hatred of mankind.”

“Heretic” and “anathema” are words which do not properly carry the connotation of horror that general usage would ascribe to them. Rather, they stand for a state of choice with regard to the truth. The Greek word hairein — to choose — has given us heretic. As for anathema: in antiquity it meant an offering made to God, and in early Christian times it stood for that object which later became known as an ex voto, and “to anathematize” means to present to God someone who willfully separates himself from the truth so that God in His mercy might judge him, the community living according to the canons of truth being no longer able to do anything for him.

THE SEARCH FOR TRUTH

The Apostle Paul relates that he had been caught up into the heavenly heights, and that he was incapable of putting into words what he had witnessed (II Cor. 12:2ff).

This is an indication of the fact that the heavenly world — to which the Church belongs, as a community founded by Christ in truth and love — possesses immeasurable riches, and that there is no man who can wholly embrace or perceive this celestial world with his spirit, because his sinfulness holds him near to the things of the earth.

It is therefore not only through our own endeavor, by means of our intelligence alone, that our approach to Divine Truth will prevail. Its success will come all the more surely as we approach these things with simplicity and humility, as we search for enlightenment where there is light, that is to say, in the Church Herself.

The holy Martyr Cyprian of Carthage (+258) points out that: “virtuous and simple souls can easily avoid delusion and find truth. Because from the moment that they turn to the sources of Divine Tradition, their delusion disappears.”

St. John Chrysostom also says in his homilies on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, “The spirit that is not subdued by the dogmas of the Church and the teaching of the holy Fathers sows discord among Christians and gives rise to countless heresies and schisms.”

In Russia, in the period following the Revolution, simple people with little education often appeared more perceptive than academy professors; they were able to recognize easily the lies of the Church Renovators and, later on, the temptations which were offered by the legal control of the Church by the persecuting authorities. They simply opened their hearts to the Church’s precepts and walked in the narrow path of salvation as servants of the Church.

The great Orthodox thinker, Khomiakov, who lived in the last century, used to lay much store on the fact that our capacity to understand the things of the Church depends directly on our state of
moral perfection.

THE CHURCH

ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC, AND APOSTOLIC

The Church can be called a unity of faithful Christians having the same faith, possessing one hierarchy, and unique mysteries. This, at least, is how she is seen from the outside.

But her greatest worth is in her spiritual and invisible nature, which is the Kingdom of the grace of the Holy Spirit. She also has invisible members: first and foremost, her invisible Head, the Lord Jesus Christ, and all the saints and the angels.

Her unity, however, is one and indivisible.

The Church is ONE, at the same time both terrestrial and celestial.

She is HOLY: which indicates a condition that is undisturbed and without blemish.

She is CATHOLIC and APOSTOLIC: these words express her compass and her succession, and characterize both her way of life and the origin of her life.

THE BODY OF CHRIST

The hidden aspect of the life of the Church is based on the fact that she is a Divine Organism, THE BODY OF CHRIST. The Apostle Paul says that Christ is the “HEAD OVER ALL” of the “Church, which is His Body” (Eph. 1:22-23).

The Church is therefore a living organism, the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and one can really belong to this Body only by living with HIM, and according to HIM.

The Apostle Paul says, “ONE BODY AND ONE SPIRIT” (Eph. 4:4).

An indication of the kind of life to be had within this Body by the members of this Body is given in the words of Christ, “I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE” (John 14:6).

THE WAY

WAY does not only denote a direction to follow, as in observing His commandments, but it also represents an actual MEANS. The words, “NO MAN COMETH UNTO THE FATHER, BUT BY ME” are indicative of the fact that Christ is not only the WAY in a symbolic sense, but that He is the INDISPENSABLE PATH FOR THE DIVINE KINGDOM.

This is realized through COMMUNION WITH HIM: “He that eateth My Body, and drinketh My Blood, abideth in Me, and I in Him.”

We receive Christ, and He takes us with Him.

THE TRUTH

The TRUTH is the RULE by which the heavenly, divine and eternal world lives; so also, in part, does the earthly created world.

As GOD is a SPIRIT, everything is SPIRIT in the HEAVENLY WORLD. The TRUTH is SPIRITUAL. Truth’s reflection in the earthly world is spiritual above all else.

The Lord said to the Samaritan woman, “The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father . . . The true worshippers shall worship the Father IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.”

And it is because this rule has been disturbed by sin in the earthly world that Christ said that His KINGDOM was not of this world. This is also why Christ said: “I came to bear witness unto the truth: everyone that is of the truth heareth My voice.”

To a certain extent, TRUTH is still discerned by its opposite which reigns in the world, namely FALSEHOOD.

FALSEHOOD has now become almost universal. Not only do people lie increasingly in their personal lives, but also in their public lives: socially, in politics and in government, and even in their church lives. The most terrible thing of all is that nowadays many ecclesiastics tell lies; and this, according to Archbishop Averky, is one of the causes of contemporary atheism and unbelief.

The Apostle John says of the devil, “. . . he is the father of falsehood” (John 8:44). And, in his epistle, he states that “no lie is of the truth” (I John 2:21).

