The Challenge of Ecumenism: The Rise of Sectarianism Amongst Orthodox

Fr. Michael Azkoul

Source: Orthodox Life, Vol. 23, No. 6, November-December 1973, pp. 22-36.

 

 

“I realized in my conversation that there are Catholics who venerate our saints in the same way they venerate those of their own Church,” wrote Metropolitan Eulogius after his meeting with Abbé Couturier in October of 1934. “They are right. For men like St. Seraphim, St. Francis of Assisi and many others have accomplished in their own lives the union of the Churches. Are they not citizens of the same Church, a Church holy and universal? On the heights of their spiritual lives have they not passed beyond the walls that separate us, “walls which’, according to the grand saying of Metropolitan Platon of Kiev, ‘do not reach to heaven.’” [1] It is not important that Platon may never have made the statement about the “walls”, but that Eulogius quoted what has become an ecumenical platitude. Apparently, this bishop, invited to be one of the founders of the World Council of Churches, viewed the Orthodox Faith in a light alien to Her Tradition. Indeed, he may never have been persuaded that the religion of which he was a High Priest is “the whole and Only Church, the Body of Christ” (Metropolitan Germanos of Thyatire), [2] but when Eulogius settled in Paris he appears to have lost whatever suspicion he may have had concerning that possibility.

Thus, in a letter of Dec. 5, 1934 (12 Rue Daru, Paris), he replied to Abbé Couturier,

“Reverend Father, In answer to your letter of 16 Nov. on the subject of the Octave of Prayer for the unity of the Churches, I have great pleasure in intimating to you that I will join very gladly in the Octave of Prayer in the spirit of the holy Orthodox Church; that is to say, in praying for the union of the holy churches of God [3] while safeguarding the fulness of their honours and rights — in the spirit proper to Orthodox with regard to reciprocal independence, liberty and equality in apostolic brotherhood, recalling the words by God in the Third Ecumenical Council on the subject of liberty which has been given through ‘the blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ, liberator of the human race’ (8th canon of the Council)…” [4]

Metropolitan Eulogius suggests that “Christian unity” is nothing less than the reunion of many “churches” and therefore consents to the Octave of Prayer. Not only did he affirm it here but in his own ecumenical activity and through that which he encouraged, in particular by the faculty of the St. Sergius Seminary. With his blessings the professors became involved in the world Christian Student Movement, the YMCA and various ecumenical organizations, including the Fellowship of Sts. Alban and Sergius. This organization eventually became a “centre of various ecumenical experiments,” not the least of which was St. Basil’s House which contained both an Orthodox and Anglican altar at which the Eucharist was offered for “the reunion of the Church.” [5] Eulogius and others were also members of the Anglican Society of St. John the Evangelist. Finally, when cautioned by the Karlovtsy Synod (and in support of Bulgakov’s sophiology), he withdrew (while under Moscow’s excommunication) and entered the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

The case of Metropolitan Eulogius illustrates the challenge of the ecumenical movement to the Church. In fact, we learn as much about the man as we do about that which seduced him. He was susceptible to ecumenical overtures, because he was, at least, a latent “Orthodox sectarian”, that is, he probably never believed that the Orthodox Church is “the Universal Church, having preserved the whole deposit of Christ uncorruptedly” (Encyclical of the Orthodox Patriarchs, 1902). “Our Russian Church was and is a national Church,” he once remarked, “and for my part I cannot conquer flesh and blood. I cannot live in the supreme Christian ideal… I am sorry, but there it is!” [6] His theological attitudes were forged not by the Faith of the Church, but personal experience — in Kholm and Volynia? as a member of the Duma? the émigration? — and probably the intimidating intellectual prowess of those Russian theologians and philosophers with which he surrounded himself. [7]

Now, the story of Metropolitan Eulogius is not unusual. His mind is characteristic of all “Orthodox sectarians”. One cannot safely generalize about the emotional and intellectual factors which contributes to their religious opinions and we are inclined to believe that those factors are not determinative. Nevertheless, the “sectarians” all have in common — and it is our definition of them — an anti-traditional ecclesiology which reduces Orthodoxy to a sect within the Universal Church. Any loyalty they may have toward Orthodoxy is not based on the conviction of her privilege as the new Israel, but a strictly personal bias which they themselves are not always willing or able to elucidate. Some of the “sectarians” have the good fortune to be articulate, even learned, but that advantage only blinds them to their apostasy and, to outsiders, gives an image of credibility and authority.

