The following is from the Paradosis List:
How True Hierarchs Act When They Make Errors
There is a very interesting incident in the life of St. Sarmean, Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia (+774): "Sarmean was a firm defender of Orthodoxy. Once, however, on Cheese-fare Thursday at Shio-Mgvime Monastery, a group of strangers bearing gifts arrived at the monastery. He served Holy Communion to them without ever inquiring into their faith. Later he learned that they were Jacobites [Monophysites].
"His carelessness was revealed to him in a dream that same night. When he awoke the next morning, Catholicos Sarmean summoned the bishops, confessed his mistake, burned the gifts that the Jacobites had given him before their eyes, and departed for an isolated cave, where he wept over his sin with bitter tears.
"But the All-Merciful Lord sent a sign to St. Sarmean to inform him that his transgression had been forgiven. 'O Great Sovereign Patriarch Sarmean! Rejoice! We, your spiritual children, believers in your holiness, the entire council of bishops, wish to inform you that St. Shio has appeared and told each of the five of us that the Lord has remitted your sin. Make haste and summon us to the monastery, that we may give thanks together to our Holy Father Shio!" (from Archpriest Zakaria Machitadze, "Lives of the Georgian Saints", Platina, 2006, pp. 304-305).
At almost the same time the Holy Patriarch Paul of Constantinople voluntarily retired from his see because of his participation in the heresy of iconoclasm, and a new, untainted hierarch was elected in his place, St. Tarasius.
That is how true hierarchs act when they make mistakes.
But how do the present hierarchs of World Orthodoxy act? In recent years, I have heard of only one case which we may be considered similar: Patriarch Theoctistus of Romania temporarily retired because of his cooperation with the Romanian communist secret police, the Securitate. Of course, he did not repent before the Romanian hierarchs of the True Orthodox Church who did not cooperate with the Securitate, nor did he stay in retirement long but returned to his post without the blessing of God. And he continues to espouse the pan-heresy of ecumenism... Nevertheless, we must be thankful for small mercies in our terrible times. At least he admitted he had done wrong, and did something to correct it.
I know of no similar cases among the Orthodox hierarchs who cooperated ardently with the communist secret police in Russia or other places...
In Chambesy in 1990 ALL the hierarchs of World Orthodoxy committed themselves to an act many times worse than the mistake of St. Sarmean. They removed the anathemas on the leaders of the Monophysite heresy, the so-called "oriental" or "non-Chalcedonian Orthodox", and accepted them as a "family of churches" on a par with themselves. St. Sarmean never confessed Monophysitism - but the hierarchs of World Orthodoxy have done just that. St. Sarmean gave communion to a small group of Monophysites in ignorance of who they were - the hierarchs of World Orthodoxy have, consciously and officially, committed themselves to giving communion to all the millions of Monophysite heretics throughout the world. For if they are Orthodox and are freed from the anathemas of the Ecumenical Councils, why should they not be given communion? No doubt that is why Patriarch Alexis of Moscow serves so frequently with the Armenian Monophysite Catholicos...
There have been hierarchs on a par with St. Sarmean in our time. One of them was Metropolitan Philaret of New York. Once Monophysite heretics were allowed to serve in the Jordanville church ouf of "pastoral condescension". On hearing this, the metropolitan ordered the church to be church to be immediately closed and re-sanctified as having been defiled by heretics. And he said that no "pastoral condescension" could justify communion with heretics.
Let us follow the example of such saints as Sarmean of Georgia and Philaret of New York, and turn away from those "hierarchs" whose conscience is so seared that they wish to give that which is holy, not to those who have been sanctified by the confession of the true faith, but to those whose false teaching has been officially condemned by the Holy Church at the highest level for over 1500 years!
Vladimir Moss