The Holy Scriptures assert that in the last times there will appear all kinds of miracles, signs, and false wonders, with all the seductions . . .

The Apostle Paul says that God shall send “Strong delusion, . . . that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (II Thess. 2:11-12).

In consequence, a selection based on truth takes place in the world. The Lord has indicated this as follows: “I have manifested Thy Name to the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world. Thine they were . . . and they have kept Thy word . . . I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me, for they are Thine” (John 17:6-10). “Holy Father, keep through Thine own Name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are” (John 17:11).

THE LIFE

As for the LIFE — the third expression in Christ’s saying, I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE — this refers to life lived according to the rules of truth. This life is a principle in itself: it is not a fleeting event or an accident, but a continuous natural process.

To the Samaritan woman Christ said that the water that He gives will quench thirst forever: “THE WATER THAT I SHALL GIVE HIM SHALL BE IN HIM A SPRING OF WATER, WELLING UP UNTO EVERLASTING LIFE” (John 4:14).

And from this spring of life it is that the saints, who hardly ate at all, drew sustenance: St. Mary of Egypt, St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. John of Kronstadt . . .

THE LIFE OF THE CHRISTIAN IN THE CHURCH

The life of the Christian as a member of the Body of Christ can proceed only according to the rules of that Body. The true Christian lives in CHRIST, in the TRUTH, and in the ETERNAL LIFE.

The malfunctioning of a member in a physical body produces illness. In the BODY OF CHRIST the malfunctioning of a member — that is to say, the sinning of a Christian — also produces illness: at first spiritual, then physical. Spiritual therapy consists in repentance, together with a return to the precepts of one’s former life.

Also, just as in a physical body the malfunctioning of one member affects the rest of the body, so in the SPIRITUAL BODY — the CHURCH — the other members suffer from the sinning of one of their number.

This happens chiefly because of love, which is this Body’s vital principle. This love unlocks for us the meaning of divine MERCY, COMPASSION, a uniquely Christian quality, just as the Church is a uniquely Christian entity. Now we understand why Christ wept.

As He ascended from the earth, Christ said that He would always remain with His disciples. But He also said that He would send the SPIRIT of TRUTH, the COMFORTER, Who will strengthen us in all TRUTH (John 16:13). The SPIRIT, Who fills all things, is thus the BOND between all the true members of the Church. In some degree, all these members are like places, through which the SPIRIT of TRUTH and of LIFE may pass. And where He finds this passage, the SPIRIT acts — that is to say, in people who are pious, simple, and just — and He pours out His grace around them.

In this is the royal priesthood of the people of God realized, as it says in the Scriptures (without diminishing for one moment the importance within the Church of her priestly hierarchy, which was itself established by the Lord).

St. John Chrysostom says, “If I have told you all this, it is so that among ordinary people, the faithful, each one might be watchful, so that we might learn that we are all one single Body, in that we differ from each other only to the extent that some parts of a physical body differ from the others; also, so that you might not throw back all your care on the priests, but that, for your part also you might concern yourselves with the entire Church, like as unto your common BODY” (Homily on the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians).

Also the Church, as she is recognized by Orthodoxy, cannot be called an authority. Authority is something external. For the Christian, the Church is not authority, but truth, and “at the same time, the life of a Christian, his interior life” (Khomiakov). The Christian believes what the Church teaches, not because he puts his trust in her representatives, but because he himself lives this life. Heresy appears when a man moves away from this life, or when he seeks to bring it into line with his own ideas.

In these circumstances, ANATHEMA signifies the separation of a member, either because he transgresses the law without repenting and being re-installed, or because he promulgates a false doctrine, a different teaching about this rule of life. Anathemas are thus pronounced on heretics or on sinners who do not repent.

The Apostle Paul says, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema” (I Cor. 16:22); again: “Though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be anathema.”

The way in which one should completely avoid all relations with those who have ceased being Christians is indicated by St. Paul: “I wrote to you . . . not to company with fornicators: yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with idolators, or with the covetous, or extortioners; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolator, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one, no, not to eat” (I Cor. 5:9-11).

From the Church’s beginnings heresies have been anathematized, as well as those who confessed them. Such were the heresies relating to the teaching on the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Holy Trinity…

In 1054, after Cardinal Humbert, the representative of Pope Leo IX, had placed a bull of excommunication on the altar of the Church of the Holy Wisdom in Constantinople, during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, Patriarch Michael Cerularius convened his Synod and anathematized this “impious and foolish document.” Patriarch Peter of Antioch ratified this decision and all the other Eastern Patriarchs did the same.

In Russia, at Kiev, Metropolitan Nicephorus (1104-1121) wrote concerning the Latins, after having enumerated their various errors: “this is why the Holy Catholic Church does not receive them in her communion, but has cut them off and rejected them like a decaying member.”

In January 1919, Patriarch Tikhon addressed himself as follows to those who associated themselves with the Bolsheviks and their operations: “By the power that is given us by God, we forbid you to approach the Holy Mysteries of Christ, and anathematize you if you bear the name of Christian and belong to the Orthodox Church only by birth.”

