Old Calendar Orthodox Church of
Greece
Holy Synod in Resistance
The
Holy Synod in Resistance
and Her Attitude Towards the Union
of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad with the
Moscow Patriarchate
I. Introduction
1. On the Feast of the Ascension of our Savior, Thursday 4/17
May 2007, upon completion of the process of rapprochement, union was realized, at a fully
official level, between the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, under His
Eminence, Metropolitan Laurus, and the Moscow Patriarchate.
2. Thus,
the venerable Russian Orthodox Church Abroad has fully united, through
the Moscow Patriarchate, with all of the ecumenists,
that is, with the so-called official local Churches, which have adopted
or tolerate the New Calendar,
participating in the ecumenical
movement and its various
institutional organs, on the basis of 1920
Encyclical of the Church of Constantinople.
3. An
immediate consequence of this union is the now total relinquishment by
the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad of the splendid anti-ecumenical Tradition that she
articulated under her
third Chief Hierarch, the very saintly Metropolitan Philaret ( 1985),
and which she expressed with singular theological clarity, depth, and
consistency.
4. In
1994, the Holy Synod in Resistance established full Eucharistic
communion with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, on the basis of the
common anti-ecumenist
self-understanding of the two Synods, which was evinced chiefly
through their non-communion
with all of the official ecumenist jurisdictions.
5. However, this
communion was finally severed in 2005, as it became
evident, on the one hand, that the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad was
on a steadfast and irrevocable course towards union with the Moscow
Patriarchate and, on the other hand, that she had jettisoned her anti-ecumenist outlook and her coöperation
with the Holy Synod in Resistance; but the formal declaration and
complete implementation of this rupture was postponed out of extreme oikonomia,
so as to take effect without further ado, immediately, and automatically
upon the opening of communion between the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate.
6. The
truly disappointing eclipse of an outstanding champion against the
syncretistic heresy of ecumenism provokes the deepest sorrow among Old Calendarist Orthodox anti-ecumenists
everywhere. This sorrow, however, is mitigated by the very gratifying
news that a significant portion of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
disagrees
with the union that has been
accomplished and is now regrouping
as an independent jurisdiction, in the awareness that it constitutes
the authentic continuation of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad.
7. The
Holy Synod in Resistance will, with especial joy, continue
to have communion with this portion of the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad, as long as it truly desires such communion, and also as long as
it possesses a clearly anti-ecumenist
self-understanding,
not maintaining any kind of communion, directly or indirectly, with the
Orthodox ecumenists.
8. To
this end, we have deemed it expedient to publish on our website the
more pertinent official documents
of the Holy Synod in Resistance, which, on the one hand, clearly attest
to the responsible
way in which she handled relations with the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad during the years 2000-2006, and, on the other hand, contain the
unshakeable bases for communion with the “remnant chosen by Grace” (Romans
11:5), that is, that portion of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
which rejects the recent union
with the Moscow Patriarchate.
9.
Furthermore, our aim in publishing these official documents is to
demonstrate how superficial and, in many ways, irresponsible is the
wish and suggestion expressed by certain New Calendarists that the
much-fragmented Old Calendarist
Orthodox should emulate
the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad by placing themselves under the
official ecumenist jurisdictions, since the latter forget or overlook
that, while the historical basis and occasion for the rift among the
Russians (1917-) has been removed and no longer exists, it was quite
different from the dispute which divided, and continues to divide—since
it still exists and is, indeed, reinforced daily—, the Orthodox into ecumenists and resisters (1920,
1924-).
From the Chancery
of the Holy Synod
in Resistance
Fili, Attika, 10
May 2007 (Old Style)
Holy Apostle Simon
the Zealot
II. Documents
1. Epistle,
Protocol No. 340 (1 January 2001)
2. Statement
on the Recent Rapprochement Between the Russian Orthodox
Church
Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate
3. Epistle,
Protocol No. 408 (11 October 2004)
4. Epistle,
Protocol No. 409 (5 December 2004)
5. Epistle,
Protocol No. 412 (22 November 2005)
6. The
Unity and Common Perspective of the Old Calendarist Orthodox
Anti-Ecumenists
of Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria
III. "A Descent from
the Cross of Orthodox Witness"
The
present document is a sermon
by His Eminence, Bishop Photii of Triaditza, delivered during the
Divine Liturgy on the Feast of the Ascension of our Savior, in the
Cathedral of the Dormition of the Theotokos, in Sofia, Bulgaria (4/17
May 2007).
The
God-Man Christ, beloved Faithful, came from the Truth, brought
the Truth to us as a gift, and returned to the Truth, lifting up human
nature, on the fortieth day after His Resurrection, to the very Throne
of the Holy, Consubstantial, Life-giving, and Indivisible
Trinity.
The Savior came not only to show us the path toward the Truth;
He came as one Who was Himself the Truth and the Way to it. Christ the
Lord levelled down the walls between earthly humans and the celestial
Truth.
Indeed, if we do not rise above the terrestrial dust, if we do
not rally courage enough to transcend our own nothingness, and overcome
our voluptuous desires for earthly things, we are unable to walk on the
path towards the Truth; we are unable to be children of the Truth; and
we are unable to live with the Truth and in the Truth.
And the path leading towards the Truth leads all the way upwards,
and never downwards, just as Christ's path led up to Golgotha.
Our very first step in rising from the earth to Heaven, our very first
rupture with earthly bounds is our ascent upon the cross, as Christ
Himself was raised from the earth upon the Cross, in order that He
might draw every man toward Himself: toward the Truth, toward the Way,
and toward Life.
The path from the cross to Heaven, to immortal life, is indeed
sometimes of extensive duration and of long distance — very long;
sometimes it may be traversed in but an instant, as was the case with
many of the Holy New Martyrs of Batak, whose memory we celebrate today,
together with Christ's glorious Ascension.
However, there is nothing at all so grievous as one who, having
once torn himself away from the earth and ascended his cross, afterwards
becomes frightened by the way of the Cross and the Resurrection,
or who has been misled by the earthly desire to feel again the earthy
dust under his feet.
Lo, today the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church
Abroad descends from the cross of its Orthodox witness.
Today, by serving the liturgy together, the stage is set for the
Church Abroad to be absorbed into the organism of the Moscow
Patriarchate.
Lo, today the Archpriests seal their descent from their cross by
exchanging a liturgical kiss with those who beckoned them to descend
from the cross, as they had themselves done in the past.
How painful is the lie, which in our days calls the descent an
ascent, and the fall a rising!
When the Hierarchs of the Church Abroad were raised from the
earth on the cross of witnessing for Orthodoxy, they were called
schismatics; when they descended from the cross, when they delivered
to Cæsar — be he even an ecclesiastical Cæsar — that which belongs to God,
they immediately rose in his eyes and became his brethren.
Indeed, is there anything more disheartening than to see how
falsehood bedecks itself with the garments of Truth?
Indeed, those who descended from the cross pronounce, and will
continue to pronounce, just as many words of fidelity to the Church and
Orthodoxy — words glorifying the exploits of the Martyrs
and Confessors; but is it really decent to plait wreaths of verbal
praise for spiritual heroes, having oneself fled in disgrace from the
battlefield?
Is it not immoral, having yourself abandoned your witness to the
Truth for the sake of earthly benefits and gains, to glorify persons
who held the love of Truth to be higher than their own lives?
And yet, Cæsar will not celebrate his victory for long. He will
not be jubilant for long, that what is God's has been delivered to him
by the hands of Bishops, with the sole purpose of acquiring his favor.