One example is Fr. Sergius Bulgakov, late Dean of the St. Sergius Seminary in Paris. Not unlike his bishop, Metropolitan Eulogius, he believed the Russian Church was a “national church”, but with a divine mission to be the elan of the movement for the “reunion” of Christianity. His inspiration for this idea was probably Vladimir Soloviev. Bulgakov did not teach that the Orthodox Church was the Church and, consequently, was a thumping advocate of “the common cup” to facilitate “Christian unity”. “The way towards reunion of East and West does not lie through tournaments between theologians but through reunion at the altar,” he exclaimed. “Both priesthoods (here Anglican and Orthodox) must realize they are one, and if the minds of the priests could become aflame with this idea, all the barriers would fall, for in response to this, dogmatic unity would be achieved, or rather mutual understanding of one another in our distinctive traditions.” [8] In The Restoration of Christian Unity, Fr. Sergius wrote in the same terms, “the splits within the Church do not reach its foundations; in its sacramental life the Church remains one, and this is especially true as regards Orthodoxy and Catholicism.” [9]

Despite his denials, Bulgakov was a “confessional relativist”, that is, he believed that Protestants, Anglicans and Papists (as well as the Orthodox) would be saved within their own “traditions”. He was known to urge prospective converts to Orthodoxy to return to their own “church”. And, incidentally, his defense of the Theotokos before Protestants proves only that he had a “confessional loyalty” and, perhaps, since he thought she was, in a sense, “the divine Sophia”, he was in fact defending no less than his own gnostic theology. Moreover, he was an indefatigable violator of the canons, praying and worshipping with all heterodox. Whether he shared “the common cup” with them, we have been unable to determine, but he was not, in principle, opposed to it, as we learn from At Jacob’s Well. Whatever may have been his virtues as a man and his credentials as a metaphysician and theologian (and they were considerable), Fr. Bulgakov was an “Orthodox sectarian”. We strongly suspect that his ecumenism was a necessary deduction from his sophiology, but we have no time to discuss this matter here.

Bulgakov’s influence has been extensive, even to receiving the applause of the present Ecumenical Patriarch. We dare not say that he is responsible for the “action and vision” of all subsequent Orthodox ecumenism, for, to be sure, many have been more daring than he. Nevertheless, it would not be unfair to call him a witness, even a prototype. Today, at the same seminary, Olivier Clement does not hesitate to speak of Orthodoxy as “one of the three major expressions of historic Christianity.” [10] And Paul Evdokimov, in his Struggle with God (1966), pleads for an “ecumenical epiklesis”, invoking the Holy Spirit to descend and reunite “the Churches”.

Of course, the “sectarian” mentality was not born at St. Sergius nor do all of them draw their inspiration from Fr. Bulgakov. We cannot identify its origin, but, perhaps, it was given impetus at Constantinople when Patriarch Constantine V invited the World Student Christian Federation to hold its convention there in 1911; or, perhaps, the encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarch (1920) was responsible. That Patriarchate seems to have produced some of the most zealous twentieth century ecumenists, such as Athenagoras I and the Greek Metropolitan of Chalcedon who recently asserted that, although he considers himself a faithful Orthodox, “any church which thinks itself to be alone the right way (orthen odon) is inspired by Lucifer.” [11] Again, in the official publication of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America, the comment by Archbishop Iakovos that Orthodoxy is only “a facet of the Universal Church” is regularly quoted on the inside cover.

2.

