From the Secretariat of the Holy Synod of the Church of the G.O.C. of Greece
September 4, 2014
(O.S.)
A. Preface
The God-pleasing Union of
the Orthodox Community in Resistance with the Church of the True Orthodox
Christians of Greece was brought to fruition, by the Grace of Christ our Savior
and by the intercessions of the Theotokos and all the Saints, on the
Tuesday of the Third Week of Great Lent, March 5/18, 2014, and was officially
proclaimed and brought to fruition by a Union Liturgy concelebrated on March
10/23, 2014, on the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross.
1. This truly historic
event, particularly in view of the simultaneous achievement of Union with the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Romania,
was a cause of inexpressible joy and spiritual euphoria for all of the true
members of our Church.
• All
those who were present at and took part in the Union Liturgy can attest to the
exceptional and ineffable spiritual gladness that they felt.
2. There were, however,
some who had negative reactions, a small number of clergy and laity, both in
Greece and abroad, who in sundry ways voiced their objections and doubts, right
from the outset, concerning the genuineness and canonicity of the Union.
3. Our Holy Synod, with
spiritual sensitivity and love in Christ, made repeated efforts to explain to
our brethren who opposed the Union that their various objections and doubts
were groundless, and that it behooved them to trust our Hierarchs and to share with
them in the blessed joy of our Union.
4. Up until the meeting of
our Holy Synod on July 15/28, 2014, although quite a few of the naysayers had
finally been persuaded as to the canonicity of the Union, there still remained
a few who persisted in their objections and doubts, which they expressed at
times with tenacity and at times with a meek and suitable theological spirit.
5. At the meeting held on
July 15/28, 2014, “following a proposal by His Eminence, Metropolitan Cyprian
of Oropos and Phyle,” it was decided that the Holy Synod “should issue a
document for the purpose of clarifying the positions of the Synod” and of
dispelling the doubts of those opposed for various reasons to the Union, after
taking into consideration the different misunderstandings published
unofficially, in the meantime, on the Internet.
6. With the prospect of
promulgating an official Synodal document, “Toward a Clarification of [our]
Positions,” it would have been necessary to surmount the very weighty issue of
replying to an interminable list of drawn-out questions, in many respects
scholastic in nature. Had we done so, our clarifications and responses would
have constituted, without any pressing reason, a literally voluminous tome.
7. This being so, avoiding
a scholastic mode of response and cleaving to the essence of the points in
dispute, we hereby set forth expressly and plainly the positions of our Synod
on issues relating to the Union, with the aim of somehow comprehensively grouping
together the various criticisms thereof, as well as the well-intentioned
doubts, questions, and concerns with regard to it, in order to allay all
possible anxieties and to bring peace to the hearts of all.
* * *
B. Synodal
Positions
B1. Issues pertaining to the
Union process
a1. Reactions toward, and
concerns about, the Union arose both from within Greece—and these were
expressed by a small group of persons (originally two Priests and nine laymen,
and now one Priest and four laymen)—and from abroad (two or three laymen).
a2. There have also been
reactions from external elements, that is, from persons who are not members of
the True Orthodox Church of Greece and who in some cases have a hostile
attitude toward Her.
a3. Our Hierarchs could
have ignored this reaction, since there were no grounds for it and it did not
reflect the overall conscience of the membership of our Church. They
nonetheless have handled it from the outset with pastoral sensitivity.
* * *
b1. Our Holy Synod is not
obligated, on the basis of the Synodal and canonical Tradition of the Orthodox
Church, to publish—and immediately, at that—all of the documents and detailed
proceedings pertinent to a particular matter that it is addressing.
b2. It is, however,
necessary for the Holy Synod to keep its flock informed by way of communiqués,
a practice which it has sedulously observed through postings on our Synod
website, both during the fourteen-month dialogue for Union and in the wake of
every session of the Synod.
b3. Communication of the
decisions of our Holy Synod at the meeting held on March 5/18, 2014, at which
the Union was brought to fruition, was delayed by reason of the bulk of data
that had to be recorded and by reason of the Feasts that intervened both before
and after the Holy Pascha. Nevertheless, the fact of our rapprochement and the
great likelihood of a Union had already been made known and publicized through
other avenues and channels, and it was also possible for those so interested
to communicate in person with the Shepherds responsible for the Union process.
b4. The argument that our
Holy Synod did not make public those proceedings in which detailed
descriptions of the Synodal Union process were contained, as supposedly
happened in the past, is absurd.