For God is never mocked! For the God-Man, after His Ascension, abides
with us, with all who, even though weak, aspire to tread the path
leading upward, and only upward — to Golgotha and the Cross, and thence
toward the Heavenly Homeland, from which there pour down on us the
streams of the love of the New Martyrs of Batak, of the Holy New
Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, and of all the citizens of Heaven,
who walked their earthly path in the never-setting light of the Way,
the Truth, and the Life! Amen.
Old Calendar Orthodox Church of
Greece
Holy Synod in Resistance
Protocol No. 340
To the Holy Synod of the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
care of His Eminence,
Archbishop Laurus
New York, U.S.A.
|
Fili, Attika
1 January 2001 (Old Style)
Circumcision of Our Savior
St. Basil the Great
|
Most Reverend Holy Hierarchs, beloved Brethren and concelebrants
with Our Humility, greeting Your Eminences fraternally in the Lord with
a holy kiss, we take the greatest pleasure in addressing you.
We greet you all at the beginning of the New Year of Our Lord’s
goodness, which ushers in the third millennium after Christ, offering
up doxology to God in the Highest for His indescribable bounty. May His
Name be blessed!
I. Through our present fraternal epistle, which also expresses the
unanimous opinion of all of the members of our Holy Synod in
Resistance, I wish to make it known to Your Eminences that, after
reading with particular attention the epistle of last October from your
Holy Synod to your flock, we gave thanks to Our Lord, Who preserves
your Orthodox Church Abroad united and vibrant and
Who grants her the wisdom to discern His holy will, which is “good,
acceptable, and perfect,” on the basis of newly developing historical
circumstances and challenges.
We are, to be sure, aware of the trial through which part of
your
God-saved flock is passing, evidently on account of an incorrect
understanding
of the spirit of your epistle. For this reason, we sincerely beseech
that the Lord God may bring peace to the hearts of all and that love,
unity, and peace, sweet in reality and in name, may thus prevail—this
surety of spiritual progress and unimpeded fulfillment of the saving
work of the Church.
In connection with this communication of ours, we deem it expedient
to bring to the attention of Your Eminences certain thoughts and views
“for edification, and not for destruction,” which stem from our sense
of responsibility before the universal Church, and the purpose
of which is to safeguard the unity of our Holy Synods.
*
* *
II. The aim of our unity, inaugurated in 1994 as a natural
corollary
of our common Orthodox confession, was to present a joint witness to
the truth before the official Orthodox jurisdictions, which are
enmeshed, in our day, in the apostasy of ecumenism, following the
example of such eminent Hierarchs and lodestars of your Holy Synod as
the sainted Metropolitan Philaret ( 1985) and Archbishop Averky ( 1976).
Such, first and foremost, was the meaning, for us, of
Eucharistic
communion with you, and the fruitful collaboration that we had
anticipated was abundantly evident during the first two years of our
union, that is, up until 1996.
(1) Since that time, and in spite of our sincere sentiments of
love and
respect towards you, we have noticed that you maintain a “distance”
towards us, and furthermore, we have encountered, oddly enough, a
disagreeable and, at times, unfraternal attitude on the part of certain
Hierarchs of your Holy Synod, having been compelled,
with much patience, forbearance, and prayer, to respond to
certain accusations and to furnish the requisite elucidations with
alacrity and clarity, as we did, for example, in our official Synodal
Letter, Protocol No. 244 (10 January 1997).
(2) Subsequently, certain ecclesiastical acts of your Holy Synod
posed
understandable dilemmas for us, insofar as the ecclesiological identity
of our Holy Synod, which is openly and unswervingly anti-ecumenical,
has never permitted us to have communion with the official
Orthodox jurisdictions, since they are actively involved in the
ecumenical movement and belong to the World Council of Churches,
whereas your Synod—albeit charily, yet without, at any rate, making
a secret of it—has been acting in a contrary manner.
(3) Indeed, we surmise that this direct or indirect—though
steady—communion of some of your clergy with certain official ecumenist
jurisdictions derives from a specific strategy of your Synod,
which, although we accept it in part, we nonetheless cannot overlook,
since we observe, with justifiable disquiet, that this tactic of yours
is leading you into two impasses:
(i) into an inconsistency of theory and practice, whereby your
synodally and emphatically stated anti-ecumenist self-understanding
is vitiated in practice through communion with the ecumenists or those
in communion with them;
(ii) into a de facto abrogation of one of the principal goals of
our
existence as walled-off Orthodox communities, namely, the continuous
and fraternal reminder, on our part, to the ecumenists of their ungodly
course and their constant estrangement from the Synodal and Patristic
Tradition of Orthodoxy.
(4) In writing the foregoing, we have in mind primarily your
well-known, putatively unofficial, and sporadic communion with the
Serbian Church, which, it should not be forgotten, participates fully
in the contemporary syncretistic inter-Christian and interfaith
ecumenical movement, notwithstanding the hopeful inquietude and
reaction within her fold, on the part of both clergy and laity.
(5) It is noteworthy that these increasing concelebrations of
some of
your Hierarchs with certain official jurisdictions involved in
ecumenism came to the point of being held, and overtly promoted, up to
the very eve of the meeting of your venerable Synod this past October,
putting us in such an awkward position vis- -vis our justly disquieted
flock that it was difficult for us to reassure it, in view of the fact
that one of our clergy has already broken communion with us on account
of your vacillating position towards the ecumenists.
(6) At this juncture, we can assert that certain resolutions
issued at
the recent meeting of your Hierarchy increase our anxiety over the
future and therefore impel us to agonized and fervent prayer, since,
for example, the appointment and promotion to more responsible
positions within your Hierarchy of persons adversely disposed
towards us, such as His Eminence, Bishop Ambrose, and also your
transparently official position towards the Serbian Church and towards
certain other local Churches, such as those of Georgia and
Czechoslovakia, are indicative of the fact that you and we do not have
a common understanding of the attitude to be maintained towards
official Church administrations involved in ecumenism.
(7) Moreover, the recent acknowledgement on your part of the
official
communion that exists with the Serbs, and also your plea that this
communion not be severed, and, in addition, your sympathetic attitude
towards certain local Churches, which may appear at first sight to be
more conservative by comparison with the rest, confirm our perception
that you are, in essence, being steadily led towards a gradual
relinquishment of the splendid anti-ecumenical Tradition of your Holy
Synod, a Tradition that was formed during the past thirty-five years
and expressed with singular theological clarity.
(8) Thus, it is evident that this gradual relinquishment of your
erstwhile anti-ecumenical Tradition is turning into a dead letter the
declaration contained in your recent Synodal Epistle concerning the
need to preserve the purity of the Faith and of anti-ecumenism
unadulterated,
since this preservation would obligate you to conform
fully to the demands of Orthodox resistance and walling-off, for the
Patristic criterion thereof is permanently valid:
| “putting truth and one’s own firmness in
the right Faith before
everything” (St. Basil the Great, Patrologia Græca, Vol. XXXII, col.
925BC). |
(9) We hope that—on the basis of what we have set forth above in
summary form—our reference to “understandable dilemmas” (§II.2) has
become clear. These dilemmas assume an almost dramatic
form, when we take into serious consideration the fact that our common
struggle of Faith and Confession, in the past century, was replete with
heroic and holy figures in Russia, Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria, who
chose witness, martyrdom, and “the reproach of Christ” as the only
tried and salvific way, in preference to reprehensible communion
with the official, but ecumenist, Orthodox jurisdictions.
