EP Bartholomew's Address to the WCC-PCFO

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.


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MPROCORDsdnt
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Re: EP Bartholomew's Address to the WCC-PCFO

Post by MPROCORDsdnt »

Actually, the Hieromonks from Mt. Athos could only serve on antimens. Those were signed by Bishops of the EP. So there is a distinction between "non Commemoration" and "being out of Communion." The Athonite hieromonks were hieromonks of the EP.

As far as ROCOR "going into Communion with the GOCs," that is highly revisionist. No, ROCOR acted from the early 60s to approximately 1970 in providing Bishops for the GOCs, where a Synod of a united GOC church was to be established. Archbishop Auxentios was the head. The Matthewites were the first to break with this arrangement and then the Synod collapsed in on itself in mutual anathemas and dozens of splinters. ROCOR established Communion for these people, but NEVER shared extreme GOC ecclesiology. It flirted with the "Florinite (as in Chrysostomos of Florina)/Kiprianite" view.

While it is also unclear when ROCOR broke Communion with the EP, but it is clear that by 1968 that things were pretty much settled there, and Blessed Metropolitan Philaret did the appropriate thing. The question begged then is "Should the ROC (or any non-EP organism) at least address the issues which have brought unrest to the Orthodox world which the EP is responsible for in honest dialogue?" I state emphatically yes. Should Communion with them be abandoned if they remain stalwart in their Renovationism and Uniatism? I absolutely believe so.

Technically, they didn't adopt the papal calendar, but a contrivance of their own which differs little from the papal calendar, so by the letter of the Canons they hang their justifications. Thus, a council needs to decide the matter on the issue of the calendar. Is it a schismatic act--this new calendar? Yes. Is it anathemized conciliarly? The Seventh Ecumencial Council anathemizes all innovations, but its Canons are not self enforcing and have to be conciliarly adjudicated. Is it heretical? Is Iconoclasm and Renovationism heretical? The Seventh Ecumenical Council and St. Tikhon resp. have made that clear. But at least a spiritual court has to decide the issue and interpret the Canons.

Jason Bently
"

Last edited by MPROCORDsdnt on Mon 15 March 2010 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
jgress
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Re: EP Bartholomew's Address to the WCC-PCFO

Post by jgress »

MPROCORDsdnt wrote:

Actually, the Hieromonks from Mt. Athos could only serve on antimens. Those were signed by Bishops of the EP. So there is a distinction between "non Commemoration" and "being out of Communions." The Athonite hieromonks were hieromonks of the EP.

As far as ROCOR "going into Communion with the GOCs," that is highly revisionist. No, they acted from the early 60s to approximately 1970 in providing Bishops for the GOCs, where a Synod of a united GOC church was to be established. Archbishop Auxentios was the head. The Matthewites were the first to break with this arrangement and then the Synod collapsed in on itself in mutual anathemas and dozens of splinters. ROCOR established Communion for these people, but NEVER shared extreme GOC ecclesiology. It flirted with the "Florinite (as in Chrysostomos of Florina)/Kiprianite" view.

While it is also unclear when ROCOR broke Communion with the EP, but it is clear that by 1968 that things were pretty much settled there, and Blessed Metropolitan Philaret did the appropriate thing. The question begged then is "Should the ROC (or any non-EP organism) at least address the issues which have brought unrest to the Orthodox world which it is responsible for in honest dialogue?" I state emphatically yes. Should Communion be abandoned if they remain stalwart in their Renovationism and Uniatism? I absolutely believe so.

Jason Bently
"

The antimension does not become invalid if the bishop who consecrated it later falls into heresy. What matters is whether the antimension was consecrated by a bishop who was Orthodox at the time. So, after the EP and the State Church of Greece fell into schism, the priests of the TOC continued to celebrate on those old antimensia, while not commemorating the schismatic bishops. When they required more antimensia, they were provided at first by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic of Ohrid, since the Serbian Church was still Orthodox at the time. Then, after the three bishops returned to the True Church from the state church, they were able to consecrate antimensia.

Your understanding of the history of the GOC seems very muddled, Jason. Please check your facts before making claims. The Matthewites split from the rest of the TOC in 1937, long before ROCA consecrated bishops for us.

The ROCA most definitely broke communion with the EP in 1968, when they stopped commemorating him in the diptychs. It is true you will find some later statements that the ROCA has not made a judgment over the presence of Grace in the EP or other new calendar churches, but that does not change the fact that in practice they did not have communion. And the fact that Abp Anthony of Geneva continued to allow his priests to concelebrate with ecumenists and new calendarists after this break of communion represents only an exceptional error, not the rule.

The ROCA refusal to condemn the new calendarists explicitly does contrast with the position of the TOC of Greece (both the Matthewites and the Florinites, who synodically condemned the new calendarists in 1974). However, what mattered to the TOC under Abp Auxentius was the fact that the ROCA did not permit communion with the new calendarists, not whether they had condemned them as graceless (the Matthewites took a different view).

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MPROCORDsdnt
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Re: EP Bartholomew's Address to the WCC-PCFO

Post by MPROCORDsdnt »

Firstly, if a Presbyter "goes off on his own" with the antimens of his Bishop, who happens to be alive and still ruling and "accepting of the error," as you indicate, he is viewed to be in schism canonically and his ministrations are invalid inasmuch as he has severed Communion with his Bishop. Elsewise, Platina was Orthodox under Pangratios when it served under old ROCOR antimensia, which is clearly NOT the case.

