Letter of Fr. Epiphanios Theodoropoulos in Support of the Cessation of Communion with Athenagoras and the Other Ecumenists

 

Letter of Fr. Epiphanios Theodoropoulos, February 4, 1971.

Yesterday the news was published that two more Hierarchs, Polykarpos of Siatista and Iakovos of Methymna, have ceased commemorating the Ecumenical Patriarch, as the Metropolitans Ambrosios of Eleftheroupolis, Augustinos of Florina, and Pavlos of Paramythia had done earlier. It is needless to emphasize that this action of the five courageous Hierarchs is entirely canonical. Apostolic Canon 31 permits clergymen to cease the commemoration of their presiding Bishop if they discern in him an error concerning “piety,” that is, concerning the Orthodox Faith. Moreover, Canon 15 of the so-called First-Second Council not only does not punish, but even considers worthy “of the honor befitting them” those Bishops who, of their own accord and “before a synodal determination,” cease the commemoration of a Patriarch who preaches “with uncovered head,” that is, openly, “a heresy condemned by the holy Councils or Fathers.”

It is well known that Papism and its heretical dogmas were condemned as heresy not only by holy Fathers of the Church, such as Photios the Great, Gregory Palamas, Mark of Ephesus, and others, but also by great Councils convened in Constantinople under Photios and Michael Cerularius, as well as by other later Councils (in Moscow in 1441, in Jerusalem in 1443, in Constantinople in 1484, etc.). It is equally well known that Patriarch Athenagoras treats all these things with utter contempt and, through his public statements, at one time says that “nothing separates us” from the various heresies of the West, and at another characterizes as mere “local customs” the heretical Filioque and the doctrines of Infallibility and Primacy, on account of which Orthodoxy anathematized Papism. Rightly, therefore, and justly, and in accordance with the Holy Canons, did the five Hierarchs cease commemorating him. And the duty of the Holy Synod is not to concern itself with those Hierarchs who observe their episcopal oaths, but with the internal enemies of Orthodoxy, such as the Patriarch, Iakovos of America, Athenagoras of Thyateira, the notorious Meliton, and certain others. And although the justification of lack of jurisdiction might perhaps be advanced in the event of bringing the aforementioned persons to trial, no justification whatsoever exists for our own Church’s continuation of relations with them. The cessation of ecclesiastical communion with them has now become imperative for the Church of Greece. Perhaps, moreover, this measure will bring them to their senses and lead them onto the straight path.

It was sent on February 4, 1971, and published as a letter (not in its entirety) the following day.

 

Source: Αγωνιστικά Μηνύματα, published by Orthodoxos Kypseli, 2018, chapter “The Duty of the Holy Synod,” pp. 9–10. Sourced from Archimandrite Epiphanios Theodoropoulos, Άρθρα – Μελέται – Επιστολαί, vol. III, published by the Holy Monastery of Saint John of Damascus, Athens, 2017.

Greek source online:

https://katanixi.gr/epistoli-p-epifanioy-theodoropoyloy-yper-tis-diakopis-koinonias-me-athinagora-kai-loipoys-oikoymenistes/