(10) It would not be possible, in any case, for us to ignore the
Martyrs and Confessors, our forebears in the Faith, refusing to
“remember
our leaders,” especially at a time when the so-called official
Orthodox, as you have perhaps already been informed, only recently,
after all Liturgizing together and celebrating the Feast of the Nativity
at the Phanar and in Nicæa, according to the New Calendar, issued a
joint “Message” (26 December 2000), upholding, inter alia, the
contemporary ecumenical movement, which they present as a supposedly
imperative endeavor to restore unity among Christians by means of the
dialogue of truth and love, as if the ecumenical movement were merely
an innocuous “dialogue of truth and love,” and emphatically proclaiming
the following, inter alia:
Any
rupture in the unity of the Church on the pretext of preserving
customs or traditions or of supposedly
defending true Orthodoxy must
be considered unacceptable
and reprehensible. As the
entire life of the Orthodox Church attests,
differences over customs in no way impede Eucharistic communion between
Orthodox Churches, while preservation of the genuine Orthodox Faith is
safeguarded through the Synodal system, which
has always constituted the
final arbiter in the Church concerning
matters of faith. (¶10).
|
(11) It is clear that our position and yours is characterized as
“unacceptable and reprehensible.” However, we are not “rupturing the
unity of the Church” over secondary issues, but walling ourselves off
lawfully and canonically from those Orthodox ecumenists who, since
1920, have, through syncretistic coöperation and joint prayers with the
heterodox, and also through ecumenical theology and theological
dialogues, become so corroded that your Holy Synod rightly declared in
1971 (Montréal, 14-28 September 1971) that “ecumenism is a heresy
contrary to the dogma of the Church.”
(12) It should be observed, besides, that the foregoing
“condemnations”
of you and us were signed not only by the greatest of the ecumenists,
Patriarch Bartholomew, but also by Patriarchs Petros of Alexandria,
Ignatios of Antioch, and Teoctist of Romania, Archbishop
Anastasios of Tirana, Metropolitan Ambrose of Oulu (Finland),
Archbishop Christodoulos of Athens, Patriarch Maxim of Sofia, et al.,
and by those adhering to the Old Calendar, yet participating in
ecumenism and the World Council of Churches and agreeing in every
respect with the other Primates, namely, Patriarch Pavle of Serbia,
Metropolitan Abraham, the representative of the Georgian Church, and
Archbishop Nicholas of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, Patriarch
Alexey of Moscow being absent on account of the well-worn question of
Estonia, and certainly not because of any difference over the
aforementioned accords.
*
* *
Your Eminences, Holy Hierarchs:
III. The constantly hardening attitude towards you and us on the
part
of the Orthodox ecumenists caught up in innovation and heresy,
reaching, indeed, the truly tragic point of their re-Ordaining
our clergy when they accede to them, has impelled us—by way
of the present epistle—to endeavor, on the one hand, to foster a deeper
awareness of the ecclesiological foundations of our Orthodox
communities and, on the other hand, to renew our resolution to continue
our Orthodox and God-pleasing resistance, so as to put into effect the
Synodal conscience of the Church, for the purpose of condemning the
heresy of ecumenism and its corollaries at a Pan-Orthodox or
OEcumenical Synod, in order that the Church, which today is divided,
may thereby be united in the Orthodox Faith.
(1) Our Holy Synod is resolved, by the Grace of God, to continue
living up to the confidence of its anguished flock and not to have—as
it has not had hitherto—either direct or indirect communion
with the Orthodox ecumenists.
(2) Our stand, in conformity in every respect with the Synodal
and
Patristic Tradition of Orthodoxy, wards off any relativization of the
truth, curbs escalating interconfessional and interfaith syncretism,
and finally preserves the Church from dogmatic, ethical, and canonical
"minimalism."
(3) It is very clear that this broad spectrum of Orthodox and
God-pleasing resistance ultimately constitutes the hope of pious
Orthodox
Christians everywhere, who observe with profound disquiet the
participation of the official jurisdictions in the aforementioned
pernicious process, as a necessary consequence of their participation
in the ecumenical movement and the World Council of Churches.
(4) Our Holy Synod, perceiving this disquiet on the part of pious
Orthodox Christians, and being aware of her calling, is ready to
provide assistance to all who approach her in their desire to remain
within the saving bounds of anti-innovationist Orthodoxy, not sparing
any efforts or sacrifices, as she has, moreover, always done, with
God's help.
(5) We are most deeply convinced that the continual increase of
walled-off anti-ecumenist communities within the various local official
jurisdictions is our historic vocation.
In responding to this, we
maintain our Orthodox identity, by Divine Grace, and we preserve the
Apostolic and Patristic “legacy”
unadulterated, in the hope of the
miracle of union through the condemnation of the heresy of ecumenism.
(6) The sensitivity of your Holy Synod to this vision has always
been
an inspiration to us—indeed, it was for this reason that we opened
Eucharistic communion with you—, and we now pray fervently that the
Divine Founder of the Church will enlighten, strengthen, and guide you
in the continuation of your anti-ecumenical
Tradition in concordance with the precepts of our common “Leaders” and
in full awareness of the lofty demands of our extremely confused age.
(7) A fraternal response on your part to our present humble
epistle
would be an occasion of especial and deep joy for us, so that the
“unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace” (Ephesians 4:3) between us
might thus be made manifest.
*
* *
In conclusion, bestowing once again on Your Eminences a fraternal
kiss in the Lord and beseeching the Divine Founder of the Church that
He grant you as many years of health and joy as possible,
we remain, with profound love in Christ and with all respect,
The beloved brother in Christ of Your
Eminences,
Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili,
First Hierarch of the Holy Synod in
Resistance
Old
Calendar Orthodox Church of Greece
Holy Synod in Resistance
The
Holy Synod in Resistance and the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
Statement
on the Recent Rapprochement
Between the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate
A.
The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
The Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) is that part of the Russian
Church that fled Russia after the 1917 Revolution and which was
dispersed throughout Europe, America, Asia, and Australia.
It was established on canonical grounds with approval from St. Tikhon,
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia (1919, 1920, 1922), from the
Patriarchate of Constantinople (1920), and from the Serbian
Orthodox Church, which hosted it (1921-). It has maintained no
communion with the Moscow Patriarchate on the grounds of its special
relations with the atheistic and anti-ecclesiastical Soviet régime,
relations which became fully established after the repose of the Holy
Patriarch Tikhon (1925), when Metropolitan Sergius of Nizhegorod, whom
the government had designated Locum Tenens of the vacant Patriarchal
throne, made his notorious “Declaration” of loyalty to the Soviets in
1927 (“Sergianism”).
The ROCA
formed a synodal jurisdiction on the basis of the foregoing,
having as its Chief Hierarchs Metropolitans Anthony ( 1936), Anastassy
( 1965), Philaret ( 1985), Vitaly (retired, 2001), and at present
Metropolitan Laurus (October 2001-), constituting thereby the free part
of the historical Russian Church and maintaining
its rich ecclesiastical heritage. For this reason, it was from the very
outset opposed to the spirit of innovation, reform, and ecumenism. It
has always followed the traditional Church Calendar, and in 1983 it
issued a synodal condemnation of ecumenism.
This
stand led the ROCA to the gradual cessation, particularly after
the Second World War, and especially since 1965, of all communion
with the other local Orthodox Churches, with which, up to that point,
it had maintained unofficial or informal relations.
B.
Relations with the Greek Old Calendarists
In 1960,
in the U.S.A, and in 1962, in Greece, the ROCA Consecrated
Bishops for the Greek Old Calendarists, who, after the calendar change
of 1924, were organized as a separate ecclesiastical community.
