Discussion and criticism of GOC-K & SiR Union

[Jean-Serge]

In exclusivity in my blog, once again, the translation of the 4 letters from the Koinotita who broke communion with GOC-K synod following the union with the Cyrprianists:
http://orthodoxie-libre.over-blog.com/a ... 60156.html

[Maria]

In exclusivity in my blog, once again, the translation of the 4 letters from the Koinotita who broke communion with GOC-K synod following the union with the Cyrprianists:
http://orthodoxie-libre.over-blog.com/a ... 60156.html

How many souls in Greece broke with the GOC-K over this reunion with the SiR? Was Greece the only country who protested?

[Jean-Serge]

According to my contact in Greece, very few people left, maybe 4 parishes and individuals. The vast majority of people trust the bishops that say that everything is fine and that the cyprianists repented. Abbot Methodios of Esphigmenou was there, also saying that everything is fine. I think there is a lack of intellectual curiosity for many people who do not dig deeply. If they did, they would notice the opened questions that are still unsolved after so many weeks and the basic incoherences. The Cyprianists have repented in theory but at the same time published declarations saying they renounced nothing. So, it is total confusion, which allows to be united since everyone can believe what he wants.

It seems there were some individual departures also in UK... In the US, I do not know.

[Dcn.Ephrem]

Jonathon, in the thread, "The Nature of Heresy - GOC ecclesiology," you said this:

...it is vital that we should not confuse the teaching that there might be Grace outside the Church with Ecumenism. The latter is the doctrine that heretics are INSIDE the Church, i.e. the ecumenist teaching that heretics have Grace follows from their teaching about the ecclesiological status of the heretics and is not an independent teaching. The question of who is inside or outside the Church is the primary concern; the question of Grace is secondary.

You have described Cyprianism here as well as Ecumenism. Cyprianism says that unrepentant heretics remain within the Church. So Cyprianism is obviously just another form of Ecumenism, right?

In which case, your statement that Cyprianism is not universally regarded as a heresy in the GOC becomes obviously problematic.

[Lydia]

In exclusivity in my blog, once again, the translation of the 4 letters from the Koinotita who broke communion with GOC-K synod following the union with the Cyrprianists:
http://orthodoxie-libre.over-blog.com/a ... 60156.html

These are very disturbing letters. They confirm what many True Orthodox have been concerned about, namely, the GOC Kallinikos accepted the Bishops of SiR without any formal repentance. In fact, these letters present a scenario where the GOC Kallinikos repented of their heresy, and returned to the True Church. That Metropolitan Kallinikos will not respond to these people's inquiries is also very troubling.

You are right, Jean-Serge, most people simply don't care.

[Isaakos]

Ok, here is the main point:

Cyprianites no longer exist. There is only the Holy Metropolis of Oropos and Phyle. This Metropolis is a part of the GOC and confesses in CONTRADICTION to their previously held position, that heretics are spiritually alienated from Christ and have no place in the Church.

Wasn't this the fundamental point? Cyprian ism says that the New Calendarists retain grace because they have not been condemned by a canonical synod. The Holy Metropolis of Oropos and Phyle says heretics and schismatics place themselves outside the Church. So they use careful language? Perhaps. But this document they signed in no way contradicts GOC ecclesiology, though it may restate it in different terms. For example:

"All of these so-called official Churches have now joined decisively, unwaveringly, and unrepentantly in the process of syncretistic apostasy of a Sergianist and ecumenist kind, an anti-ecclesiastical and uncanonical process synodally promoted or permitted by their Hierarchies, with which true Orthodoxy, consistent with its ecclesiological principles regarding “false bishops” and “false teachers,” cannot have any prayerful, Mysteriological, or administrative communion whatsoever."

Right here is demolished the very concept of Cyprianism which before would have never applied canon 15 on this way. Before, they would speak of the reference to "pseudo" bishops in the canon as merely "diagnostic" but not determinative as to the actual status of these bishops who are heretics. Here they say very clearly that these official churches adhering to ecumenism and sergianism are being run by false bishops.

Again, in another place in the common document: "Walling off from fallen Shepherds, who are henceforth characterized as “false bishops” and “false teachers,” is a binding obligation for true Orthodox in a time of heresy, for the safeguarding of the uniqueness, unity, and Catholicity of the Church, for a confessional witness to the Faith, and also for a saving call to repentance, missionary in nature, directed towards those who have deviated and those who commune with them."

Again, this is AGAINST what Cyprianism teaches.

And yet again

"All those who preach or act contrary to correct confession are separated from the Truth of the Faith and are excluded from communion with the Orthodox Catholic Church, be they individual persons or communities, even if they continue to function formally and institutionally as putative Churches and are addressed as such. • “Those who do not belong to the Truth do not belong to the Church of Christ either; and all the more so if they speak falsely of themselves by calling themselves, or are called by each other, holy pastors and hierarchs; [for it has been instilled in us that] Christianity is characterized not by persons, but by the truth and exactitude of Faith” (St. Gregory Palamas, “Refutation of the Letter of Patriarch Ignatios of Antioch,” Codex Coislianianus 99,"

And the best for last:

"10. Every Bishop who proclaims “heresy publicly” and “barefacedly in Church” (Canon XV of the First-Second Synod) and who teaches “another Gospel than that which we have received” (cf. Galatians 1:8) or is in syncretistic communion with those of other beliefs or religions, doing so persistently and continually, becomes a “false bishop and a false teacher” (Canon XV of the First-Second Synod), while those Bishops who commune with him, indifferent towards, tolerating, or accepting his mentality and these actual declarations of his, “are destroyed together with him” (St. Theodore the Studite), thereby ceasing to be canonical or in communion with the Church, since the Catholicity of the Church, Her unity, and Her genuine Apostolic Succession, which unfailingly guarantee the Bishop’s status as canonical and in communion with the Church, are founded on, flow from, and are safeguarded by the “correct and salvific confession of the Faith.”

All these things are the opposite of Cypriansim. I myself wish they were stated with the Boldness of Archbishop Matthew and his candor, but let our language exercise a little economia so as to bring along those weaker in faith. Nothing here contradicts the confessions of 1935, 1950 and 1974.

[Jean-Serge]

Methodologically speaking, there is some difficulty in quoting a translated version that was withdrawn because it had “officially” translation mistakes. Personally, I observe the whole literature on the topic, in which there is:

• The ecclesiological document with an ambiguity I pointed here, for which I am still waiting an official answer
• Chrysostomus of Etna saying, we renounced nothing
• A declaration of the former Cyprianists, sayingthat there walling off the GOC was in fact legitimate: "Our act of walling ourselves off […] should be abrogated since the reason of faith and righteousness that then provoked it no longer exist."

In the past, and it was the case of Arius, there were heretics, faking repentance. I have serious doubts regarding Cyprianists’ repentance, which we'll be the topic of my next text. So, at the moment, I only see confusion, all the more that the synod’s strategy is currently UTTER SILENCE: no translation, no clarification etc after 2 months...

I will only trust written documents and no oral things, said on the phone. I have made it clear in my open letter and once again in a private email yesterday. That is why I am opposing this union, as not as the 3 aforementioned documents are not clarified and contains signs of unrepentance or double speech, and ambiguous points. The question of ROCOR-A is a separate thing that would request another discussion.