• During
the era in which the Holy OEcumenical Synods were convoked, their proceedings
were not made public, but were deposited in the Patriarchates for
safekeeping, while the decisions reached by the Holy Fathers were made
public immediately, a procedure punctiliously followed by our Holy Synod in
the course of the dialogue in question.
b5. In any case, our Holy
Synod did not have, nor does it now have, anything to hide in connection with
the Union, and certainly does not consider everything to have been done in
haste. It can, however, register its profound sorrow that, as it discovered,
the naysayers desired, and desire, to impose on our Hierarchs their own
blueprint, their own exclusive view, concerning the manner of the Union, as
though their Shepherds were ignorant of history and of Synodal and canonical
Tradition, or as though there were signs of their undervaluing matters of the
Orthodox Faith.
* * *
B2. Issues pertaining to the
former Synod in Resistance
a1. The Hierarchs of the
former Synod in Resistance, together with our Hierarchs, and also with the
Russian and Romanian Hierarchs, signed the official ecclesiological statement,
“The True Orthodox Church and the Heresy of Ecumenism: Dogmatic and Canonical Issues”
(March 2014).
a2. By way of this
document, which constitutes an Orthodox Confession of Faith, the Hierarchs of
the former Synod in Resistance set aside their previously formulated
ecclesiological views, which they also withdrew from their official website.
They have also stated in writing that they will not henceforth employ terms and
phrases antithetical to the ecclesiological basis of the Union document.
a3. The contents of the
Union document, which the Hierarchs of the former Synod in Resistance today
confess and proclaim with full knowledge and sincerity, leave no margin for
doubt as to their mind-set, which is in every respect Orthodox.
a4. The Hierarchs of the
former Synod in Resistance have, through their Orthodox Confession, and also
through their self-sacrificial actions, forcefully emphasized the genuineness
of their mind-set and attitudes, inasmuch as they
• dissolved
their distinct Synod;
• relinquished
all of their pastoral prerogatives;
• placed
their prodigious pastoral and missionary work under the protection of our
Synod;
• displayed
exceeding humility;
• regretfully
accepted any responsibility on their parts for the estrangement from 1984
onwards and its ramifications.
a5. Our Hierarchs were
fully aware, by the Grace of God, of the demands that they were making of the
Hierarchs of the former Synod in Resistance in joining our Synod, especially
after an arduous dialogue of many months’ duration, which was brought to
fruition by the Orthodox Confession and action of our brethren.
* * *
b1. There has never
existed a heresy with the name of “Cyprianism,” and never did our Holy Synod
officially employ this term. The Hierarchs of the former Synod in Resistance
not only did not officially and synodally proclaim all that was
ascribed to them under the name of “Cyprianism,” such as their alleged
conception of the official [New Calendar] Church as the Mother Church, but have
also clearly expressed opposition thereto, and in particular throughout the
Union process.
• Moreover, the
ecclesiological formulations of the Hierarchs of the former Synod in
Resistance, which were indeed denounced by our Church, were not in the past put
forth tenaciously, dogmatically, or definitively—in which case they might
indeed have constituted a heresy, and might have been called that—but as “ideas
for rumination and discussion.”
b2. The most indisputable
Orthodox Confession and action of the Hierarchs of the former Synod in
Resistance constitute on their part a courageous rising above what transpired
from 1984 onwards, and also above the exchanges that took place during the
unofficial dialogue (2008-2009). In truth, their Confession and action blot out
the reasons for separation and estrangement.
b3. Much was written, in
an intensely charged atmosphere, especially from 1984 and following, which some
people today maliciously and erroneously invoke in order to provoke new
tensions. But we, as responsible Shepherds, now consign them, by the Grace of
God, to oblivion, emulating the example of the Holy Fathers, such as that of
the Holy Patriarchs Ignatios and Photios after their reconciliation.