In 1969,
the Holy Synod of the ROCA, under Metropolitan Philaret,
recognized these Consecrations and entered into full ecclesiastical
communion with them. The Greek Old Calendarists were at the time under
the jurisdiction of the ever-memorable Archbishop
Auxentios, with whom the ROCA broke communion, however, in 1978, on the
grounds of canonical infractions on the part of the Greeks.
The ROCA,
under Metropolitan Vitaly, opened full ecclesiastical
communion with the Romanian Old Calendarists under Metropolitan Vlasie
in 1992; then, in the year 1994, with the Greek Old Calendarists
under Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili, as well as the Bulgarian
Old Calendarists under Bishop Photii of Triaditza.
C.
Rapprochement Between the ROCA and Moscow
The ten-year-old
union of the ROCA and the Greek, Romanian, and
Bulgarian Old Calendarists had as its basis, aside from the obvious
need for mutual reinforcement and support, a common anti-ecumenical
self-consciousness, manifested primarily in the cessation of communion
with all of the “official” local Orthodox Churches, which participate
in the ecumenical movement and are active members
of the World Council of Churches (1948-), and also a concerted, and
therefore more effective, confrontation of the proliferation of
ecumenism within the local Orthodox Churches.
However,
over time it became obvious that the ROCA was going
through a progressive crisis with regard to its ecclesiological
identity; and its overtures, albeit unofficial at the outset, towards
the Moscow Patriarchate (beginning in 2000), and towards the ecumenist
jurisdictions in general provoked initial disquietude in the Holy Synod
in Resistance, a fruit of which was, first and foremost, an official
letter (Protocol No. 340/1 January 2001) addressed to the Holy Synod of
the ROCA by Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili, President of the
Synod in Resistance.
In this
letter, with the consent of the Holy Synod, His Eminence
wrote the following, among other things:
“Our Holy Synod is resolved, by the Grace of God, to continue, in
response to the confidence placed in it by its pious and anguished
flock, refraining—as it has hitherto—from direct or indirect communion
with the Orthodox ecumenists.”
|
His
Eminence also pointed out to our Russian brethren that
“you are, in essence, on a steady course towards the gradual
relinquishment of the glorious anti-ecumenist tradition of your Church
that has been fostered during
the past thirty-five years and
which has been expounded with singular
theological clarity.”
|
With the
elevation of a new Chief Hierarch for the ROCA in October of
2001, which provoked a schism within its ranks by reason of this new
direction, the Synod in Resistance maintained communion
with Metropolitan Laurus and the Bishops with him because, in spite of
its reservations, it was satisfied that the policy statements of the
new Primate were genuinely Orthodox and because it viewed as hyperbolic
the complaints of those outside and within Russia who, albeit after the
fact, did not recognize his election.
Notwithstanding
this, already last year (in 2003), the situation began
to give rise to justifiable concern, in particular because of the
vigorous promotion of a clearly new direction in the ROCA, in spite of
its statements and confirmations to the contrary.
Precisely
because of this unpleasant development, Metropolitan Cyprian,
in a number of memoranda to the ROCA, expressed the opposition of our
Synod in Resistance to the steps being taken by the ROCA, that is, its
rapprochement with Moscow, reminding its Bishops at all times that,
even if the other reasons for separation from the Moscow Patriarchate
were regarded as essentially no longer valid, there was still one
absolutely insurmountable impediment to union; namely, the heresy of
ecumenism.
D.
The Acceleration of Contacts Towards Rapprochement
Unfortunately,
contacts and overtures between the ROCA and Moscow have
increased and accelerated, and this with intense pressure from the
Russian authorities, using the Moscow Patriarchate
as the primary tool for exerting such pressure, and, to be sure, with
the guiding influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church over certain
elements in the ROCA. The most important steps in this journey towards
union were the following:
1)
The meeting in New York City, in September 2003, of Hierarchical
representatives of the ROCA with the President of Russia [an ex-KGB
General—Trans.], Vladimir Putin;
2)
The meeting in Moscow, in November 2003, of Hierarchical
representatives of the ROCA with Patriarch Alexis and members of the
Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate;
3) The
official visit to Moscow, in May 2004, of Metropolitan Laurus,
during which, in an atmosphere of prayerful communion, a dialogue
concerning union was conducted and it was decided to establish
Committees for Dialogue and to set the agenda for union discussions;
4)
The inauguration, in June 2004, of the work of the Committees
for Dialogue in Moscow, and the elaboration of common statements
of agreement to be submitted to the respective Hierarchs of each Church
for evaluation.
Anticipating
the meeting of the full Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate
in October and the usual meeting of the full Synod of the ROCA at the
beginning of 2005, we may conclude that these developments will be very
swift and dramatic.
Official
voices in both the ROCA and the Moscow Patriarchate assure us
that, in fact, this union has been decided upon and that its
accomplishment is now a matter of time, since the things that unite
them, as they tellingly put it, are very cogent, whereas the things
that divide them, are matters of secondary importance, including the
issue of ecumenism.
E.
The Resisters in the Face of These Developments
The Holy
Synod in Resistance, in common thought with our Romanian
and Bulgarian Old Calendarist brethren, are following these
developments, with which, of course, they are prima facie in
disagreement at a root level, with attention and prayer.
With
regard to the issue of immediate and official cessation of
communion with the ROCA so quickly after the initiation of these
proceedings towards rapprochement, we have not deemed such final
action to be the most efficacious solution, but have decided to
continue gradually distancing ourselves from this situation, keeping in
mind that, for several years now, we have, in effect, had almost no
communion with the ROCA. It is our intention to exercise benevolent
influence in a healthy direction over the various factions within the
ROCA.
In the
face of these truly dramatic developments, even if we are
nearing the boundaries of economy, we consider it preferable to
maintain our stand of forbearance in delaying official and definitive
cessation of communion with the ROCA, in the hope that this planned
union will be averted by some miraculous intervention, calling upon the
intercessions of the Most Blessed Theotokos and all the Saints, and
especially the New Martyrs of Russia and St. John of Shanghai and San
Francisco, by whose special protection and guidance our communion with
the ROCA was, from the beginning, accomplished.
If and
when the union of a portion of the ROCA with Moscow becomes
certain, definite, and irrevocable (God forbid!), we will immediately
cease communion with that group, continuing our communion
with the remaining portion of the Church, if they should, indeed, wish
such communion—providing, of course, that they also maintain a clear
anti-ecumenical stance, refusing communion with the ecumenists at all
costs, whether directly or indirectly.
From the Chancery
of the Holy Synod
in Resistance,
Fili, Attika, 20
July 2004 (Old Style)
Holy and Glorious
Prophet Elias the Thesbite
Old Calendar
Orthodox Church of Greece
Holy Synod in Resistance
Protocol No. 408
To the Holy Synod of the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad,
per His Eminence,
Metropolitan Laurus
New York, U.S.A.
———————
|
Fili, Attika
11 October 2004 (Old Style)
Holy Fathers of the
Seventh OEcumenical Synod
|
Your Eminence, Metropolitan Laurus;
Most Reverend Holy Hierarchs:
Beloved Brethren in Christ and Divinely-wise Fathers, greeting
Your
Eminences with a holy kiss, we take the greatest pleasure in addressing
you.
Having completed, by the Grace of our Savior, the second month
of the
new Church year, and honoring the memory of the Holy Fathers of the
Seventh OEcumenical Synod, we greet you all and humbly pray that you
might have health and strength for your lofty duties, under the
illuminating and protecting Veil of the Most Blessed Theotokos and
Ever-Virgin Mary.
*
* *
I.
Through our present fraternal epistle, I wish to inform Your
Eminences, with the authorization of our Holy Synod in Resistance,
which recently convened for its regular annual meeting, on 3 October
2004 (Old Style), about the following matter.