There is another dimension of 20th century “sectarianism” which is illustrated by Orthodox theologians seeking somehow to mediate the sentimentality of the “left” and the historical imperatives of the Orthodox Tradition. Thus, Professor Leo Zander of St. Sergius Seminary is convinced that Orthodoxy and modern ecumenism are not incompatible. He states that the Orthodox Church possesses “the fulness of divinely revealed truth” and “is always conscious of itself as the Church” (“The Ecum. Mov. and the Orth. Ch.”, Ecum. Rev. I, 3 (1949), 273); but yet he believes that in the West “vestiges of truth” remain, “seeds of Orthodoxy” which provide the basis and possibility of “unity” with Western Confessions. There is, consequently, already a spiritual brotherhood between East and West. Many Western Christians, he says, are “unconsciously Orthodox,” Orthodox without being visibly members of the Church. The Anglican Confession especially shelters “enclaves of Orthodoxy” which are “from the dogmatic point of view Orthodox.” Thus, in his article Western Orthodoxy, he declares that any Sacrament administered by a non-Orthodox who believes rightly concerning them and without any intent to “proselytize”, that Sacrament is “valid” and we have the phenomenon Zander calls “Western Orthodoxy”. And, to be sure, the same conditions must prevail if an Orthodox Sacrament is to be “valid.”

Zander’s ecclesiology is not “traditional”, not patristic and moves dangerously close to “docetism”. Moreover, he advocated common prayer, retreats, fellowships — the Sacred Canons, notwithstanding [12] — and “the flight (survol) over confessional limitations”. The “flight” means that the “theological differences” between Christians are neither forgotten nor denied, but it argues that “the walls of separation do not reach heaven”. Although Professor Zander agreed with the Orthodox position that there could be no “church union” without doctrinal unanimity, he proposed that ecumenists erect three tabernacles on “one mountain”, Orthodox, Papists and Protestants “all working for the glory of God” (“The Ec. Mov. and the O.C.”, 274). In a word, he juggles traditional ecclesiology in Order to justify his “synthesis” and in the process compromise the Orthodox Faith.

Now, Zander might have been aware that his position is not entirely consistent; therefore, he retreats within the citadel of the “sectarian’s” ultimate theological datum — “love.” “Ecumenism
is, in the first instance, a call to love without which there can be no unity of faith,” he wrote (op. lit.), “and, consequently, no Church union…” Reading his books and articles, one finds inevitably references to “love” which leaves the reader with the impression that “love” is theological justification for the Orthodox ecumenical venture, if not central to any apologia for the whole movement of “Christian unity”. Conspicuously absent, too, from Zander’s writings — and all “sectarian” literature — is a patristic evaluation of “unity” with the heterodox and “love” as an argument for it. No Orthodox, in my experience, rejects “love” and “unity”, but such motives cannot be set in opposition to the Truth, the saving Truth which Orthodoxy alone possesses and offers to all men. Neither does “love” as a means to “unity” justify the kind of theological and canonical acrobatics of which the “sectarians” have become so notorious.

Whatever the differences may exist between them and whatever their disenchantment with classical Orthodoxy, ecumenists generally have adopted what Athenagoras I of Constantinople calls, “the theology of love”. “If… certain theological differences still exist,” he wrote in his Christmas Encyclical of 1967, “the sun of love makes them fade away, and brings us under full sail to the ancient belief that we belong to the same Religion and Church of Christ.” Perhaps, not all Orthodox ecumenists will subscribe to these words in toto, but they are compelled to support them, if for no other reason than that “theology” (and the Ecumenical Patriarch) are ineradicably part of the ecumenical “package”. No doubt there is no fair way to “box” all Orthodox ecumenists — some of whom are apostates — but the variety of attitudes simply proves that their positions are incongruous and their ground uncertain. Ironically, the word “love” has tended to classify ecumenists in the eyes of traditionalists: not as men of compassion, a new and zealous breed of Orthodox, but as a lot of avant-garde “liberals” whose Orthodoxy is as tepid as their apostasy is hot. Their image is not improved when the “sectarians” use “love”, so dear to the Gospel message, to throttle all opposition and to justify every theological and canonical atrocity perpetrated in its name.

Nothing is more closely guarded than the word “love”, for upon it hangs the very life of the “sectarian” ecclesiology and without it, they would be forced to confront the rigid demands of theological reason, something they have already dismissed as anachronistic. So sensitive is their “theology of love” that anyone who dares to call for clarification of ecumenical rhetoric is immediately labeled a “fanatic”, “reactionary”, “hothouse”, “obscurantist” and a “confessional jingo”. He will not even “dialogue” with the traditionalist and permits no discussion of his “dogmata”, especially not “love”. In this same connection, there seems a general despair, if not a growing indifference among “sectarians”, to theological reconciliation with “separated brethren”. Thus, the sanguine remarks of Archbishop Iakovos in the April 1961 issue of the Orthodox Observer that the “churches” ought to forget “arguments and pseudo-documents to prove... that ours is the Christ and ours is the Church”. Rather “love” and “living together and praying together without any walls of partition raised, whether racial or religious prejudice” will unite Christians.