* * *
c1. The reinstatement of
the reposed Metropolitan Cyprian († May 17, 2013 [Old Style]), from which
ensued the reading of Hierarchical memorial prayers over his tomb by His
Beatitude, Archbishop Kallinikos (March 7/20, 2014), was a canonical
ecclesiastical act, since there were reasons that permitted it, as happened
also with the reinstatement of the late Archbishop Auxentios.
c2. We would offer a
reminder that in the past there were similar acts in the case of reposed
persons, even though there were imposed on them not only depositions but also
anathemas—and indeed by a Patriarchal Synod—as occurred, for example, in the
fourteenth century with Archbishop Joanikije of Serbia and Tsar Stefan Dušan,
who were judged guilty (as was the entire Serbian people—a general
excommunication) and exonerated post mortem, twenty years later, under
the Holy Patriarch Philotheos of Constantinople.
c3. The late Metropolitan
Cyprian clearly expressed his desire for the restoration of communion with our
Holy Synod. It should be noted that he never worked against our Synod, nor was
he minded to supplant it, and that our Synod made decisions against him in
1986, essentially on the grounds that he formed his own Synod, even though—as
the Hierarchs of the former Synod in Resistance assure us—this was of a
temporary nature, with the [eventual] prospect of Union.
c4. Other charges were
certainly mentioned in these decisions of our Synod against the ever-memorable
Metropolitan Cyprian. They were examined in detail during the dialogues that
took place, and the conclusions were as follows:
• The
accusation of ecumenism, which was bound up with the alleged conviction of the
late Metropolitan Cyprian concerning the official Church as the Mother Church,
is completely refuted by the following public affirmation of the Hierarchs of
the former Synod in Resistance in 2008:
This indeed
inexpert expression, which has been employed by one of our Bishops and which
has already been withdrawn by him as inapposite, has never been officially
proclaimed by our Synod in Resistance, nor has it ever been used in, let alone
incorporated into, the basic and foundational documents that express our
ecclesiological and anti-ecumenist self-understanding.
• The
accusation concerning the indiscriminate imparting of Mysteries by the late
Metropolitan Cyprian to laity from the New Calendar Church is quite
groundless, since the Hierarchs of the former Synod in Resistance, following a
Synodal decision from some years ago, which was officially published, “exclude
from Divine Communion all who do not belong to the Church of the True Orthodox
Christians.”
• The
accusation concerning joint prayer between the late Metropolitan Cyprian and
the then Patriarch Nicholas of Alexandria, which is unthinkingly characterized
as a concelebration, is entirely without foundation, since eyewitnesses of the
unexpected visit of the Patriarch to the Katholikon of the St. Cyprian
Monastery testify that the opposite occurred: “The late Metropolitan, from the
Beautiful Gates, publicly called upon the Patriarch of Alexandria to return to
the Traditions of the Fathers.”
* * *
B3. Issues pertaining to the
Union document
a1. The Union document,
which was drawn up by the True Orthodox Churches of Greece and Romania and the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (March 2014) does not offer the possibility of a
plurality of views on matters of Faith, nor any leeway for such, since it is a
product of merging and agreement on issues of Faith.
a2. There has been no
agreement to suppress different ecclesiological views, and the suspicions to
this effect are due, we suppose, to misunderstandings of statements which, one
way or another, were made in a pastoral context prior to our merging and
Union.