When we addressed ourselves to you in an official Synodal Epistle
(Protocol No. 340/I January 2001 [Old Style]), about four years ago, we
concluded our somewhat lengthy text by saying that
| “a brotherly reply on your part to the
present humble epistle would
give us especial and profound joy, so that we might thereby make clear
the ‘unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace’ (Ephesians 4:3) that
exists between us.” |
To this day we have yet to taste of this joy; that is to say, we
have
not received any epistle through which, with your Hierarchical wisdom,
you might express the official views of the venerable Russian Orthodox
Church Abroad on the very serious ecclesiological questions
set forth in our aforementioned Synodal Epistle.
*
* *
II.
This protracted silence of yours, coupled with a long-standing
and total absence of Eucharistic communion with one another, and
combined with the onward march of ecumenism, as promoted by those
claiming to be the official representatives of Orthodoxy (see, for
example, the concluding event in the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew
to the Vatican, 29-30 June 2004), and with the steady and rapid
unionist rapprochement of your venerable Synod with the Moscow
Patriarchate, to which let us add the openly publicized concelebrations
of your Hierarchs with certain ecumenist official jurisdictions—for
example, with the Serbian Patriarchate—, has understandably given rise
to deep anguish in us and our rational flock, and has increased to the
utmost the disquiet that we have already expressed.
We are convinced that these startling and truly dramatic
developments,
which we, along with our Old Calendarist Orthodox
brethren in Romania and Bulgaria, have been following with attention
and prayer, and with which we must express yet again our fundamental
disagreement, are diametrically opposed to the heroic stand taken by a
number of holy persons and Confessors in Russia, Greece, Romania,
Bulgaria, and the Diaspora.
These individuals preferred confession and martyrdom as the only
way of
salvation, rejecting as reprehensible any communion with the official
Orthodox jurisdictions, both on account of the Church-hating Sergianism
[of the Moscow Patriarchate] and on account
of the heretical ecumenism [espoused by all such Churches] and its
immediate by-products, deriving from the program of the 1920 Encyclical
of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and they have confirmed,
and
continue to confirm, the correctness of their stand through miracles
and signs.
How, reverend and beloved brethren in Christ, could we possibly
ignore the Martyrs and Confessors, our forebears in the Faith, who
contended valiantly in the preceding century?
Indeed, how can we henceforth “remember
our leaders,” if in practice
we deny their good “legacy,”
according to which the so-called
ecumenical movement is leading to the apostasy of the last times?
Your Holy Synod is, of course, free to choose its own position
with
regard to its relations both with the ecumenical movement and with the
Moscow Patriarchate, and so this intervention of ours could not be
characterized as an act of misguided meddling in the affairs of another
jurisdiction; it is, in fact, an expression of brotherly and pastoral
duty, for the following reasons:
(a)
our union with your Holy Synod, in the year of salvation 1994, came
about on the basis of theological, nay ecclesiological criteria,
which we now find that you are overturning in practice, without
informing us straightforwardly or officially;
(b)
the manifestly new course of your venerable Synod is having direct
consequences and repercussions, both theological and practical,
for our flock, which, naturally, is awaiting convincing answers to the
manifold questions raised by your new policy; it has always
had a profound awareness that its existence, since 1924, as an Orthodox
community walled off within the bounds of the Church of Greece, is due
exclusively and solely to the heresy of ecumenism.
*
* *
III.
We, Holy Fathers and Brothers, like our Romanian and Bulgarian
brethren, entered, more than ten years ago, into Eucharistic communion
with your Holy Synod, on the basis of our common Orthodox confession,
and with the prospect of giving a common witness to the Truth before
the official Orthodox jurisdictions that have fallen into ecumenism, in
continuity, furthermore, with the policy marked out by such
ever-memorable Hierarchs as the saintly Metropolitan Philaret and the
zealous Archbishop Averky.
Consequently, in keeping with the foregoing, our Holy Synod in
Resistance is resolved, by the Grace of God, in response to the
confidence placed in it by its pious and anguished flock, to continue
refraining—as it has hitherto—from direct or indirect communion with
the Orthodox ecumenists, including the Moscow Patriarchate.
We disagree radically with the outlook
and with the general mentality
of the ecumenists in question, because these are in direct opposition
to the theology of the Fathers, as has been pointed out, moreover, in
many different ways by some very prominent Orthodox
theologians (such as the late Archimandrite Justin [Popović]).
As well, the Orthodox ecumenists have been proven untrustworthy,
since, as a sober and in-depth scrutiny of the genesis and development
of ecumenism (especially from 1920 onwards) demonstrates,
they are guilty of duplicity and insincerity: they say and do one set
of things in the circles of those of like mind with them (Orthodox and
heterodox), but preach something else to the Faithful
who are against ecumenism, in order to appease them.
Following the Holy Fathers, who exhort us thus: “we are especially
bound to avoid communion with those
whose beliefs we abhor” (St.
Athanasios the Great, “Epistle to Those Who Practice the Solitary
Life and are Established in Faith in God,” Patrologia Græca, Vol. XXVI,
col. 1188BC), we believe that “coming
together” and “communing”
with ecumenists is not only not a matter of indifference, but also
makes us “enemies of God”
(St. Theodore the Studite, “Epistle I.39, ‘To
Theophilos the Abbot,’” Patrologia
Græca, Vol. XCIX, col. 1049A), and,
furthermore, leads us, through inveterate hobnobbing, “into the mire of
ungodliness” (St. Athanasios, ibid.).
On the contrary, the stand of God-pleasing
resistance and walling-off,
which, entirely in accord with Synodal and Patristic Tradition of
Orthodoxy throughout the centuries, involves breaking all communion,
direct or indirect, with the ecumenists, accomplishes the following
three salvific objectives, by the Grace of God:
(a)
it averts the
relativization of the Truth and the resultant loss of
any sense of the danger of heresy, which is, unfortunately,
fostered
through hobnobbing with the heterodox and also through the acceptance
by Orthodox ecumenists of the supposed ecclesiality of heterodox
communities;
(b) it
checks the galloping inter-Christian and interfaith syncretism
which the
ecumenical movement openly encourages in its domain, deeming
it necessary that the Orthodox Church engage, together with the
heterodox and the adherents of non-Christian religions,
in common service to the world;
(c)
it preserves the
one, unique Church, that is, Orthodoxy, from
dogmatic, canonical, and ethical minimalism, which is promoted
above
all within the ambit of the World Council of Churches, and which
legitimates de facto the
sundry deviations of Western Christianity,
in particular, thereby destroying the sure boundaries of life and
salvation in Christ marked out by the Fathers.
We have always been very deeply convinced that the constant increase of
walled-off, anti-ecumenist communities within the local official
jurisdictions not only does not constitute a “schism,” but is actually
our historic vocation. If we respond to this vocation, we will, by
Divine Grace, protect our Orthodox identity and will preserve
the Apostolic and Patristic “legacy”
unadulterated, in the hope
of the miracle of a reunion of the Faithful through the condemnation
of the heresy of ecumenism.
*
* *
IV.
Needless to say, it is neither feasible nor permissible for the
Holy Synod in Resistance to impose her own views, which flow directly
from her fundamental ecclesiological principles, on those in communion
with her; however, she does feel obligated to be completely
consistent with her self-identity, and she feels it necessary, in the
name of our common and mutual Patristic and Synodal Tradition,
invoking the God-persuading intercessions of the Immaculate Mother of
God and of all the Saints, to entreat and exhort your Holy Synod, with
anguished brotherly love in Christ, to refrain from liturgical and
prayerful communion with the official ecumenist
jurisdictions, and to halt all further efforts towards union with the
Moscow Patriarchate.
