Orthodox Confession of Faith: A Systematic Ecclesiological Assessment and Repudiation of the Council of Crete (2016)

[Unattributed author/s and signatories]

Published September 8, 2026

 

 

With full awareness of our responsibility before God and of the historical witness of the Orthodox Church, and safeguarding the sacred deposit of the Holy Fathers, we make this Confession of Faith. Our faith is not a product of human convention, political expediency, or diplomatic compromise, but the living revelation of the Truth, which we are obliged to preserve unadulterated and unaltered.

A. The Dogmatic Foundation of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church

1. We confess with all our soul, heart, and mind our faith “in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,” exactly as the sacred Symbol of Faith defines and preserves it. We believe and proclaim that the Church of Christ is ontologically One, unique, indivisible, and intact. There are not many churches, nor can the Body of Christ be fragmented. The unity of the Church is a given and is absolute, for her Head, our Lord Jesus Christ, is one, and His life-giving Body, which is constituted and given life by the Holy Spirit, is one.

2. We faithfully and steadfastly follow the Holy Ecumenical and Local Councils, the teachings of the God-bearing Fathers, and Holy Tradition.

3. We follow the enduring witness of Saint Cyprian, who proclaimed with canonical clarity that “outside the Church there is no salvation” (extra Ecclesiam nulla salus) and that “he who does not have the Church as his mother cannot have God as his Father.” The Church is the One and Only Mother, and there are no spiritual substitutes or parallel “ecclesiastical” realities.

4. We follow the teaching of Saint John of Damascus, who defines heresy as a voluntary “separation from the Church.” Just as a branch cut from a tree ceases to receive life-giving grace, withers, and dies, so heresy is in no sense “another church,” but an ontological severance and spiritual death.

5. We follow Saint Ignatius the God-bearer, who emphasized the indissoluble bond of ecclesiastical communion, writing: “Where the bishop is, there let the people also be,” reminding us that the bishop does not exist in isolation from his flock, but is an organic member of the local ecclesiastical community.

6. We follow the teaching of Saint Augustine in his controversy with the Donatists, in which he passionately defended the uniqueness and unity of the Church, rejecting any notion that schismatics and heretics can possess valid Mysteries or constitute parallel ecclesiastical structures.

7. We follow the testament of Saint Mark of Ephesus concerning the inviolability of the Symbol of Faith, which was formulated at the First and Second Ecumenical Councils and confirmed by the subsequent councils, accepting it with all our soul: “This sacred exposition and Symbol of Faith... admits no addition, admits no subtraction. It is closed and sealed by the Fathers. Those who dare to introduce innovations into it are cast out, and those who act otherwise will be held accountable.”

8. We follow the Eighth Ecumenical Council, held during the reign of the pious Emperor Basil and the patriarchate of the Most Holy Patriarch Photios, which, in the presence of the legates of Pope John, confirmed the Seventh Ecumenical Council, reinstated Saint Photios, and:

a. “...condemned and anathematized, just as the preceding Councils had done, those who dare to introduce innovations into the aforementioned Symbol of Faith, whether by addition, subtraction, or any alteration whatsoever.”

B. The Repudiation of the Council of Crete and the Nullification of Conciliarity

1. We repudiate the so-called “Holy and Great Council” of Crete (2016) as a gathering lacking pan-Orthodox validity, canonical legitimacy, and a conciliar spirit. This Council is anti-ecclesiastical in its very conception, constitutes a slaughter of the conciliar spirit, and is a rebellion against the pleroma of the Church.

2. The Council was not pan-Orthodox, since four historic Autocephalous Churches were absent: the Patriarchate of Antioch, the Church of Georgia, the Church of Bulgaria, and the Church of Russia.

3. A council held without the participation of so large a part of Orthodoxy lacks universal representation and, consequently, the authority to speak for and bind the body of the Church. Conciliarity presupposes pan-Orthodox consensus in order to produce binding decisions.

4. The Council’s procedures violated the spirit of the 34th Apostolic Canon concerning collective governance, which stipulates that bishops must recognize the first among them and do nothing without him, while the first must likewise do nothing without the consent of the others. The Council of Crete replaced collegiality with a centralized mechanism, in which the voices of dissenting bishops were stifled and decisions were imposed ex cathedra.