* * *
b1. Although the phrase in
the Union document that “the True Orthodox Church does not provide assurance
concerning [the] validity” of Mysteries celebrated by the New Calendarists
(ch. VI, §6) has been sufficiently clarified in the relevant footnotes of the
version of the document in simpler Greek, it should be stated here that this
is certainly not an innovation, nor does it abrogate the past, since the
Encyclicals of 1935, 1950, and 1974, which were local in nature, are now placed
in the context of our common inter-Orthodox Confession and interpreted
correctly.
b2. It should also be
emphasized that in the unitive ecclesiological document it is clear that the
issue of the validity or invalidity of the Mysteries celebrated by the
innovationists in general is not examined directly or specifically in a special
chapter, but parenthetically.
• In ch.
VI, “The Return to True Orthodoxy” (§6), the following position is in essence
set forth:
Non-celebration
of the Mysteries from the beginning, provided their form has been preserved, in
the case of those returning from the New Calendar Church, does not ‘provide
assurance,’ that is, should not be understood as an affirmation concerning the
validity of Mysteries performed in the New Calendar Church.
b3. In the end, we need to
realize that the True Orthodox Church ought not to cultivate the mistaken
impression that Her unity is founded on our view of the Mysteries of the New
Calendarists; on the contrary, Her fidelity to Apostolic teaching and
Succession should be the focus of Her unity. It is fidelity to our Confession
that unites us, and not our view of the Mysteries of the New Calendarists, who
are, in any case, fallen away in the Faith and “not in communion [with our
Church].”
b4. A striking and
Grace-filled contemporary discourse by a now deceased Presbyter, from among
our Matthewite brethren, renders more accessible the view that we have been
articulating:
“When I was younger and lived
abroad, some modernist ecumenists asked the following question in order to
ensnare me:
“‘Do we have Mysteries or not?’
“I replied: ‘Are you literate?’
“‘Yes, we are literate.’
“‘Do you know the Canons and the
Tradition of the Church?’
“‘Yes, we do know them.’
“Then this is what I have to say
to you: Although I am a sinner, since the Grace of God has safeguarded me from
becoming separated from the Truth of Christ and from deviating to the right or
to the left, I know that I have Mysteries. As for you who have changed course,
since you are literate, read what the Canons and the Tradition of the Church
say about your case and draw your own conclusions.’
“I am of the opinion that it is
neither expedient nor prudent for True Orthodox Christians to quarrel among
themselves and to be concerned about the Mysteries or non-Mysteries of the New
Calendarists. The Apostle says: ‘For what have I to do with judging them that
are without?... Them that are without God judgeth’ (I Corinthians 5:12-13).
“Since we have commended them to
the mercy of God, He knows whether He will show them forbearance, how He will
show them forbearance, and to what extent He will forbear with them. We are
not dispensers of God’s mercy. We have an obligation, since we regard every
innovation as a suggestion of the Devil, not to violate the ‘Faith handed down
to us’ in even one jot or tittle.
“Our priority, therefore, is that
we continue the good beginning that we have made, that all of us True Orthodox
Christians in general be united under a single Orthodox Confession, with which
we will be consistent, following a common course, and that thereafter we
convene a Pan-Orthodox Synod, which will be the official mouthpiece of the
Church and will issue official determinations concerning those who have
deviated and have become estranged from the Faith of the Fathers.
“Until such a time, however, we
cannot have any communion in the Mysteries or in prayer with them, thereby
becoming ‘sharers in the sins of others,’ but must confess that we reject and
abhor their calendar innovation, their ecumenism, and their newfangled form of
Baptism, or rather, affusion.
“From the little that I know, I
think that this is how the Fathers acted toward heretics. They immediately
broke communion with heretics, awaited the convocation of a competent body,
namely an OEcumenical Synod, not in order to learn and decide whether the
misbelief was a heresy, but in order—through the official mouthpiece of the
Church—that formal clarifications and formulations concerning correct doctrine
might be made and the formal condemnation of heretics be pronounced.
“It should be known that such a
Synod consists only of Orthodox.”
