Ecumenism: The Overturning of the Gospel

Panagiotis Simatis, Professor of Theology

 

 

On the occasion of the Matins Gospel:

“GOING FORTH” COMPROMISE WITH “ALL NATIONS,” “TEACHING THEM” TO SET ASIDE “ALL THAT I COMMANDED YOU”

The divine Chrysostom points out that, during the days of the great feasts of the Jews, Christ was regularly among the Jews who were streaming into Jerusalem, in order to celebrate with them and, through His miracles and His teaching, to draw the guileless and simple people. For Christ had a greater concern to heal them and to offer them salvation than they themselves desired healing.

“For what reason, then, does Christ continually come to Jerusalem and spend time among the Jews during the feasts? So as to take hold of those who were sick, that He might draw to Himself the guileless multitude? For those who were suffering did not have so great a desire to be delivered from their diseases as the Physician had made it His concern to deliver them from their sickness. Therefore, when their assembly was full, then, coming into the midst, He showed forth the things pertaining to the salvation of their soul.” (St. John Chrysostom, Against the Anomoeans, Hom. 12, and Commentary on John).

There are also people today who would like to find the One Truth, who seek to be healed from the paralysis of every sin and false belief. But the misfortune is that there are no healers! The majority of contemporary shepherds “in the place and type of Christ” have ended up, from being disciples of Christ, as functionaries of sacred rites or a kind of social welfare with a religious gilding, secularized and indifferent to the essence of what Christ came to offer man. There are, certainly, also those spiritual fathers who give all their strength for the guidance of contemporary man, but they fall into another temptation “from the right”: they seem to “show indifference” toward the contemporary heretics “within the walls,” toward the combating of heresy and the return of heretics to the One, Holy, Orthodox Church.

The misfortune, however, is that this apparent “indifference” is not really indifference, but a cowardice to confront the small in number, yet well-organized, ecumenist faction; and consequently it constitutes an acceptance of the conspiracy of silence which the Patriarchate of Constantinople has imposed above all, so that the faithful may not be informed about the heretically inclined policy of the Phanar!!! That is, the spiritual fathers refuse, invoking “discernment,” to approach, preach to, and heal those who have been afflicted by the paralysis of the heresy of Ecumenism, as well as of Papism and of the W.C.C.

Do they perhaps ignore the patristic teaching that heresy constitutes an infectious and incurable disease? “Do not make friendship with heretics, lest you become a partaker in their communion;... for each shall reap what he has sown.” (St. Ephraim the Syrian, On Repentance and Compunction).

“But if in the case of those who err in moral matters the harm is so great, what need is there to speak concerning those who are of false belief concerning God, whom false belief does not allow to be sound even in other matters, once they have been handed over, because of it, to the passions of dishonor?” (St. Basil the Great, Rules Briefly Treated, Question 20).

And: “The false belief of the heretics always goes toward the worse and becomes a greater wound... For this reason, Christians must avoid these and all heretics as pestilences and plagues, lest they also, together with them... be lost.” (St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite, Interpretation of the Fourteen Epistles of the Apostle Paul, vol. 3, pp. 318–319).

How is it possible, then, that, burying their heads in the sand like an ostrich, the shepherds pass over the harm suffered by the faithful, who are in communion with local heretical ecumenists (whose existence and heresy they are supposedly unaware of) but also the “blasphemy” which consists in the distortion of the Gospel, of Sacred Tradition, and of the dogmatic truth which the Ecumenists commit?

How do they tolerate the invocation of cheap excuses, so as not to name the heretics, and how is it possible that they do not perceive that these “excuses” express the quintessence of the pan-heresy of Ecumenism and have been put forward by the Ecumenists themselves?

1) Some spiritual fathers say, for example, that the Patriarch teaches “also” Orthodox things; as though they had never read ecclesiastical history, as though they did not know that most heretics began “in other respects” as Orthodox, apart from the one point which they taught in a false-believing manner; as though they did not know (and had not themselves taught us) that heresy consists in the setting aside of “one jot or one tittle,” according to the teaching of the Lord Himself!

2) They also say (depending each time on whom they are addressing): let us look to ourselves, to purification from the passions (and this is very correct); matters of the Faith and of our relations with heretics are within the competence of the shepherds (this, however, is a great error and a clearly anti-patristic position).

How do the clergy not perceive that in this way they abolish the unity of Orthodox preaching and Orthodox pastoral care? So then, did the Holy Fathers, who inseparably joined Faith and Ethos, who considered progress in the spiritual life inconceivable without the presupposition of the right Faith, without the confession of this Faith and the preservation of the Dogmas unadulterated, even through martyrdom, did all the Saints, then, err? Certainly not.