5. A bishop represents the Church not as an independent secular figure, but as a member of her, in unbroken communion with his flock. When a bishop ignores the voices of his presbyters, monastics, and faithful, he ceases to represent his Church and represents himself alone. In Crete, we saw bishops signing documents that their Churches had not read, endorsing decisions taken in closed sessions, without regard for the living conscience of the pleroma of the Church.

6. We follow the teaching of Saint John Chrysostom, who boldly confesses that “bishops are not masters of the faith, but its guardians.” The bishop is a shepherd, not the owner of the Church, and the unilateral imposition of decisions without regard for the body constitutes a departure from Orthodox ecclesiology. When shepherds withdraw from spiritual dialogue with their flock, trust is tested, and many faithful believe that the Council of Crete reflected this crisis in the pastoral responsibility of the hierarchy.

7. We proclaim with unwavering courage, in agreement with the confession of Saint Mark of Ephesus, that: “No one has authority over our faith—neither an emperor, nor a bishop, nor a false council, nor anyone else—for God alone handed it down to us, He Himself and His disciples.”

8. The Council adopted a papal model, in which the hierarchs acted as “little popes” who thought they knew better than the tradition and the living memory of the people, imposing their decisions in an authoritarian manner and organizing a mechanism that resembled a political party more than the Church.

C. The Condemnation of Ecclesiological Innovations and Heretical Teaching

1. WE CONDEMN unequivocally the ecclesiological innovations introduced through the official texts of the Council of Crete, specifically through the document “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World.”

2. WE CONDEMN the terminological and dogmatic recognition of heterodox confessions as “churches.” Heresy does not constitute another church, but error, separation from the Truth, and spiritual death.

Papism (with the filioque, papal primacy, infallibility, its transformation into a religious state, and the distortion of the Mysteries).

Protestantism (with its denial of the Mysteries, the Priesthood, the Theotokos, the Saints, and baptismal regeneration).

Monophysitism (with its denial of Christ’s real human nature, a denial that destroys salvation) constitute doctrinal errors that distort the apostolic faith and are entirely devoid of ecclesial existence. Recognizing them as “churches” constitutes blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, since it implies that the Holy Spirit dwells in heresies.

• WE CONDEMN the branch theory, which attempts to present the various Christian confessions as branches of equal standing belonging to a single tree of the Church, and to relativize the identity of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

• WE CONDEMN dogmatic minimalism, which reduces the salvific content of the faith and Holy Tradition to minimal or flexible elements for the sake of an ostensible and adulterated “unity.”

• WE CONDEMN so-called “baptismal theology,” a modern ecumenist invention that attempts to establish ecclesiastical unity outside the canonical boundaries of Orthodoxy, under the pretext of a shared invocation of the Holy Trinity [6, 26, 32].

• WE FOLLOW the First Canon of Basil the Great, which stipulates that the baptism of heretics lacks validity.

• WE FOLLOW Saint Cyprian, who proclaimed that heretics outside the Church are baptized with mud and not with water.

• WE FOLLOW Saint Athanasius the Great, who characterized the baptism of heretics as “empty” and nonexistent. Recognition of the baptism of the heterodox constitutes a denial of the “one baptism” that we confess in the Symbol of Faith.

• WE CONDEMN the indirect repudiation of the decisions and anathemas of the Holy Ecumenical Councils (from the First through the Seventh). These Councils did not anathematize abstract ideas, but specific heresiarchs (Arius, the Macedonians, Nestorius, Eutyches, Dioscorus, Origen, the Monothelites, and the Iconoclasts) and their communities, placing them outside the Church. Recognition of these communities as “churches” nullifies the work of the Holy Fathers, undermines dogmatic precision, and constitutes an affront that portrays the Fathers as harsh or extreme.

• WE CONDEMN Ecumenism as a theory and practice of syncretism which, under the pretext of theological dialogue “on equal terms,” undermines the uniqueness of the Orthodox Church, equates Truth with error, diminishes the need for the return and repentance of those in error, and opens the gates of the Church to the Antichrist.