If you continue—God forbid!—to abandon the splendid Tradition
of anti-ecumenism that you have hitherto upheld, and if, in addition,
you continue to remain silent towards the written appeals from our Holy
Synod in Resistance right up to the beginning of the year of salvation
2005, we will be obligated, with the deepest sorrow, to regard the
rupture of all mutual ecclesiastical relations that has already been in
effect for some years as complete and final, and to proclaim this
officially, for the information of our gravely and justifiably
concerned rational flock.
*
* *
In conclusion, bestowing once again on Your Eminences a fraternal
kiss in the Lord and beseeching the Divine Founder of the Church that
He ever guide you in the paths of His will, we remain, with profound
love in Christ and with all respect
The beloved brother in Christ of Your
Eminences,
+ Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili,
First Hierarch of the Holy Synod in Resistance
• Attachments:
1.
Our Synodal Epistle (Protocol No. 340 [I January 2001 (Old Style)]).
2.
The Communiqué of 20 July 2004 (Old Style) from the Chancery
of the Holy Synod in Resistance: “Statement on the Recent Rapprochement
Between the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate.”
Old Calendar Orthodox Church of Greece
Holy Synod in Resistance
Protocol No. 409
To the Holy Synod of the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
per His Eminence,
Metropolitan Laurus
New York, U.S.A.
———————
|
Fili, Attika
5 December 2004 (Old Style)
St. Sabbas the Sanctified
|
Your Eminence, Metropolitan Laurus;
Most Reverend Holy Hierarchs:
Beloved Brethren and Fathers in Christ, greeting Your Eminences
with a holy kiss, we take the greatest pleasure in addressing you.
Finding ourselves, by the Grace of Our Savior, in the midst of the Holy
Fast, and approaching the Feasts of the Divine Epiphany of Our Lord
Jesus Christ, we offer a humble wish to all of you that you might
worship the Great Mystery of Piety, that is, the Incarnation
of the Word, in health of soul and body and with ineffable spiritual
consolation, by the intercessions of our Immaculate Lady, the Theotokos.
*
* *
I.
A short while ago, we had the honor of receiving an epistle, dated
4/17 November 2004, from your First Hierarch, His Eminence,
Metropolitan Laurus, and at the outset we rejoiced with especial joy
over this communication between us; but subsequently, after reading
it, we felt astonishment [that is, at your suggestion that we unite
with the ecumenist New Calendar Church of Greece—Trans.].
This astonishment of ours was due to the fact that, although I had
recently sent to your Holy Synod our Synodal
Letter, Protocol No. 408
(11 October 2004 [Old Style]), four pages in length, in which a
great
many serious issues pertaining to ecclesiastical relations between you
and us were set forth, and through which you were asked for an
immediate, clear, and cogent response to these issues, strangely
enough, the aforementioned epistle from His Eminence, Metropolitan
Laurus made no reference to our letter, but contained only some
generalities regarding the rapprochement between the Russian Orthodox
Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate. These generalities are,
moreover, familiar from other sources, which enjoy wide circulation in
the press, both electronic and printed.
II.
The Old Calendarist Orthodox in Greece, most holy Brother and
venerable First Hierarch, have always maintained sentiments of profound
gratitude towards the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, because it was
through her that they were able to combine zeal for the preservation of
Church Tradition, as you pointedly write, with Ordinations at the hands
of canonical Hierarchs.
Nonetheless, our Orthodox ecclesiastical community in resistance
has always had the feeling that it is not confronting [as you say]
certain “wounds” of “division” or certain “ecclesiastical infirmities”
of secondary importance, in need of “healing”
by means of a dialogue.
Our position and our action of walling-off and resistance are
due, as
we have often, and with documentation, made clear, to the fact that the
official Orthodox jurisdictions are openly ecumenist, that is, that
they have adopted the ecclesiological panheresy of ecumenism (1920 et
seq.), the syncretistic practices of which now constitute the
invariable behavior of these ecclesiastical administrations—at a
pan-Orthodox level, at that—, which promote this behavior so actively,
steadfastly, and programmatically, that for well nigh three decades now
they have been in the vanguard of participation in the natural
outcome thereof, namely, the indisputably syncretistic interfaith
movement, with very grave soteriological repercussions.
III.
The Churches of Constantinople and Athens, Most Reverend
Metropolitan, are not working, as you write, to “heal divisions and
infirmities,” that is, to examine the possibility that they are
in
error regarding the Faith and to reject their anti-Patristic beliefs
and return to unity with the Church of the Saints who dwell in Heaven,
from which they have, unfortunately, cut themselves off.
Quite to the contrary: their efforts, persisting firmly, as they
do, in
the cacodoxy of ecumenism, aim at the subjugation and absorption
of the Old Calendarist Orthodox in resistance through the creation
of a kind of intra-Orthodox Unia,
such as is now, for instance,
exemplified in America by the dreadfully fallen Hierarchs Paisios and
Vikentios.
Of what benefit can it be to the latter to retain the
traditional
Church Calendar, while at the same time they are in communion with the
apostasy of inter-Christian and interfaith ecumenism? Did the
Phanariots perhaps respect the Consecrations of both these Bishops,
which derived indirectly from canonical Hierarchs, that is, from your
Holy Synod?
IV. In
any case, not wishing to raise objections to all of the thoughts
contained in your epistle, Your Eminence, I hope that you will allow
our Holy Synod to abide by all that it upholds in its aforementioned
letter and to consider that this letter remains in essence unanswered
by Your Eminence qua First Hierarch.
Our respect and gratitude to your Holy Synod is upheld, and will be
upheld, by the Grace of God, while our sorrow is tempered by the hope
that the Most Blessed Theotokos
will not ultimately permit
you to enter into full communion with those Orthodox jurisdictions
that may be official, but have fallen into ecumenism, and
which, solely through a consistent Orthodox and God-pleasing resistance
and walling-off, have the chance of waking up and recovering
the Patristic identity that they have lost.
I append to the present epistle a relatively recent article of
ours
entitled “Athens is ‘More Ecumenical
than the Ecumenical Phanar,’” so
that you might ascertain how well-founded our views are and what is the
true climate that prevails at the Phanar and in Athens.
Symptomatic of the fact that the Phanar labors in the captivity of
ecumenism is its promotion, inter
alia, of the anti-Orthodox theology
of Baptismal, and that last September, at the Thirteenth Meeting
between the Patriarchate of
Constantinople and the Protestant
“Evangelical Church in Germany”
(Phanar, 16-22 September 2004), it was
proclaimed that “we each regard the
other’s members as baptized and we
reject any re-baptism” (Joint Communiqué, 22 September 2004,
website of
the Patriarchate of Constantinople).
The Patriarchate of Belgrade could never be regarded as a model,
either, of Orthodox anti-ecumenism as of old, in the days of the
ever-memorable Father Justin (Popović), or as an Orthodox “clinic for
ecclesiastical infirmities,” since just recently it announced,
among
other things, to the utmost sorrow of the pious, that it is in the
vanguard
of “pan-Christian assemblies,”
through all of the anti-Orthodox
activities that took place and were vigorously promoted at the
“Inter-Church” Conference in
Subotica-Becej, Serbia (22-24 November
2004) [see the section “News” of the website of the Patriarchate of
Serbia].
V.
Patristic and canonical Tradition is not only completely unaware
of any cure of ecclesiastical
infirmities necessitated by deviations
from dogmatic truth, in communion with the sickness of heresy and
without a radical theological critique of false belief, but actually
enjoins Orthodox resistance and walling-off, ad referendum, of course,
to a major Synod for decisive and complete healing.