In December 1922, Patriarch Tikhon anathematized the Living Church as follows: “When the incorruptible robe of Christ — the Holy Orthodox Church — is torn before our eyes by new Judas-traitors, descended from our midst, acting through our duty as first in the hierarchic order, we call upon all the faithful sons of God to remain firm and courageous in the sacred Faith and in defense of the Holy Orthodox Church, which is unchanging since ancient times, even unto the loss of liberty, blood, and death, if the circumstances of their lives demand it. We refuse to recognize as valid the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration, which is an institution of Antichrist, and in which are found sons opposed to the sacred truth and to the holy canons.

“We are writing this so that you may all know that, by the power that God has given us, we anathematize the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration and all who maintain any relation whatsoever with it.” (6 December 1922.)

Often the decision of an anathema consists of a simple statement that such and such a person has placed himself outside the Church.

Metropolitan Antony (Vadkovsky) of St. Petersburg replied thus to the wife of Leo Tolstoy, who was outraged by the anathema against her husband who was in fact the author of a blasphemous “gospel”:

“It is not the Synod which was cruel, when it announced the expulsion of your husband. The most cruel act is what your spouse did of his own accord in rejecting faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Redeemer and Saviour… Your husband has not, of course, put himself in the way of perdition because of a piece of paper, but because he has turned away from the source of eternal life.

“The Church is made up of believers in Christ… This Church blesses through God’s name all the essential moments of man’s life: birth, marriage, death, his sorrows and his joys. But she never does so for unbelievers, neither for idolators nor for blasphemers of God’s name, nor for those who reject her, who do not wish to secure from her either prayers or blessings nor, generally speaking, for all those who are not her members…

“Divine Love is unlimited. Yet it does not forgive everyone and everything: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not forgiven, neither in this world nor in the world to come (Matt. 12:32).

“So far as your husband is concerned, so long as he is alive, no one can say that he is lost; but the truth has been told to Her subject — that he has left the Church, that he is no longer Her member until he be reunited to Her… By its message, the Synod has only had a fact confirmed; and only those who do not themselves know what they are doing express their displeasure against the Synod.”

Archbishop Anthony of Geneva expresses himself as follows: “As Archbishop John (Maximovitch) writes, ‘the Church on earth does not in fact pronounce final judgement on heretics. She pronounces the anathema against them, she separates them from Her, and hands them over to the supreme judgement — the judgement of God. The word, anathema, means to present one who is separated to God’s tribunal. One who has been anathematized can always repent and thus restore his unity with the Church.’” (“Explanation to the Flock,” May 1984.)

ECUMENISM

The first interconfessional organization was the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) founded in London in the middle of the last century, and followed fifty years later by the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association). The principal objectives of these organizations are essentially humanitarian, supported by a faith in man’s basic goodness (in the spirit of Rousseau or Tolstoy) without any reference to sin or, more pertinently, to the exclusiveness of Christ’s Church in the economy of salvation. Thus, so far as the dogmas and canons are concerned, a critical attitude appears: the people become self-assured, joking about obsolete tradition, but are nevertheless emotionally committed to the human realization of some philanthropic or religious plan.

The word ecumenism was used for the first time in 1910 at the time of the World Missionary Conference. Then the Universal Council, Life and Work, was founded. This met at Stockholm in 1925 and at Oxford in 1937. The World Conference, Faith and Order, was created in parallel. This met at Lausanne in 1927 and at Edinburgh in 1937. From these two conferences (Oxford and Edinburgh), the World Council of Churches (WCC) was born in 1937.

After the war, the WCC organized world assemblies at Amsterdam (1948), at Evanston (1954), New Delhi (1961), Nairobi (1975) and at Vancouver (1983).

At the start, the WCC was made up of “Churches” born of the Reformation. Little by little, these attracted the Orthodox Churches to them. Now almost all Orthodox Churches (except for the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad) belong to the WCC as active members.

The WCC’s doctrine of the Church is based on the branch theory. According to this theory, all Churches on earth are components of the Universal Church; they all contain a portion of the Truth, but only the so-called UNDIVIDED or INTEGRAL Church, which has not yet been manifested, possesses the whole truth.

In conformity with this ideology, specialist delegations have begun to employ a hitherto unknown religious terminology, such as the RECONSTITUTION or RECONSTRUCTION of the UNDIVIDED CHURCH.

Acts of reconciliation between the different confessions are undertaken “in love and in truth”; all Churches must “recognize their past errors” in order to overcome their differences.

This new ecclesiology has been manifest all along in the World Conferences of the WCC.

In resolution number 2 of the Toronto Conference (1950) it is said: “The members of the representative Churches enter into spiritual relations, through which they come to know and help each other so that the Body of Christ might be set up and the life of the Churches regenerated.”

The resolution of the Evanston Conference on Faith and Order affirms that the unity of Christ has been accomplished in spite of “the separation of the Churches”; a contradiction that seems to stand in no one’s way. It is not the only contradiction: “From the Church’s beginnings, there has been an indissociated unity with Christ, because He did not separate Himself from His faithful. But the Church has never realized the fulness of this unity. From the start, divisions disturbed the unity, revealed in Christ, of the people, so that we can think of the Church as we think of an individual believer, of whom it is possible to say that he is at the same time righteous and a sinner.”