In effect, the “sectarian” is saying that there is no heresy, no orthodoxy, and no fundamental difference between Orthodox, Papist, Anglican, Calvinist, Lutheran and the modern Nestorian and Monophysite. But, then, what do they say accounts for the theological disparity between the Christian “sects”? Obviously, if the Church is the Body of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the differences in doctrine are man-made. One can hardly disagree, but no true Orthodox will admit that his Church is guilty of heresy, for “among us innovations cannot be introduced, neither by Patriarch nor Councils” (Encyclical of the Orthodox Patriarchs, 1848). Moreover, we do not recognize the validity of the “sectarian” dogmengeschichte that Orthodoxy must share in the blame for “the division of the Church” and, therefore, in terms of the ecumenical situation make changes in Her beliefs and life-style. [13]

Neither can any idea of “love” lead Orthodoxy to make such concessions, for, as Dr. Stratman once observed, “love” does not mean “joining the non-Orthodox in a fellowship of heresy”. [14] Such observations are somehow futile, because the “sectarian” is not listening — in fact, all communication between the “sectarian” and the traditionalist [15] seems to have broken down. If the latter raises the question of “heresy”, he is given a lecture on the perils of “medieval” thinking. Any conversation with the “sectarian” brings the Orthodox to the realization that new meanings have been assigned to their common language. The “sectarian” quotes the Bible, but the verses fit an unfamiliar context. He cites the Fathers who have somehow become disciples of twentieth century ecumenism. The decisions of the Ecumenical Councils are either a “common heritage” of the “churches” or “symbols” and “allegories of the truth”. St. Photius and St. Mark of Ephesus, St. Gregory Palamas, Dositheus of Jerusalem, Jeremiah II of Constantinople, all Orthodox councils and declarations against “Western innovations” are relative and dull. And if one mentions Orthodox Spirituality, we are reminded firstly that the Orthodox, Papists and Anglicans share a common “tradition”, that secondly, it might be irrelevant to the modern world and, lastly, Spirituality of the Orthodox type is really necessary or important to him who wishes to practice it.

4.

In vogue with “sectarian Orthodox” are the two unhappy sophistries — “unity within diversity” (e.g., John, Greek bishop of Houston) and “limiting the Holy Spirit through legalism” (e.g., Athenagoras, the Greek Archbishop of London).

The concept of “unity within diversity”, as ecumenically interpreted by the “sectarians”, cannot be “squared” with the Orthodox understanding of dogma and doctrine. “Diversity” is permissible only when applied to customs, liturgies, language and, with reference to theology, only to those matters not defined by the Church. “Pious opinions” (theologoumena), “opinions” concerning religious teachings lacking conciliar clarification, patristic disapproval or Scriptural interdict, must never be preached from the ambon nor publically declared as official beliefs of the Church. Yet, although the Church has teachings to which all Her members must adhere (dogma) and although there are some beliefs within Her Tradition which are not defined (doctrine), the two are not in conflict. (In any case, Orthodoxy has a tendency to avoid definitions of faith). There are in fact no private theologoumena — all “opinions” must spring from the experience in Her Life and all “opinions” in conflict with Her Tradition must be viewed as “impious”. In other words, “unity within diversity” means for the Orthodox no more than a certain “liberty”, a “choice” between the possibilities afforded by the Orthodox Way. Never has theologoumena the right to hold “personal doctrine” in opposition to the Church, as St. Maximus the Confessor said (Rel. Mot., 6).

As far as the Sacred Canons are concerned, we resent the intellectual dishonesty of those who demand that we accept the option: ecumenism or legalism. Why is the strict application of ecclesiastical law to be equated with “legalism”? Under what conditions is a direct and literal exercise of the canons permissible? Why was it permitted in the past, but in the ecumenical situation very little if at all? How, indeed, is the Holy Spirit “limited” by our obedience to the canons for which He is responsible? [16] If the “sectarian” does not altogether deny the value of the Sacred Canons, then, we should be happy if he would provide us with a principle which would decide when the “letter” is applicable — according to the Orthodox Tradition or even in generally rational terms.