* * *
c1. The discretion of each
Bishop in applying exactitude or oeconomy in the reception of persons from the
New Calendar Church certainly does not entail absolute freedom or,
consequently, license.
c2. The local Bishop, it
says in the Union document, “makes a decision on the basis of synodally
determined criteria” (ch. VI, §11); if he is unable to reach a decision, then
“a competent Synod” does so.
* * *
d1. There are no grounds
for anxieties about a Major General Synod, since in the Union document (ch.
VII), and also in its simpler Greek version, there are clear answers to dispel
them.
d2. Taking part in this
Synod will be all of the local True Orthodox Churches, united on the basis of
their common and correct Confession of the Faith and their fidelity to
Apostolic teaching and Succession.
d3. The Major Synod will
ascertain and proclaim the falling away—already a reality—of the ecumenists
and Sergianists from the standpoint of a correct Confession and from the Body
of Christ, the Church.
• It is
well known that a lack of fidelity to Apostolic teaching and Succession is
leading innovationists of every stripe outside the boundaries of the Truth and
the Church, far away from Christ and the Mysteries.
* * *
B4. Other issues
a1. The alleged “statement
of Metropolitan Agafangel in the periodical Vestnik” requires no
commentary, for the following reasons:
• it is
merely an artifact, that is, an unattested, unsubstantiated, and nonexistent
“statement”;
• if—as
it is rumored—it had been uttered in the 1990s, under Metropolitan Vitaly (†),
it would have been dealt with synodally; this, however, never happened;
• in any
event, the signing by Metropolitan Agafangel of our Union document (March 2014)
henceforth constitutes his Orthodox Confession, which expresses his fidelity to
Apostolic teaching and Succession.
• in
addition, at the inter-Orthodox deliberation on March 8/21, 2014, after a
lengthy discussion, Metropolitan Agafangel gave full assurance of his Orthodox
Confession and observance of canonical order regarding various issues, to the
great exultation of all those participating in the meeting.
a2. The views of
Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Etna, as expressed before or after the Union,
should not arouse such disquiet, for the following reasons:
• those
that he expressed before the Union pertain to the need for upholding the
principles of courtesy and moderation, which he inherited from the
ever-memorable Metropolitan Cyprian, and not to any ecclesiological positions;
consequently, whatever doubts or misunderstandings were provoked by them are
annulled by his signing of our Union document;
• those
that he expressed after the Union pertain to the unfathomable mercy and
forbearance of God toward the innovationists for as long a time as He judges
fit, and were, in any case, unofficial and of private and pastoral nature.
• At any
rate, the unfraternal interception and exploitation of private pastoral texts
by certain persons with a hostile attitude toward the Metropolitan of Etna,
and also towards our Holy Synod, unmask those who habitually seek to undermine
our God-pleasing Union.
* * *
C. Epilogue
a. Those opposed in
various ways to the God-pleasing Union of our Holy Synod with the Hierarchs of
the former Synod in Resistance, who are now our brethren in Christ and in our
common Orthodox Confession, should not forget the Apostolic injunction:
“Wherefore receive ye one another, even as Christ also received you, to the
glory of God” (Romans 15:7).
• “I
advise you to receive one another with love, just as Christ also received all
of you and made you His own beloved, that God the Father may be glorified.”
b. The Union, or reunion,
is a gift of God; our Hierarchs did not accomplish anything in the matter
under consideration, but simply—through their good intentions and
endeavors—permitted our Lord to work His miracle: “Every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (St. James
1:17).
c. Those who oppose the
Union will be at peace with it only when they view it through the prism of all
that we have written, albeit with humility and love, for “obduracy is not
from” Christ “Who calleth us” (cf. Galatians 5:8); strong self-opinion,
which is not submissive to Truth and Love, leads to divisions and schisms, for
which each one of us is answerable to God, the Church, and history.
† The end, and
glory and thanks to God! Amen!
Greek original:
https://ecclesiagoc.gr/images/stories/ArticlesPDF/SynodikesTheseisAntidrontes.pdf
English translation:
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