DIscussion and News concerning Orthodox Churches in communion with those who have fallen into the heresies of Ecumenism, Renovationism, Sergianism, and Modernism, or those Traditional Orthodox Churches who are now involved with Name-Worshiping, or vagante jurisdictions. All Forum Rules apply. No polemics. No heated discussions. No name-calling.
Tasteless as usual, the EP shows his ecumenist colors in full :
".... Heinrich Bedford-Strom, Chairman of the Council of German Evangelical Churches, told His All-Holiness that “it would be a special honor” if the patriarch would attend the celebrations for the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation in Wittenberg and Tübingen this month. ...
The patriarch will arrive in Stuttgart on Sunday, May 28, and will be awarded an honorary doctorate from the Evangelical Theology and History Department in Tübingen the next day. He will also be presented with the German translation of his book Encountering the Mystery. Then the patriarch will attend a two-day symposium on Evangelical and Orthodox theology.
According to the organizers of the Reformation celebrations, the invitation to Patriarch Bartholomew is intended to remind about the first contacts between representatives of Orthodoxy and adherents of the Reformation, which took place in 1573 between Martin Crusius and Jakob Andreae and Ecumenical Patriarch Jeremias II.
^[That seems a pathetic excuse. Surely the German Protestants wish to bolster their own prestige by securing the endorsement of the Greek Orthodox leader of the Protestant revolt.]
The Patriarchate of Constantinople entered into a bilateral theological dialogue with the Evangelical Church of Germany in 1969. "
I have moved your topic into World Orthodoxy, as the EP is a member of that group.
This is not surprising at all as the Ecumenical Patriarch has been entering into such ecumenical dialogues for over a century now. The goal is a one world religion.
I've always wondered, if so many of the congregants in the World Orthodox churches don't like ecumenism then why won't they fight back?
That's an excellent question. For many, they think it doesn't effect them if it isn't their priest or bishop directly. For others, they have been fed a modernist version of obedience and clericalism that they have been told it is "prideful" of them to question anything their bishops do. Thank God our laity has nor historically been so emasculated, as we would all have been kissing the ring of the Pope after the Council of Florence if the modern example of obedience and acquiescence were historical in any way.