Clearly, if the canons are to be effective, if “law” is to have any relevance in the Life of the Church, the “exception” must not become the “rule”. In addition, there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the “spirit” of the Sacred Canons implies the abrogation of the “letter”. For example, the so-called episcopal “dispensation” (oikonomia) has never meant disregard for the written formulae; it is merely a less stringent application of a particular canon, that is, if the “dispensation” or “accommodation” proves more beneficial to the Church than the “strict” exercise (akribeia) of it. In no case, however, does akribeia cease to be the norm. The “spirit” of the Sacred Canons is precisely that all benefit which accrues from “accommodation” advances the purposes of the Church without compromising Her Faith, for the canons are nothing more than statuatory expressions of that Faith. They exist to perfect men in Christ, to create the “new man”, to frustrate the believer’s self-will and to re-make him in selflessness of the Lord. The Sacred Canons of the Orthodox Church do not have as their purpose, as it was for ancient Roman law, simply to govern relationships between men. In other terms, the false antithesis between “letter” and “spirit” is merely a pretext to ensure the right of the “sectarian” to continue his outrageous flaunting of the canon law. Likewise, all the talk about “limiting the Holy Spirit” by canonical “legalism” is so much nonsense, since not only is God the author of the Sacred Canons but He “bloweth where He listeth” (John 3:6). We suggest, too, that all the tautology about the “letter killeth” is no more than the voice of apostasy which has no mitigation by virtue of the fact that canonical violations are committed in the name of “love”.

5.

If what we say is true, then, there is no way to explain the attitudes of the “Orthodox sectarians” except as a form of romantic irrationalism. [17] All the “desperate appeals”, “open letters”, “protests”, “denunciations” are futile. The Orthodox converted to “sectarianism” no longer operate on the same “wave length” with the Church and all attempts to contact them results only in “static”. There is no way to tell Metropolitan Nikodim and the Moscow Patriarchate that sharing the Eucharist with heterodox and schismatics is a naked transgression of Orthodox doctrine and canons. Why would Patriarch Justinian believe that worshipping with Calvinists and Anglicans need injure the consciences of his flock? Why should not Cardinal Cooke be permitted to bless the Orthodox Faithful or Methodists participate in an Orthodox Paschal Liturgy? Is there any reason why Archbishop Iakovos should not have dropped the name of the Theotokos from the Great Ektenia during his television liturgies? If the word “obsession” was not so facile and the word “prelest” not so dangerous, there would be good reason to apply them to describe the mischief of the “sectarians”. In the simplest terms, however, they cannot be reached because they do not believe that Orthodoxy is the Israel of God.

A new world epoch requires new attributes, they tell us prophetically. The “old ways” have been revealed by the “new Pentecost” (i.e., Ecumenism) to be obsolete while, at the same time, God has given to His Church a new perspective — but really not “new”, for “love” has been preached from the beginning as the basis of Church unity (I Cor. 12-13). The “new revelation” is merely a certification that all “churches” which recognize Jesus Christ as “Lord and Saviour” are in His sight essentially “one flock”. He no longer wishes theology and canons to obscure the Truth and divide His children. Thus, through “great events and great men”, God is teaching us that “love” will overcome all impediments to “unity”. No doubt each “tradition” has something of profit to the others, but there is no “right way”, no unique corpus of doctrine which all must adopt, no single “church” which offers a life-experience without which it is impossible to be saved — nay, for all “denominations” together, as if currents within one great river, run to their appointed destiny.