And we could not follow any other path, Venerable First Hierarch,
when the Holy Fathers proclaim their conviction that heresy, and
consequently, panheretical ecumenism
not only does not bind up the wounded, but also smites those whose
wounds have been bound; not only does not raise up the downcast, but
also strives to cast down those who stand; not only does not gather
together the dispersed, but also divides those gathered together”
(St.
Celestine of Rome, “Epistle to the Clergy and People of
Constantinople,” in Acta Conciliorum
OEcumenicorum, ed. E. Schwartz, Vol. IV, p. 85).
|
Indeed, a rupture of communion or coöperation for reasons of
Faith
should not, say the Saints, be postponed even in cases where love for a
sibling is, at first sight, a serious consideration, and certainly
when love for one’s countrymen is at issue. In fact, in the latter
case it is enjoined with even more zeal:
‘When
the word of truth is in dispute,’ St. John Chrysostomos declares,
‘recognize who your kinsman is and who is the stranger. Even if you
have a brother from the same father and the same mother, and he does
not commune with you in the law of truth, let him be more a barbarian
in your eyes than a Scythian’ (Patrologia
Græca, Vol. LV, col. 461).
|
*
* *
In conclusion, abiding by the contents of our Synodal Letter,
Protocol
No. 408 (11 October 2004 [Old Style]), we bestow on Your Eminences a
fraternal kiss in the Lord, beseeching the Divine Founder of the Church
that He ever guide you in the paths of His will, and we remain, with
profound love and respect in Christ,
The beloved brother in Christ of Your
Eminences,
+ Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Fili,
First Hierarch of the Holy Synod in Resistance
Attachment:
Old Calendar
Orthodox Church of Greece
Holy Synod in Resistance
Protocol No. 412
To the Holy Synod of the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad
per His Eminence,
Metropolitan Laurus
New York, U.S.A.
———————
|
Fili, Attika
22 November 2005 (Old Style)
Afterfeast of the Entrance of the Theotokos
|
Your Eminence, Metropolitan Laurus;
Your Eminences and Graces, Holy Hierarchs:
Beloved Brothers and Fathers in Christ, embracing Your Eminences
and Graces, we beseech the Divine Founder of the Church to grant to us
the gift of peace and unity.
Honoring and celebrating the Entrance of the Most Blessed Theotokos,
this Great Feast of the Mother of God, we humbly pray that the Grace of
her God-entreating adjurations might strengthen you, as well as all
Orthodox Shepherds throughout the world, in the right teaching of the
Word of Truth unto the end, that the
world might believe.
*
* *
I.
I have the honor of addressing to Your Eminences and Graces
my present humble Epistle, with the unanimous consent and approval of
our Holy Synod of the Orthodox in Resistance, after prayerful
deliberation and the invocation of the guidance of the Mother of God.
At its recent annual meeting (thirty-first session/4 October
2005 [Old
Style]), our Holy Synod was fully briefed concerning various activities
and documents of your venerable Synod pertaining to the ongoing
dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the Moscow
Patriarchate.
Our particular interest was drawn to certain documents, which
appeared
simultaneously this past June on the official websites of the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate.
The introductory document bears the title: “Concerning the Joint
Working Meetings of the Commissions of the Moscow Patriarchate and the
Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.” In one section of this
document, there is a reference to our Holy Synod in Resistance.
May we be allowed, Most Reverend Brethren, to express not only
our
profound astonishment over the contents of the report in question,
but also our sincere distress, because, by way of this document, as
well as other recent and related activities and documents of your Holy
Synod in the course of its journey towards “Canonical Communion”
with Moscow, it is demonstrated that any further hopes for the
preservation or rekindling of our ecclesiastical communion have,
unfortunately, been fully and irrevocably dashed.
II.
These sentiments of ours are entirely justified, and all the more
so in that, while awaiting an answer to our four-page Synodal Letter
(Protocol No. 409/5 December 2004 [Old Style]), in which we
responded
to the Epistle, dated 4/17 November
2004, of your First Hierarch, His
Eminence, Metropolitan Laurus, we finally became
cognizant of the aforementioned electronic [Internet] text, in which
the aforesaid reference places in some confusion the meaning and
chronology of our recent correspondence.
Thus, we feel obliged, Most Reverend Brethren, motivated by brotherly
love in Christ, to remind you in brief of certain points in our Synodal
Letters to you, with the assurance that this is not a question
of
causing further vexation to your Holy Synod, even as we will never
relinquish our feelings of gratitude and respect for the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad.
(1) In our Synodal Epistle (Protocol
No. 408/11 October 2004 [Old
Style]), noting your protracted silence towards our Synodal Letter
(Protocol No. 340/1 January 2001 [Old Style]), we observed that
this
silence,
“coupled
with a long-standing and total absence of Eucharistic
communion with one another, and also with the onward march of
ecumenism, as fostered by those reputed to be the official
representatives of Orthodoxy (see, in this regard, the culminating
event in the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew to the Vatican, 29-30 June
2004), and thirdly with the steady and rapid unionist rapprochement of
your respected Synod with the Moscow Patriarchate—to which let us add the
vigorously promoted
concelebrations of your Hierarchs with official ecumenist
jurisdictions, such as the Serbian Patriarchate—
understandably gave rise to
deep anguish in us and our rational flock
and increased to the utmost our already expressed disquietude.”
|
At that time, we also said that
“these startling and truly
dramatic developments, which we, along with
our Old Calendarist Orthodox brethren in Romania and Bulgaria, have
been following with attention and prayer, and with which we must
express yet again our
fundamental disagreement, are diametrically opposed, according to our
conviction, to the heroic stand taken by a number of holy persons and
Confessors in Russia, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Diaspora.”
|
And we concluded as follows:
“If
you continue—God forbid!—to abandon the splendid anti-ecumenical
Tradition that you have hitherto
upheld, and if, in addition,
you persist in remaining
silent in the face of the
written appeals from our Holy Synod in
Resistance through the beginning of the year of salvation 2005, we will
be obligated, with the deepest sorrow, to regard as complete and
decisive the rupture of all mutual ecclesiastical relations, which has
already been in effect for some years, and to proclaim this officially,
so as to inform our rational flock, which is gravely and justifiably
concerned.”
|
(2)
We immediately responded to the Letter
of 4/17 November 2004 from
His Eminence, Metropolitan Laurus with our Synodal Letter (Protocol No.
409/5 December 2004 [Old Style]), in which the following points,
among
many others, were made:
“In any case, not wishing to
raise objections to all of the thoughts
contained in your epistle, Your Eminence, I hope that you will allow
our Holy Synod to abide by all that it upholds in its aforementioned
Letter and to consider that this Letter remains in essence unanswered
by Your Eminence qua First Hierarch.”
|
III.
On the basis of the foregoing, Most Reverend Brethren, insofar as,
in the meantime, there has emerged a climate that is diametrically
opposed to that which led us, in 1994, to Eucharistic communion, our
Holy Synod in Resistance has now categorically and finally decided—with
deepest sorrow—officially to sever ecclesiastical
relations with you.