The attitude of the Orthodox delegations also contains its own contradiction. Right from the start, they have refuted the Protestant conception of the Church. Their reservations were recorded at the bottom of the resolutions. However, ecumenism did not proceed any less intently on its path because of this, and yet the Orthodox still remain members of the WCC, justifying their position by the necessity of bearing witness to Orthodoxy… Fr. George Grabbe (now Bishop Gregory), an observer at Evanston on behalf of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, wrote: “the doctrine of interconfessionalism permeates each resolution in a lasting way… This Protestant voice is so strong that the Orthodox delegations would have had to intervene every minute if they had wanted to eradicate this taint from all the resolutions.” Now these Orthodox interventions were in fact limited to certain declarations which, while not changing the organization, demonstrate at what point the Orthodox body is estranged from it.

An important WCC figure, the Methodist Bishop Oxnam, revealed in 1953 the Protestant plan for the Ecumenical Movement:

“The Protestant Churches must pursue the existing fraternal and fruitful collaboration with the Eastern Orthodox Churches until protestantism is inwardly united. They must then approach the discussion with a view to union with the Eastern Church . . . When complete union between Protestantism and Orthodoxy has been realized, and Christians of the whole world belong only to two large Churches, on that day their direction will have revealed a sufficiently Christian and creative attitude to the point of kneeling down together at a common altar, asking Christ’s forgiveness for the divisions, and uniting in the communion of the bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist, in order to raise themselves in spirit so as to make a reality the Holy Catholic Church, to which all Christians would be able to belong.”

Thus, on the one hand, the Orthodox justify their presence at the WCC by the opportunity it offers to bear witness to their Faith before the whole world; but, on the other, the Protestants use the Orthodox as a means to effect their own internal union.

ORTHODOX PARTICIPATION

Ecumenism would certainly never have known such a development, had not the Orthodox gone beyond their state of straightforward witness to one of real participation in the Ecumenical Movement with a view to union. Such, in essence, is the participation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Formerly, during the exchange of correspondence between theologians of the Reformation and Constantinople in the sixteenth century, when their dialogue had begun to founder with the appearance of certain insurmountable difficulties, which were harmful to Orthodoxy, Patriarch Jeremias II wrote these simple words: “We ask you in the future not to tire us anymore by writing the same things to us again and again, since you treat the luminaries and theologians of the Church in a different way each time, and although you honor and exalt them in your words, you disparage them by your attitude of wishing to demonstrate that our weapons are useless… Therefore, so far as you are concerned, we ask you not to create difficulties for us any longer. Follow your own way; do not write to us again on questions of dogma but only out of friendship, if that is what you wish. I salute you.” (6 January 1581)

After 1902, a change in Constantinople’s attitude began to emerge. Patriarch Joachim III, in seeking advice from all the other Orthodox Churches on their attitude towards relations “with the two great branches of Christendom — the Western Church [i.e., the Roman Catholic — ed.] and the Protestant Church,” proposed that they consider how to smooth the path “leading to peace and love, that they seek to discover points of contact and agreement and even of mutual forgiveness of our faults, until the day arrives when all this work will, with the help of time, be accomplished…”

In 1920, Constantinople appealed to “the Churches of Christ all over the world” and invited them to draw nearer together and invited them to collaborate in a spirit of trust and mutual respect. “This encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, issued in 1920, is the basis of the whole ecumenical movement, having prepared the ground for the creation of the World Council of Churches,” acknowledges an eminent representative of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Myra (Episkepsis, Number 331, 1/3/85). In particular, it proposed the creation of a “League of Churches,” after the pattern of the “League of Nations,” and announces nine firm proposals, based on the incontestable fact that there exist, in parallel with Orthodoxy, other “Churches of Christ all over the world” (Episk., idem).

PAN-ORTHODOX REUNION

Undoubtedly in order to implement its plan, Constantinople invited all the Orthodox Churches to a Pan-Orthodox Council in 1923, the subject of which was a program of renewing the Orthodox Church: the introduction of a married episcopate and of second marriage for priests, the reduction of the services and of the fasts, simplification of clerical dress, suppression of the wearing of beards, and the use of the Gregorian calendar.

The opposition with which this program was greeted in the Orthodox Churches reduced the meeting that was held at Constantinople to the level of a simple Congress; also, the inadequate representation of the Orthodox world at the Congress frustrated the planned reforms except those pertaining to the Gregorian Calendar — the New Style — which was adopted.

We should point out that, at this Congress, the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church, Archbishop Anastasy (First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad from 1936 to 1964), made a very firm statement opposing the planned innovations.

In pursuit of its idea, Constantinople renewed its proposal for summoning a Pan-Orthodox Council in the thirties. This time it was the Serbian Church that wrecked the proposal by objecting that no Orthodox Council could be held without the Russian Church.

THE CONQUEST OF THE ORTHODOX BY THE WCC

The Church of Constantinople was one of the first Orthodox Churches to join the WCC.