Unfortunately, the “sectarian” has not taken the time to assess the damage done to the Christian Revelation by his utopianism. Yet, how can he? Beginning with the premise that God has brought us to a new plateau in “the history of salvation”, the “sectarian” has already “transvaluated” the past. He seems unwilling to concede that the truths of Orthodoxy are timeless and Her way of Life relevant to every “age of man”. If we look at his position only from the epistemological point of view, we discover the terror into which he would cast us. Without a set of beliefs to which to adhere, without teachings that are as infallible as they are clear, we have no way to identify ourselves as Christians and worse, the lack and/or ignorance of them would be tantamount to an annihilation of the whole “economy of salvation”. Not knowing what to believe would be no better than having nothing to believe. If there were no ecclesiological “absolutes”, no “categorical imperatives”, no doctrinal certainty, then, how should we know the Will of God? And if God speaks to each man differently, how could we believe that He is not a “God of confusion” (contrary to the words of St. Paul)? Even if we have the Bible, the Councils, the Fathers, ascetics, confessors, martyrs and we cannot understand them, if their experience was peculiar and we cannot share the same knowledge, the same joy, the same grace, then they have no value for us and it would be as if they never existed.

Moreover, if there is no undisguised “right way”, how shall there be “the building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to the mature manhood of Christ, to the measure of His full stature”, when doubt and ignorance shall leave us “children, tossed to and fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness and deceit”? And how shall anyone “speak the truth in love” and “grow in every way unto Him Who is the Head, unto Christ” (Eph. 4:13-15)? What, also, does “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5) mean if the Church is filled with “churches” who can agree on neither the nature of the Lord, the faith or the baptism? Indeed, where are the “limits” of the Church if even the words “Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” has more than one meaning and, as it does, belongs to a whole complex of beliefs about which there is no agreement and no certainty? What shall we say about the ancient heresies, seeing that many of them can fit under the cover of this phrase? Were they also members of the Church or was the Church always composed of many faiths? Was the Church never an “organic unity”? If so, then, there never was a Church, only the hope for one.

But we Orthodox know there has always been a Church which has made available to mankind a sure Piety, an indubitable Way to salvation. The Orthodox Church is the Church of God, His Bride, His Body, His Israel. There is none beside Her. We know not only by faith and not merely by what evidence there is for our belief, but from experience, the insights, the understanding which comes from the life in Orthodoxy. No one outside the Orthodox Church can possess them. She enriches those who live in obedience and trust while those who withdraw from Her Tradition into egotistical isolation eventually drop away like withered limbs. Our conviction issues not from “prejudice”, but from the assurance the “right way” gives. We are not unaware that many sincere people make the same claim for their “way”, but we have no interest either to deny their sincerity nor to dispute their belief. We do not doubt, also, that the non-Orthodox injure the credibility of the Orthodox witness to Christ as much as do the “false brethren”, the “sectarians”.

There is nothing more painful to the Church than the unbelief of Her sons. In the present ecumenical situation, the Orthodox ecumenists, especially the very large and boisterous “sectarian” wing, have become the gravest challenge to Orthodoxy. The worst offenders, of course, are those who bear the mantle of authority, the bishops, who are expected to teach the Faith to their flocks and proclaim it to outsiders. Instead we find them “bare-facedly” announcing a personal brand of Orthodoxy and, hence, renouncing their sacred duty sworn before God at the time of their consecrations: “In this my confession of the Holy Faith, I promise to observe the Canons . . . the tradition of the Church . . . the holy Fathers; and all things whatsoever they have accepted, I accept; and whatsoever they have rejected, I reject…” It matters not that they may have understood their oath in one way then and in a “new and enlightened manner” now, for, at their elevation to the episcopate, these men were fully cognizant that their oath bound them to fulfill its obligations forever in the same way. It contains no clause which permits anything but the interpretation that the Church has always placed on the oath. They should not have assumed the office of bishop if they did not wish to bind themselves for the future.

If only the “sectarian bishops” were poor administrators, unlearned, even immoral — but they are not and are without excuse. Honesty compels us to say, however, that not all ecumenist bishops should be classified with the “sectarians”; and, surely, some of them recognize the danger of extremism and, therefore, insist upon an established body of doctrine and dogma. They do, also, view the Orthodox Church as more than a “facet of the Universal Church”, but they are eccentrics, a tolerated quality within the broad spectrum of ecumenical thought. It is to their credit, also, that they require their priests to believe that Orthodoxy is the True Church. [18] Nevertheless, the stage belongs to the “sectarians”, to those approved by the majority. How long the “moderates” will be able to withstand the pressure from the “radicals” is difficult to say. The former must know, too, that their ecumenical activity, usually involving the breaking of the canon law and spurning the counsel of the Holy Fathers, offers tacit approval to the whole direction and spirit of the Ecumenical Movement and to the attitudes of the “sectarians” with whom they claim to disagree.