D. The Canonical and Patristic Stance of the Pleroma Bearing Christ’s Name in Times of Heresy

We proclaim that the pleroma of the Church bearing Christ’s name—clergy, monastics, and laity—is not a passive recipient of decisions, but the very living guardian of Orthodox Tradition, with a heightened dogmatic consciousness that perceives and distinguishes truth from error. The Holy Spirit does not dwell exclusively in conference buildings or bureaucratic structures, but dwells in the pleroma of the Church. When the hierarchy or part of it slides into heresy or introduces ecclesiological innovations, the faithful must respond vigorously and with spiritual vigilance, following the patristic tradition:

• We follow the teaching of Basil the Great, who emphasizes that the faith is also preserved through the “unwritten tradition of the Fathers” that lives among the people, making the Orthodox people active participants in safeguarding doctrine.

• We follow Saints Maximus the Confessor and Gregory Palamas, who defended dogmatic truth, relying on the conscience of the Orthodox people and monastics when the official ecclesiastical authorities had compromised with the error of their time.

• We follow the theological legacy of Saint Gregory the Theologian, who recognized “common opinion” and the “mind of the Church” as essential criteria of ecclesiastical truth, which cannot be circumvented by any signature on a synodal protocol.

• We follow the practice of the Holy Fathers, which provides that, when faced with the distortion of the Faith, the pleroma of the Church expresses its dissent through every ecclesiastical means: public protests, encyclicals, prayers, and also the refusal of ecclesiastical communion with those who preach or accept the heretical innovations of the Council of Crete.

• We proclaim that communion with those who accept this false council constitutes communion with error itself. When shepherds turn into wolves, the flock must protect its Faith by abstaining from communion with them, thus safeguarding the purity of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.

• We stand firm in the Orthodox Faith and the deposit handed down by the Fathers, proclaiming that the decisions of the Council of Crete that distort Orthodox ecclesiology are invalid, devoid of content, and lacking all theological authority.

We faithfully follow the theological and canonical stance of Saint Mark Eugenikos, Metropolitan of Ephesus, who was the unwavering champion of Orthodoxy against the Latins at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, categorically rejecting the Latin innovations—especially the doctrine of the Filioque and the use of unleavened bread—and refusing to sign the falsely named “union,” considering the Latins to be in a state of heresy and schism. Saint Mark preserved the patristic tradition without deviation, teaching that ecclesiastical unity is inconceivable with any compromise of the truth of the faith, and upholding agreement with the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils and the teaching of the Holy Fathers as the sole criterion of the Church’s authenticity, free from compromises and expediency.

WE PROCLAIM that the true unity of the Church is not an abstract idea, nor is it built on diplomatic ambiguities, but presupposes absolute dogmatic agreement and precision. “ONE body, one spirit,” as the Apostle Paul proclaims, and upon the rock of the true confession Christ built His Church, against which “the gates of Hades will not prevail.”

We condemn every attempt at a false union, following Saint Mark of Ephesus, who proclaimed: “All the teachers of the Church, all the Councils, and all the divine Scriptures exhort us to avoid the heterodox and to abstain from communion with them. Shall we disregard all this and follow those who command us to unite under the pretext of a false and fabricated peace? Those who adulterated the divine Symbol of Faith and introduce the Son as a second cause of the Holy Spirit?”

We proclaim together with Saint Mark of Ephesus:

“For up to now our faith has lacked nothing, nor do we, who are sons and disciples of the Fathers, need a Council and a doctrinal definition to learn anything new... This is precisely our boast, our faith, the good inheritance of our Fathers. And with this faith we hope to stand before God and receive the forgiveness of our sins.”

“One body, one spirit,” as the Apostle Paul proclaims, and upon the rock of the true confession Christ built His Church, against which “the gates of Hades will not prevail.”

An Appeal for Dogmatic Precision

This confession springs not from a spirit of confrontation or pride, but from love for the Truth and the preservation of dogmatic precision. True Christian unity is built not on diplomatic ambiguities or on equating truth with error, but on full dogmatic agreement within Orthodox Tradition.

We call upon the pleroma of the Church to remain vigilant and steadfast in the faith of the Holy Fathers, proclaiming that every decision that diminishes the uniqueness of the Orthodox Church is devoid of authority and foreign to Orthodox ecclesiology.

 

Greek source: https://apotixisi.blogspot.com/2026/09/2016_01394926234.html