The Council’s first conference after the war, at Amsterdam (1948), afforded most eminent theologians the opportunity of relaxing the doctrine of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Among the Orthodox theologians present was Fr. Georges Florovsky. Like the other professors, he allowed that the Church has not yet clearly defined Herself, and that She has not yet formulated a scholastic and theological definition of Herself (see Archbishop [now Metropolitan] Vitaly, Paper presented in 1967 to the Council of ROCOR). This is true; but there is no need to regard it as a deficiency, for the richness of Orthodox teaching about the Church goes far beyond all definition.

It should be noted that an official Church Council, which met in Moscow in the same year (1948) decided to reject all participation in the Ecumenical Movement.

The Ecumenical Movement’s advance upon the Orthodox Church then adopted the indirect path of politics. This was the period of the Cold War between the East and the West. An important sector of the Orthodox Church lay behind the Iron Curtain, under Communist domination, and the Communists were about to discover the enormous potential for international action that the Ecumenical Movement afforded.

In 1954, at the Evanston Conference, in the presence of 13 Protestant delegates from the so-called countries of the East, who had taken up the organizers’ invitation to attend, an eminent Conference delegate, Dr. Nolde, proposed the search for some co-existence between the “Christian and Communist countries” by avoiding mention of the anti-Christian nature of Soviet Communism.

The general spirit of the Evanston Conference and the overtures repeated by the WCC towards Moscow succeeded in obtaining the admission of the Moscow Patriarchate to the WCC. It became a member at the New Delhi World Conference in 1961.

PAN-ORTHODOX MEETING AT RHODES

A little earlier in the same year, an extremely significant event took place on the Island of Rhodes, the Preconciliar Pan-Orthodox Conference, which had as its objective to prepare the way for a future Pan-Orthodox Council. This is significant because, since that time, we can follow in parallel the moves made on the Pan-Orthodox plan and on the chess board of the World Council of Churches.

The organization of both conferences — that of Rhodes and that of New Delhi — in 1961 accorded with the WCC’s aspirations. The WCC had an interest in a Pan-Orthodox Conference being held before the WCC conference and before the Second Vatican Council, which had already been announced. The Rhodes Conference was to bring about the entry of the Moscow Church and the Orthodox Churches under its influence into a dialogue at the international level.

At Rhodes, the Patriarchate of Constantinople had again come armed with an innovative plan (see Fr. George Grabbe, “Rhodes and New Delhi”). But Metropolitan Nikodim of the Moscow Patriarchate, who had been elected to an important commission on theological and related problems, put forward a different program, one that was essentially dictated by socio-political considerations, such as disarmament and decolonization… There then appeared on the agenda such topics as “Orthodoxy and racial discrimination; the realization of the Christian ideas of peace, liberty, fraternity, and mutual love; Christian duties in regions where rapid social changes are taking place…” But on purely ecclesiastical questions, the delegates from Moscow showed such conservatism that, at that time, they acted as upholders of the traditions of the Orthodox Church.

Ever since then (and independently of the WCC, though not wholly separate from it), Preconciliar Orthodox Conferences have been held at the offices of the Patriarchate of Constantinople at Chambesy in Switzerland. These have sought to define the conditions for holding a future Pan-Orthodox Council and the subjects to be discussed there.

Generally speaking, these subjects relate to matters of tradition and Church discipline, to questions of jurisdiction in the Diaspora (the Orthodox dispersion), and, in particular, to the setting up of a common date for Easter for all Christians. This Council, if it does take place,
would clearly lack the distinguishing marks of its predecessors, which were preoccupied principally with seeing that the true Faith triumph at a time when it was being particularly threatened. And such is the case in the world in which we are living.

The following point is also of particular relevance: each Church would be represented at the Council by an almost equal number of delegated bishops, and not by all the Orthodox bishops. This is radically opposed not only to Orthodox Tradition, but also to the actual ecclesiastical significance of Orthodoxy.

Against such schemes there arose one of the greatest figures of the Orthodox world, the Serbian theologian, Fr. Justin Popovich.

VATICAN II

This is another event which had the effect of reinforcing ecumenism in an entirely unexpected way. The Second Vatican Council began in 1963 and, in the aspirations of its inaugurators, it was to be a Council of all Christians. However, in the face of the reservations of the remainder of Christendom, it remained limited to the Roman Catholic Church.

Vatican II was like a fireball, descending on the Roman Catholic fortress. It breached all aspects of its church life: both dogmatic and traditional, both spiritual and social; breaches through which swept a wind bearing currents of good and of evil. And, since the evil currents were the more active, dogmas were challenged, moral standards were diminished by reducing the sense of sinfulness, the sacraments were attacked, the meaning of the liturgy was reconsidered, man was honored and God was made more human and J. Ploncard d’Assac: “Men of the Church began to utter the same words as men of the world, and to listen to the world instead of instructing it.”

Yet the total Protestantization of the Roman Catholic Church has not taken place. After Pope John XXIII’s death, Paul VI’s actions stemmed the progress of aggiornamento.

ECUMENISM AND ROME

The WCC had always sent invitations to the Roman Catholic Church, but without much hope of success. The Roman Catholic Church has never had any more than observers at the WCC Conferences.