However one looks at the Ecumenical Movement (and whatever may be the dreams of Orthodox ecumenists concerning it), the ecumenical ideology cannot be reconciled with traditional Orthodox ecclesiology. There is no way between ecumenical pluralism and relativism and the idea of Orthodoxy as the Church of Christ. She has never believed that every so-called “Christian Confession” belongs to the New Israel. Neither has She ever taught that the Church is merely a collocation of “churches” holding different and rival creeds. And no true Orthodox will agree with Patriarch Athenagoras that “Christian unity” means “re-founding” the Church. For the Orthodox “unity” in Christ is “unity” in Orthodoxy, all men gathered into Her fold. There is here no bigotry, no hate, no self-righteousness, merely gratitude to God for a privilege. That some “Orthodox” think that humility, goodness and love consist in denying Her that privilege is to us a source of amazement. Perhaps, the Fathers have the answer to the present dilemma. As St. Hilary of Poitiers describes it, the situation in the 4th century was not unlike our own:

“Multitudes of churches, in almost every province of the Roman Empire, have already caught the plague of this deadly doctrine; error, persistently inculcated and falsely claiming to be the truth, has become ingrained in minds which vainly imagine that they are loyal to the Faith. I know how infrequently the will is moved to recant thoroughly, when zeal for a mistaken cause is encouraged by the sense of numbers and confirmed by the sanction of general approval. A multitude under delusion can only be approached with difficulty and danger. When the crowd has gone astray, even though it know that it is wrong, it is ashamed to return. It claims consideration for its numbers and has the assurance to command that its folly shall be accounted wisdom. It assumes that its size is evidence of the correctness of its opinions; and thus a falsehood which has found general credence is boldly asserted to have established its truth.” [19]

 

FOOTNOTES

1. Quoted, G. Curtis, Paul Couturier and Unity in Christ. Westminster (Md.), 1946, p. 72.

2. See The Third World Conference of Faith and Order, ed. by Oliver Tomkins. Amsterdam, 1953, pp. 123-26.

3. Probably an incorrect reference to the petition in the Great Litany, “For the peace of the whole world, for the good estate of the holy churches of God and for the union of them all…” The “holy churches” herein mentioned, if we do not misunderstand St. John Chrysostom, are those adhering to the Apostolic Faith. According to traditional ecclesiology, each bishop and his flock constitute a church. The totality of “local churches” comprises the Universal or Catholic Church. Heresy is deviation from that Faith and heretics, if we may believe the Scriptures and the Fathers, are not members of the Church. See also the Encyclical Epistle of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church to The Faithful Everywhere by the Eastern Patriarchs (1848), esp. sec. 20-22. Metropolitan Eulogius’ opinions conflict with the Encyclical.

4. Curtis, op. cit. Concerning the 8th canon of the 3rd EC to which the Metropolitan alludes, there can be no application here. The canon forbids that any “bishop shall take hold of any other province that was formerly and from the beginning not in his jurisdiction, or was not… held by his predecessor.” The words “the freedom which our Lord Jesus Christ, the Liberator of all men” are present in the text (The Rudder. Cummings trans., pp. 230-234), but using this phrase (and the canon) here has no canonical meaning. Moreover, if he employs the canon as if it were somehow relevant to the papal episcopate and the ecumenical situation, Eulogius clearly offers an ecclesiology unknown to the Orthodox Church.

5. N. Zernov, “The Eastern Churches and the Ecumenical Movement in the Twentieth Century”, A History of the Ecumenical Movement (1517-1948), ed. by R. Rouse and S.C. Neil. London, 1954, pp. 663-668.

6. In Curtis, p. 71.

7. We have not the space to develop this point further. Suffice it to say that some of the Russian intellectuals of the émigration (e.g., Fr. Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Zenkovsky, etc.) were deeply involved in the European movements for “Christian unity”, e.g., World Student Christian Federation, YMCA, the Istina center, Cimade, the Comité Interorthodoxe d’ action oecuménique, etc. The “confessional relativism” of these thinkers was never censured by His Eminence nor were blatantly heretical writings, such as Lev Zander’s Vision and Action, ever condemned.