St. Basil the Great writes: The Lord said:

“‘Going forth, make disciples of all nations, teaching them,’ not to observe some things and neglect others, but ‘to observe all things,’ without overlooking even one small thing ‘of the things commanded,’ since all are necessary for your salvation. But we, having supposed that we have fulfilled one of the commandments somewhere, for I would not say that we have fulfilled it; for all are connected with one another, according to the sound account of the aim, so that in the abolition of one the rest also are necessarily abolished together, do not await wrath for the things passed over, but expect honors for what has supposedly been achieved.” (St. Basil the Great, Moral Discourses, On Virtue and Vice, Disc. 1).

And here lies the whole responsibility, the personal drama, and the fall of contemporary clergymen: while they know these things, they silently accept such anti-patristic “reasonings” and adopt this stance, thus manifestly dividing and abolishing, insofar as it depends on them, the unity of life in Christ, as the unity of Faith and Ethos, which connects us with the age-long Tradition of the Church, hindering, instead of facilitating, our true union with the Lord.

The divine Chrysostom writes:

“For one virtue alone is not sufficient to present us with boldness before the judgment seat of Christ, but much virtue is needed, and varied, and of every kind, and all of it. For hear Him saying to His disciples: Going forth, make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.” (St. John Chrysostom, Selections from Various Discourses).

The Pastors officially and, despite the warnings, persistently deny that unity exists where the right Faith is found and ecclesiastical Tradition is applied, that is, in the One, Holy Church, thus allowing the practices of the hundreds of heretical confessions to penetrate the body of Christians, the resultant of which is Ecumenism.

This means that they compromise with heresy and surrender without a fight to the leaders of Ecumenism. In this way, the uncatechized faithful become accustomed to heresy, and the healing of the heretics is hindered.

Yet another setting aside also occurs; they deny a basic Commandment, that of the evangelization of the heterodox, among whom there are many who thirst for the knowledge of true Orthodox life and teaching.

They refuse to address and converse with the ignorant people of the heterodox, as the Lord did, and on the contrary, “with exultant foot,” they have been in dialogue for decades with the leaders and the hardened structures of each heresy, that is, the “high priests,” the “Sadducees,” and the “Pharisees” of our time, who are also their table-companions.

And for decades now they refuse to address and preach Christ to the peoples, because they do not want to spoil relations with the powers of this world, the godless Popes and homosexual priests and priestesses of the heterodox, those who constitute their interlocutors with whom they feast together, who have introduced a multitude of false beliefs (which shall we mention first?), have abolished many of the Commandments of Christ, and show no disposition whatsoever to make amends and to return to the One Church.

They have suffered amnesia and do not remember the Commandment of Christ: “whosoever shall break one of these least commandments, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.”

In other words, they have entrusted the salvation of the heretics to the leaders of the heresies(!), against whom the Lord launched the “woes.” They themselves refuse to imitate Christ, to be present in the places of the simple heretics, to teach that only the Orthodox Church offers true life and salvation, and thus to confess Christ.

And they refuse this because they have agreed with their heterodox interlocutors not to teach the truth of the Gospel, not to call the heretics of the West to salvation! That is, they do the opposite of what Christ taught, Who gave the Commandment to go to all nations, not compromising in matters of the Faith, but preaching “One Faith,” “one Baptism,” “One Church.”

Thus, the Orthodox clergymen themselves, by their institutional, power-wielding presence, hinder those very few Shepherds who persist in an Orthodox manner and try to apply the Commandment of the Word of God for the evangelization of those who do not believe rightly.

Saint Epiphanius, however, writes:

“...He taught them to preach the Kingdom of Heaven in truth, ...and saying ‘make disciples of the nations,’ that is, change the nations from evil to truth, from heresies to one unity, ‘baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ into the dominical naming of the Trinity, ...in order to show from the name that there is no alteration of the one unity. For where those being baptized are commanded by Him to be ‘sealed’ in the name... of the ‘Holy Spirit,’ the bond is not divided nor estranged, having the seal of the one Godhead.” (Epiphanius of Cyprus, Panarion).

And the ecclesiastical writer Eusebius:

“‘Going forth, make disciples of all nations.’ For the Holy Spirit wills that they carry out the evangelical work with intense and uninterrupted zeal; for by the phrase ‘day unto day,’ He presents this, namely, that they continually proclaim the good tidings of salvation...” (Eusebius, On the Titles of the Psalms, An Interpretation of Certain Ones by Selection).

I am conscious that I am placing responsibility (by what I write, not for the first time) upon respected spiritual fathers. Many times I have asked myself: who am I, that I dare to point out certain omissions of theirs? Yet I feel strongly within myself the conviction that what I write is not my own positions (for then I would not even dare to put them forward) but the Orthodox Tradition.

And although similar thoughts have been written many times, I have not seen any rebuttal. This means that our spiritual fathers either have no answer to the patristic texts that have been cited, or, as teachers, they are indifferent to presenting and teaching the precise and indisputable position of the Church on the matter, and, as shepherds and fathers, to correcting even me with the genuine patristic word, and not with personal opinions that differ from one elder to another, so that I may come to understand, where I am in error, the correct position.

 

Greek source: https://www.agioskosmas.gr/antiairetika.asp?isue=88&artid=4242