Yet the Roman Catholic Church initiated an ecumenism of its own. Pope Paul VI found an eager partner in the person of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras. Everyone remembers their meeting in Jerusalem in 1964, the embrace and the hopes for the coming unity of the two Patriarchs of the East and the West, as the commentators then remarked.

In 1965, in order to further the dialogue that had been initiated, the anathemas of 1054 were mutually lifted. However, in doing this the Pope was answerable only to himself; but the Patriarch of Constantinople, in doing the same, was acting as though Constantinople’s anathema of 1054 was not the concern of the whole Orthodox Church. To date, no Pan-Orthodox Council or, failing that, no global decision by all the Orthodox Churches (which would have the same authority as a Pan-Orthodox Council) has ever agreed to lift the anathemas against Rome.

This is another characteristic of the Ecumenical Movement: that the actions which nourish it are all profoundly anti-Church.

On this occasion, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad raised a strong protest, dated 15th December, 1965.

Yet nothing could check the Ecumenical Movement; it was always a step ahead of the reactions that it provoked.

AN EXCLUSIVE HAPPENING IN MOSCOW

In 1969, Moscow took a curious decision, as if she wanted to steal a march on the Patriarchate of Constantinople in her dialogue with Rome. The decision was to grant Communion to Roman Catholics; and, as if to justify herself, she stipulated that it was to be given only when there was no Roman Catholic priest in the vicinity. Yet these strictures were not adhered to when Metropolitan Nikodim gave Communion to Roman Catholics at Rome itself shortly afterwards.

The reaction to this decision in the Orthodox world was extremely sharp. We are aware, in particular, of the Archbishop of Greece’s reaction and, of course, that of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.

We should note that, within the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Patriarch Athenagoras’ encyclical of 1967 still remains in force. This states that the question was examined in Synod and that it was decided not to accept the practice of giving Communion to non-Orthodox.

However, one cannot avoid noting also that even though this matter was considered by these two great Churches, Moscow and Constantinople, the practice in question had already become current here and there, “on the ground,” through the participation (in it) of an Orthodox priesthood that was anxious to quicken the progress of the Ecumenical Movement by circumventing the theologians, whom very many judged to be timid, and by presenting the hierarchy, which was considered to be conservative, with a reality which compelled recognition.

This practice has not disappeared from the Church of Constantinople. For in 1983, the monks of Mount Athos addressed a written document to the Patriarch of Constantinople declaring themselves scandalized by it.

VARIOUS DEMONSTRATIONS FROM ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS

Among other kinds of local ecumenical activity, one could cite the practice of prayers in common, at the time of prominent events or during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which is held in January. (at that time, for example, Orthodox are careful not to offend Protestant sensibilities and so omit the prayer to the Mother of God during Vigils, prayers and blessings in common, and processions behind the Roman Catholic holy sacrament (Epiksepsis, Number 338, 6/20/85).

There also exists an entire pedagogy: for example, the Theological Seminary at Chambesy near Geneva, consisting in 1984 of 25 professors and specialists in ecumenism: Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant (Episkepis Number 316, 1/6/85). From time to time, strange things are
taught. For example, there is a Roman Catholic professor who implies that a hierarchy can be discerned among Protestants; for as he says, Vatican II “did not exclude in certain exceptional cases ‘consecration (i.e., ordination) at the hands of priests’ or ‘succession at the hands of priests.’”

As for the Orthodox professor, Evangelos Theodorou, he reveals that: “the faith of the two Churches — Roman Catholic and Orthodox — is essentially the same and the differences between them no more than debating points (theologoumena), but not irreconcilable opposites.” In another connection, he says: “The reconciliation of the two Churches — in the minds of the people of God — could be greatly facilitated by the abolition of Uniatism by the Roman Catholic Church, and also by the introduction of a ‘liturgical ecumenism’ which would unify the faithful of the two Churches in a single community of prayer and piety.”

In a seminary opening address in 1984, Metropolitan Damaskinos of Switzerland, speaking about “the Orthodox Church’s bilateral discussions,” declared that they “proceed from an awareness that the Orthodox Church has been the bastion which succeeded in consistently protecting the unity of the ancient Church throughout history. In so far as this was so, Her duty now is to preside over the rebuilding of that unity by holding a dialogue with the other Christian Churches and confessions.”

He also declared that “bilateral discussions must be conducted on the binding condition that the division of the Churches into Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) is not an absolute state-of-affairs, but a painful wound in the Body of the Church” and that “although the Orthodox Church identifies herself with the Una Sancta, she must recognize nevertheless the nature of a Church — in the full sense of the term — in every other Christian community where the essence of the Faith and of apostolic succession could not have been broken.” And furthermore: “Sacramental
communion, in particular Eucharistic Communion, between Churches in dialogue with each other, will have to be the outcome and the summation of all our steps towards unity” (Episkepis, idem).

CONCLUDING REMARKS ON ECUMENICAL ACTIVITIES

Some permanent characteristics are evidenced in the activities of Orthodox Christians engaged in the Ecumenical Movement:

1) an enduring duplicity: in one text one finds statements of the strictest Orthodox confession, coupled with others which deny these statements and are biased towards the ecumenists.