8. Quoted, N. Zernov, The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century. New York, 1963, p. 263.

9. Op. cit., 257.

10. L’ Eglise Orthodoxe. Paris, 1961, p. 5.

11. Meliton of Chalcedon, Serm. at the Prot. of the Holy Mount, in Orth. Parousia (2). Athens (1965), 344.

12. Zander concurs with Bulgakov that “the canons of the Orthodox Church must not be utilized as a club in order to knock them (non-Orthodox) on the head” (“Die westliche Orthodoxie”, in Theologische Existenz Heute (73). Munchen, 1959, p. 16). No Orthodox believes that the canons should be applied without charity, but Zander was a captive of his own unfortunate rhetoric. It became for him an opportunity for ignoring the Sacred Canons.

13. See Rev. N. Patrinacos, The Individual and His Orthodox Church. New York, 1970; and his editorial, “Fears Unfounded”, The Orthodox Observer. May, 1968.

14. Dr. Chrysostomos Stratman, “Logos or Janus”, The Logos, II, 1 (1969), 14.

15. By “tradition” or “traditional”, we do not mean acceptance of the status quo. There is too much in contemporary Orthodoxy which is not “traditional”, too much which is inveterate error. Only that is “tradition” which is approved by the Scriptures, the Councils and the Holy Fathers. Anything else may be changed and/or discarded.

16. The famous German historian of Canon Law, Rudolf Sohm, in his Outlines of Church History and Die Grundlegung des Kirchenrechts argued that Canon Law arose in the early Church as the result of Her spiritual decline. The primitive community, he said, lived a “fellowship of love” that sprang from the direct experience of the Holy Spirit. With the development of the Canon Law, the “freedom of the Holy Spirit” in the Church was “repressed” and “inspired leadership” in the Church was replaced by an ecclesiastical bureaucracy. Ernst Benz, the Protestant theologian, rejects Sohm’s thesis. The primitive Church was indeed “ruled by law, for even the earliest communities wished to be guided by the apostles’ instructions. The pastoral epistles of Paul virtually established the constitution of the Church. Moreover, the authority of the Holy Spirit transformed the commands of the prophets within the Church into statutes of permanent validity. Spirit and law were not opposites; spiritual holiness created sacred Law; the authority of the one upheld the authority of the other” (The Eastern Orthodox Church: Its Thought and Life. New York, 1963, p. 65). Furthermore, that the strict (akrebeia) understanding of the Sacred Canons is the norm may be seen from the second canon of the Seventh Ecumenical Council which declared, “... we corroborate the entire and rigid fiat of them which have been set forth by the renowned Apostles, who were and are trumpets of the Spirit, and those both of the six (other) holy Ecumenical Councils and of the ones assembled regionally for the purpose of establishing such edicts, and of those of our holy Fathers. For all those men, having been guided by the light dawning out of the same Spirit, prescribed rules that are in our best interest...” (The Rudder, p. 428). Finally, the “sectarian” argument that the normally strict exercise of the canons “killeth” but their “spirit gives life” (II Cor. 3,6) is an obvious distortion. St. Paul does not oppose “law” to “spirit”, but gramma (letter) to pneuma (spirit), i.e., “the law of Moses” to “the grace of baptism”, meaning that the Mosaic Law does not save. See St. John Chrysostom, Ad II Cor., hom. VI, 2 PG 61 438.

17. By “romantic irrationalism”, we mean the separation of theology from feeling and faith, indifference to the criteria of the Apostolic Tradition and the obscuring of it by personal intuitions and unexamined future goals.

18. Fr. Paul Schneirla, Associate Professor of Old Testament at the St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary, Secretary to the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in America, and chancellor of the Syrian Orthodox Church in America, has written me several times that he believes Orthodoxy to be precisely the Church outside of which there is no salvation (e.g., 7 Nov., 1968). Nevertheless, he worships with the heterodox and seems to enjoy writing diatribes against the Russian Synod. (See his vitriolic review of Dr. Kalomiros’ Against False Union (St. Vladimir’s Sem. Quart. XII, 2 (1968), 87-88). He fails to grasp that the real problem is not “hothouse Orthodox” opposition to the desire for “the unity of Christians”, but the collision between two worldviews.

19. De Trinit. VI, 1.