The recent course of your Holy Synod, specifically with regard
to its
relations with the ecumenist Patriarchate of Moscow and to its
conception of ecumenism, as this is expressed, for example, in your
agreed statement with the Moscow Patriarchate, “Concerning the Attitude of the Orthodox Church Towards the
Heterodox and Inter-Confessional
Organizations,” is totally incompatible with its ecclesiological
self-understanding as it was in 1994, since in its Resolution, at that
time, to enter into union with us, it confessed the following:
“...[T]he
Council [Synod] of Bishops holds that at the present time,
when apostasy is spreading and many [so-called] official
representatives of Orthodoxy, such as the Patriarchate of
Constantinople and other Patriarchates, are succumbing to and embracing
the position of the modernists and ecumenists, it is very important for
the true Orthodox to unite, stand together,
and oppose the betrayers of the
Orthodoxy of the Holy Fathers”
(Resolution of the Synod of Bishops, No. 3/50/148, 3/16 August 1994).
|
IV.
Having set forth at length, Most Reverend Brethren, our
ecclesiological views (especially in our Synodal Epistles: Protocol No.
340/1 January 2001 [Old Style], Protocol No. 408/11 October
2004 [Old Style], and Protocol No. 409/5 December 2004 [Old Style]),
on
the basis of which we repeatedly expressed to you our anxieties and
objections regarding the truly new orientation of your Holy Synod
towards the syncretistic ecumenical movement, our Holy Synod, at its
thirty-first meeting (4 October 2005
[Old Style]), arrived at the
following decision, which was distressing, in view of the bond of love
in Christ that has existed [between us] for decades, but obligatory,
for the sake of consistency with its own ecclesiological position:
1.
Resolved: to sever, fully and decisively, ecclesiastical communion
with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, under His Eminence,
Metropolitan Laurus, whose name has, for a year, already been deleted
from the Diptychs.
2.
Resolved: by a majority, out of extreme oikonomia, and for purely
pastoral reasons not to declare, for the time being, this rupture of
communion formally or to implement it in full.
3.
Resolved: that the formal declaration and full implementation
of this Act will take effect without further ado, immediately and
automatically, upon the opening of communion between the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate.
4.
Resolved: that the present Synodal Epistle shall be published on our
website after its dispatch to the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox
Church Abroad, and that all of the relevant official documents
will be published when the decision to break communion is fully
implemented.
5.
These Synodal Resolutions, and the fourth in particular, are also
deemed necessary for the further purpose of formally and officially
keeping informed our rational flock in Christ and the Old Calendarist
Orthodox in Greece and abroad, in general, who are ascertaining, to
their sorrow, that yet another sacred champion
is succumbing to the
pressures of the panheresy of ecumenism.
That which was already resolutely pointed out years ago by the
ever-memorable Andreas Theodorou, Professor at the School of Theology
of the University of Athens ( 2004), is now becoming clearer:
“Ecumenism,
this dreadful beast of the Apocalypse, this two-headed
ecclesiological monstrosity, is completely suffocating the entire
immaculate Body of Orthodoxy with its tentacles. The danger posed by
ecumenism is perhaps the greatest in the history of the Orthodox
Church.”
|
And it is, in fact, the “greatest” [danger], because, as
Konstantinos
Mouratides, another anti-ecumenist professor [at the University of
Athens], most correctly observes:
“In
the domain of the World Council of Churches [and of
inter-confessional organizations in general], that which is
categorically ruled out and condemned by the teaching” of the Holy
Fathers, “that is, coöperation
between Orthodoxy and heresy, and, correspondingly,
between Orthodox and heretics,
in matters of Faith, is coming to
fruition—collaboration in composing theological documents, joint
participation in worship services, and
joint representation of the Christian religion in discussions of the
great problems facing humanity”; however, participation of such a kind
constitutes “a flagrant transgression of the God-inspired sacred Canons
and fundamental ecclesiastical
principles, through which the very essence and the general redemptive
course of Orthodoxy is attacked.”
|
*
* *
With inexpressible sorrow, but also in the hope that the Grace
of the
Mother of God, through the intercessions of St. John Maximovich [of
Shanghai and San Francisco], the most holy Metropolitan Philaret,
and all the Russian New Martyrs, will awaken anew your Patristic zeal,
so that your Holy Synod might prove once again to be an estimable
force, a fortress and a fortified city, and a shield and breastplate of
Orthodoxy in our truly apocalyptic times, we remain, as the least among
Orthodox Hierarchs,
Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and
Fili,
First Hierarch of the Holy Synod in Resistance
a.
The Old Calendarist Orthodox Anti-Ecumenists of Greece, Romania, and
Bulgaria, under their Most Reverend Presidents, Metropolitan Cyprian of
Oropos and Fili, Metropolitan Vlasie of Romania, and Bishop Photii of
Triaditza, reckon it necessary, at this propitious point in time, to
declare their ecclesiastical harmony and unity, as well as their common
perspective on their sacred resistance against the ecclesiological
heresy of Ecumenism and the
condemnable
innovation of the New Calendar.
b.
As we know, the Anti-Ecumenists broke Mysteriological communion
with the so-called “official” local Churches in 1924, which have
either, on the one hand, adopted or accepted without protest the New
Calendar, or, on the other hand, taken part in the Ecumenical
Movement and its various
legislative bodies (the World
Council of
Churches, the Council of European Churches, etc.), with a
resulting
ecclesiological erosion, by stages, to the point, indeed, of considering
even the heretical Communions (Papists, Monophysites, Anglicans,
and others) as valid ecclesiastical bodies and as supposed Sister
Churches.
c.
The Old Calendarist Orthodox
Anti-Ecumenists were from the very
outset profoundly convinced of the heretical and syncretistic nature of
Ecumenism, reckoning it
essentially a panheresy and the greatest
ecclesiological heresy in the history of the Church.
d.
On account of their steadfastness in this confession, the
Anti-Ecumenists have, since
1924, undergone martyric struggles,
unbearable
pressures, and even a certain social
exclusion, bringing to the
forefront a cloud of Confessors of the Faith, under the luminous
leadership of great ecclesiastical Figures (the Most Holy Metropolitan
Glykerios, the Confessor hierarch Chrysostomos, former Metropolitan
of Florina, and others).
e.
To this God-pleasing work of the Anti-Ecumenists,
this fundamental
union, which seeks, by the synodal condemnation of Ecumenism
and the restoration of the Old
(viz., the Church or Patristic)
Calendar, the pacification and reunion of those who are
separated, the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad was also, in the past, resolutely
tied, particularly under the Most Holy Metropolitan Philaret
(1965-1985) and thereafter, both in its Patristic stand against
Ecumenism
and by its communion with the Old
Calendarist Anti-Ecumenists of
Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria.
f.
However, in the last few years, we have undergone a great spiritual
trial, by verification of the fact that the venerable Russian Orthodox
Church Abroad has steadfastly moved towards ecclesiastical
union with the Patriarchate of Moscow, and through it with all of the
Orthodox Ecumenists, thereby ceasing to constitute a prominent
bastion in confronting the syncretistic heresy of Ecumenism;
furthermore, this is an indisputable fact, since the Church Abroad has
communed wholly openly with the Patriarchate of Serbia (May 2006),
which is in clear violation of the Anti-
Ecumenical Legacy of the
ever-memorable Confessor, Archimandrite Justin Popović, and which in
various ways is already playing a leading role in pro-Papist and
ecumenical developments.
g.
On account of these facts, things of profound grief to us, the
Orthodox Anti-Ecumenists of
Greece, Romania, and Bulgaria feel the need
to express anew the following:
1.
That they remain, by the Grace of God, united indissolubly through
the love of Christ and by their common ecclesiological self-conscience
and perspective on unity;
2.
are unable to follow the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad in Its
course towards union with the Ecumenists;
3.
address to It a final appeal in the love of Christ to stop all
proceedings with Moscow, and
4.
entreat It to hold without change to the Anti-Ecumenical Legacy of the illustrious and Holy
Figures of its Church, who have been the
mutual boast of all Orthodox Old
Calendarists.