2) lies by omission: One sees Scriptural passages being deliberately truncated and quotations being abridged and taken out of context. A particularly striking example of this is the one which has now become an ecumenist slogan: “that all might be one.”

3) permanent misunderstanding of the nature of the Church: as will be apparent from all the preceding.

THE LONG-TERM OBJECTIVES

The march forward of ecumenism allows one to foresee its distant objectives, pursued with a will to accomplishment that one feels to be powerful.

They are more distant than those which are commonly proposed, namely, the union of the divided Christian Churches.

The next state, the second, is already announced: the union of the three monotheistic religions descended from Abraham: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

The following state, the third, is, as yet, hardly discernable: the union of all religions.

At the time of the festivities of St. Andrew in 1984, in the presence of representatives from Rome, Patriarch Demetrios had some quite revealing words about what the “grand design” might be:

“Our goal is not only to unite all those who are Christians, but through this unity to bear witness with conviction before the whole world, of which Jesus Christ is the Saviour. Therefore, by this union, we shall act so that the world might be transfigured and included in the Christian Church, so that His Kingdom might be established on earth.”

Again the Patriarch says: “As God the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ united all mankind through His Son by redemption, similarly we, in carrying on the saving work of the Lord, are united to mankind, with every man, with all humanity living on this earth.”

Two years ago, Rabbi James Rudin, a member of the Jewish American Committee, made the following declaration: “Something new and important is being effected among Christian theologians.” “It is a new theology which affirms the purity of Judaism, without compromising
faithfulness to Christianity.”

The Pope recently told representatives of B’nai B’rith (a Jewish world-wide fraternal organization — Transl.): “The encounter between Catholics and Jews is not the meeting of two ancient religions, each following its own way, and which often had difficult conflicts in the past, but it is the encounter of brothers.”

More details are given by the WCC itself. In the official guide to the WCC’s World Conference at Vancouver (1983) — although the theme of the Conference was Jesus Christ, the Hope of the World — one reads:

“In the end, the great religious communities will not disappear. No one will have the upper hand. Jews will remain Jews; Muslims will remain Muslims; and those belonging to the great Oriental religions will remain Hindus, Buddhists, and Taoists. Africa will express its own view of the world; China will retain her heritage. As before, people will continue to travel from the East to the West, from the North to the South, and to abide in the Kingdom of God without, in consequence, having first become Christians like us” (Christianity Today, April 1984, p. 12).

ORTHODOX REACTIONS AGAINST ECUMENISM

Faced with this slipping away from the Church, what might be, and what ought to be, the faithful Christian’s attitude to the Church?

One has to concede that Orthodox Christians’ reactions to various ecumenical happenings are tending to diminish in strength. It is a well-known fact that the Ecumenical Movement relies on a familiarization effect.

Be that as it may, in the Greek Church reactions to ecumenism were still very forcible even ten years ago. Nowadays it depends on the personal influence of hierarchs.

In the past, the Patriarch of Alexandria protested very firmly against ecumenism and freemasonry, but then he went to Constantinople and made an announcement appropriate to the occasion.

The current Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Archbishop of Mount Sinai are firmly opposed to ecumenism.

The Patriarch of Antioch’s position is ambiguous.

The Serbian Church, in spite of its presence at the WCC, is not favorable towards it. Its life is ruled by the theology of the Fathers of the Church.

The other Churches are all under the influence either of Moscow or of Constantinople, and are drawn into their maneuverings.

Against these trends, some local Church leaders, bishops, and priests do confess both in words and deeds their unyielding faithfulness to the Orthodox Church of all times.

This results sometimes in confusing situations which cause what seems to be a major contradiction in the bosom of the Church and require the adoption of Church discipline, difficult but necessary, in the case of concelebrations, for example, so that the confusion may be resisted through love of the Church.

The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad has been steadfast in her actions to reveal the true nature of ecumenism:

— in 1965, concerning the lifting of the anathemas of 1054,

— in 1969, concerning common prayer and the pronouncements of Archbishop Iakovos, Constantinople’s Exarch in America,

— in 1969, the first Sorrowful Epistle of Metropolitan Philaret to all Orthodox hierarchs,

— in 1972, the Second Sorrowful Epistle,

— in 1975, concerning the Thyateira Confession,

— in many different circumstances, by means of articles, conferences, reports to the Council of Bishops by Archbishops Vitaly, Averky, Anthony, Bishop Gregory…

— in 1984, the anathema against ecumenism and all those who confess it.

THE RESOLUTION CONCERNING THE ANATHEMA

“To those who attack the Church of Christ by teaching that Christ’s Church is divided into so-called branches which differ in doctrine and way of life, or that the Church does not exist
visibly, but will be formed in the future when all branches or sects or denominations, or even religions, will be united into one body, and who do not distinguish the priesthood and mysteries of the Church from those of heretics, but say that the baptism and eucharist of heretics is effectual for salvation; therefore to those who knowingly have communion with these aforementioned heretics, or advocate, disseminate, or defend their new heresy of Ecumenism under the pretext of brotherly love or the supposed unification of separated Christians: ANATHEMA!”