No, not muddled at all, as ROCOR regularized the Matthewite Succession at roughly the same time it acted to provide the GOCs with Bishops with the understanding that they would be part of the resulting GOC Synod. The Matthewites accepted the kheiritonias and then shortly afterwards went their own way once more, beginning the fractures of that GOC Synod. Boston even orchestrated the Matthewite kheiritonias.

As far as "not being in Communion with New Calendarists" as a general rule, that takes a bit to ponder. For one, ROCOR had new calendar parishes still, even a New Calendar diocese (or two) for a time during the 70s. While the relationship between ROCOR and Mt. Athos during the era was one of unofficial intercommunion as stated policy, but it, ROCOR's non Communion with certain local churches, becomes really a distinction without difference when one considers that it maintained Communion with the Serbs and Jerusalem during the era which never broke Communion with the Orthodox world. I

Theologically, what this means is that ROCOR declared one Eucharist with the Serbs and the JP who in turn declared one Eucharist with the rest of the Orthodox churches, thus mystagogically not severing Communion at all, but in all honesty, when even St. Maximos the Confessor was in Communion with Rome and certain N African churches, he was in Communion with them after they had anathemized the heresy of Monothelitism, yet they did not break Communion with other local churches so that is the issue-the breaking of Communion-which really is muddled. What it provides is a potential justification for non-Commemorators and those going out of Communion, for mystagogically, those groups which maintain Orthodoxy, never really do go out of Communion with the one Sacrifice until the time a given dispute is settled by an ecclesiastical court or council.

Jason Bently

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Re: EP Bartholomew's Address to the WCC-PCFO

Post by Ephrem »

MPROCORDsdnt wrote:

Firstly, if a Presbyter "goes off on his own" with the antimens of his Bishop, who happens to be alive and still ruling and "accepting of the error," as you indicate, he is viewed to be in schism canonically and his ministrations are invalid inasmuch as he has severed Communion with his Bishop. Elsewise, Platina was Orthodox under Pangratios when it served under old ROCOR antimensia, which is clearly NOT the case.

"But as for those persons, on the other hand, who, on account of some heresy condemned by holy Synods, or Fathers, withdrawing themselves from communion with their president, who, that is to say, is preaching the heresy publicly, and teaching it bareheaded in church, such persons not only are not subject to any canonical penalty on account of their having walled themselves off from any and all communion with the one called a Bishop before any conciliar or synodical verdict has been rendered, but, on the contrary, they shall be deemed worthy to enjoy the honor which befits them among Orthodox Christians. For they have defied, not Bishops, but pseudo-bishops and pseudo-teachers; and they have not sundered the union of the Church with any schism, but, on the contrary, have been sedulous to rescue the Church from schisms and divisions."

The difference is that Platina departed from ruling bishops, while the zealots departed from, according to the canon, "pseudo-bishops".

Ephrem Cummings, Subdeacon
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Mark Templet
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Re: EP Bartholomew's Address to the WCC-PCFO

Post by Mark Templet »

I think Jason is over-simplifying this situation. We have to understand how the Church works and how people are found to be heretics. Perhaps an example would suffice:

In the Acts of the Apostles we learn that there was a divergence in the stance of the Apostles as to what to do with the gentiles that were wishing to become part of the flock of Christ. One camp thought that they should be made to follow the Jewish law. On the other side was the thinking that Christianity was actually something post-Judaism, and that the gentiles should not be forced to follow Jewish law to become members of the Church. The Apostles meet in Jerusalem, argued their points, made a decision, and everyone agreed to the latter path.

Did this mean that those Apostles who supported the viewpoint that the gentiles needed to follow Jewish law were heretics? The answer is no! However, had any of the Apostles chosen to insist upon that viewpoint as necessary even after the agreement of the synod, then they would have indeed been heretics. In fact, the Church later created canons to prevent attempts to judaize the Church.

We have to understand that heresy is a decision. It is a decision that knowingly flies in the face of that which has been canonically and universally decided. For instance, if an Orthodox bishop began to preach Arianism, he is immediately guilty of heresy. The only thing that a "ruling council" would be needed for is to properly depose him, but he is already a heretic the moment he decided to reject what the Church has declared to be truth.

Jason mentions these items about ROCOR as if he is proving the precedence for allowing these things rather than seeing these things that have led the ROCOR into joining with the MP. Look at what these actions got for the ROCOR! Now they are fully part of the ecumenist, sergianist World Orthodoxy! Now they are in communion with this Patriarch of Ecumenism who is spouting off the above disgusting rhetoric.

Despite the past, it is clear that World Orthodoxy is not moving toward the True Orthodox way but racing toward the Church of the New World Order. It is not time to find loopholes; it is time to confess crystal clear Orthodoxy that does not compromise. It is time to uphold the example of my name's sake, Saint Mark of Ephesus The Pillar of Orthodoxy, and refuse to sign onto these heresies. It is not time for the broad path but the narrow one.

Fr. Mark Templet
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jgress
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Re: EP Bartholomew's Address to the WCC-PCFO

Post by jgress »

"Jason Bently" was banned back in March, so there's little point in responding to his posts now.

Mark Templet
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Re: EP Bartholomew's Address to the WCC-PCFO

Post by Mark Templet »

Ah... O well, my arguments are so good that there's nothing you can say to them anyway :lol:
Just kidding.

Fr. Mark Templet
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