The outcome of a long series of explanations and warnings, the present resolution has assumed above all else a prophetic character. It will serve as a yardstick, like so many other canons, when, in a future which promises to become increasingly difficult, a choice will have to be made in order to get away from the confusion which is adversely affecting all aspects of Church life. This is certainly an important Church CANON which has emerged.

However, as in the case of a surgical instrument which is in contact with living flesh, this canon must be used prudently and proficiently and with the concern of one bestowing care, by subscribing to the Church’s economy of salvation.

In the history of the Church, there have been numerous occasions on which Christians, animated by zeal, have passed judgement on people by having recourse to such and such a canon. This practice was so widespread in Christian society in his day that St. John Chrysostom was alarmed by it: “But who do you think that you are? What power or authority do you possess? Is the Son of God about to sit in judgement, to allow His sheep to be separated, on your orders, putting some on His right and thrusting others away on His left? Why do you usurp this eminent dignity, in which only the college of the Apostles has a share, together with those who, through the strict perfection of their lives, have shown themselves to be their successors, filled with grace and virtues?

“Teach,” says St. Paul, “by correcting with meekness those who hold out against the truth, in the hope that God will one day give them the spirit of repentance so as to bring them to a knowledge of the truth”…“Correct, as being opposed to apostolic tradition, that which prejudice or ignorance passes off as being true. And if the unfortunate man, who adopted the error, wishes to accept your teaching he will live in true life; you will have saved his soul” (cf. Ezekiel 3:21). If he refuses, if he resists and remains stubborn, be content to safeguard your responsibility to “bear witness to the truth in meekness and patience; from that time on the Sovereign Judge will no longer require you to claim back your brother’s soul.” St. John Chrysostom, That One is not Required to Anathematize the Living or the Dead.

By drawing our inspiration from these words, our attitude will in all things be directed by discernment, being firm with regard to ourselves, and showing a pastoral attitude towards others. We shall avoid associating with ecumenists and with ecumenically-minded Orthodox by keeping away from their meetings, so that we do not implicitly avow that they are right. We shall not pass individual judgements on their adherence to the Church, leaving that to those who have the authority to do so, and concentrating our attention on keeping ourselves within the Church, and welcoming those who come to us in the love of the Church, helping people without condemning them, for they risk an existence separate from us if they stray further away.

ARCHBISHOP ANTHONY’S COMMENTS ON THE ANATHEMA

The right to condemn false doctrines and to anathematize on a universal scale belongs to Pan-Orthodox Ecumenical Councils that have been properly convened and which are recognized by the whole Church. Alas, in our times the summoning of an Ecumenical Council is unrealizable, because most of the autocephalous Churches, so far as their official representatives are concerned, are deprived of freedom of opinion and of action.

But as some false doctrines which trouble the faithful can appear within each local Church’s jurisdictional area, it is the duty of each Church’s episcopate to ascertain collectively whether this doctrine is inconsistent with the truth of Christ. The episcopate then has to say why this doctrine is false and to advise the faithful not to adhere to it. An injudicious interest in a false doctrine, which appears to be a novelty, can lead someone who has become interested in it, and whose interest in it has become established, to find himself outside the Church, without his being aware of it. It is possible for him to part company from the Church, and to make himself liable to anathema.

The authority and right of each local Church’s episcopate to instruct extends solely to her own faithful.

Thus, in keeping with the canons, the episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, noticing that some of her members were becoming too interested in contemporary ecumenism, and accepting the belief that ecumenism is a heresy which contradicts the dogma of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, deemed it necessary to guard her flock from danger. On the first Sunday of Great Lent, during the Rite of Orthodoxy, condemnation of the ecumenists has been added to the long list of heresiarchs. Nevertheless, the text of this anathema does not mention anyone by name. It is difficult, even impossible, to estimate to what degree an individual has rejected the dogma of the One and indivisible Church, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. How can one judge to what extent a person accepts ecumenical doctrine, which says that the Church has broken up and has divided Herself and no longer exists, so that in order for Her to be restored the fragments must be collected together and assembled, and one must await a new Pentecost, a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit onto this ecumenical “Church.”

Let us hope that, if there are such blasphemers of the Truth among our flock, who are acting consciously, they are not numerous. By the anathema the Church is saying to believers: “Beware of them. They used to belong to us, but they have since left us; they are not part of us any longer. The Church, ‘the pillar and bulwark of the Truth!’ according to the Apostle’s testimony, commits them to the highest tribunal — the tribunal of God.”

But among our flock there are certainly some who are sympathetic to ecumenism, who consider it to be a novelty worth their interest, and who justify themselves in a hypocritical way, under the pretext of mutual love between “Christians” of different confessions. They say that love covers all things, even disobedience to the Church’s teaching. Among them there are those who uphold ecumenism for idealistic reasons, who spread their false teachings in the world without understanding the evil which they are doing to their neighbor.

The episcopate of our Church has done its duty in warning its faithful of the danger. “They that have ears to hear, let them hear.”

“Christians must live in mutual love, but for that reason they must not sacrifice the Truth.”

(Geneva, May 1984)

 

A Statement on the anathema against ecumenism, prepared at Villemoisson on December 8, 1985, by the priest Benjamin Joukoff.