to wit, I was actually familiar with the fact that Platina edited Blessed Fr. Seraphim's words for nearly as long as I've been interested in Orthodox Christianity. it weighed on my conscience, of course, as Platina isn't even on the "liberal" end of WO.
But you posted a photo above of some WO Hierarchs. I'm not sure what it's significance is; you'll have to give me a stronger hint. I see Met. Seraphim of Piraeus therein, a figurehead of "conservative new calendarism"
ORTHODOXY IS LIFE
Stylite Nous wrote: ↑Fri 30 August 2024 5:27 pmto wit, I was actually familiar with the fact that Platina edited Blessed Fr. Seraphim's words for nearly as long as I've been interested in Orthodox Christianity. it weighed on my conscience, of course, as Platina isn't even on the "liberal" end of WO.
But you posted a photo above of some WO Hierarchs. I'm not sure what it's significance is; you'll have to give me a stronger hint. I see Met. Seraphim of Piraeus therein, a figurehead of "conservative new calendarism"
We’ll, everything Old Rocor and Fr. Seraphim Rose stood for has been censored and ignored by Fr. Damascene and Bishop Gerasim. You’ve already touched on why the picture is an issue. This is Bishop Gerasim former abbot of Platina participating in some gathering involving the Moscow Patriarchate. Which isn’t a surprise because the Serbian Church is in communion with the MP and that’s who owns Platina and that’s why books like “Russia’s Catacomb Saints”, Fr. Seraphim’s Magnum Opus isn’t in print.
What did Rocor say about the MP when Fr. Seraphim was alive? What did he and they Think about the MP?
"True-Orthodox Christians, for the sake of the purity of Christ's Church, must remain separate from the schismatic body [the MP] and thereby show it the way of return to the True Church of Christ... Even if the Catacomb Church did not exist at all, the Moscow Patriarchate would still be guilty of schism and apostasy..."From: "The Catacomb Tikhonite Church (1974)" - the "Orthodox Word", # 59, Nov.-Dec. 1974.
"The condemnation by our hierarchy of the agreement with the atheists promulgated by the Moscow Patriarchate at the time of Metropolitan Sergius certainly remains in effect and cannot be changed except by the repentance of the Moscow Patriarchate. This policy, which seeks to serve both Christ and Belial, is unquestionably a betrayal of Orthodoxy. Therefore, we can have no liturgical communion with any bishop or cleric of the Moscow Patriarchate. [...] As the free part of the Russian Church, we can fully approve only that part of the Church in Russia which is called the Catacomb Church, and only with her can we have full communion."
Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, 12/25 August, 1981.)
Bishop Gerasim is now in the OCA and this is what Fr. Seraphim thought about the OCA.
“Global Orthodoxy” has not listened to the Synod’s pleas, and therefore those who wish to remain Orthodox have no choice but to leave “global Orthodoxy.” In the 15th century those who were not with St. Mark of Ephesus were not in the Church—and this situation is being approached today. Alas, the basic Church issues of today are disguised in clouds of rhetoric and academic half-truths. The capitulation of Orthodoxy today comes not in the forms of signatures to a pseudo-Union, but as a gradual series of acts of apostasy. Those who love the truth must now separate themselves from this relentless and soul-destroying process. The Church as seen through the eyes of the Metropolia presents a timid voice to the world, ever ready to apologize for its deviations and to accommodate itself to the times and to the powerful of the world. Not such is the Church of Christ! And there is precious little time left for us to thunder the truth to an indifferent world!”— Fr Seraphim Rose: Letter 052.
June 22/July 5, 1970
“You doubtless disagree. But I hope you can at least glimpse the depth and sincerity of what the “autocephaly” has inspired. “Autocephaly,” by the way, is surely a euphemism for the event that has occurred, when the Metropolia remains exactly what it was, when Moscow keeps every one of its parishes and even sends a new bishop and priests, when no Churches outside the Soviet block recognize it and Athenagoras calls it “non-existent” (and surely we will be allowed to agree with Athenagoras when he speaks the truth?). No, what has occurred is a concordat, a “legalization” of the Metropolia like that of the Soviet Patriarchate in 1927; and if you and the vast majority of even the clergy of the Metropolia were not in fact ignorant of Russian Church history for the last 43 years you would know that Metropolitan Sergius’ act in 1927 was condemned by many bishops in the USSR as initiating a “neo-renovationist schism,” that those bishops were imprisoned and/or killed because they opposed Sergius, and that therefore in your ignorance you are not only receiving “legalization” from a neo-renovationist schismatic body but are acting fully in accord with the Soviet “new church politics” whose aim is to use the Church to destroy itself, after giving maximum benefit to the Soviet Government itself. At the very least, you should have refrained from any kind of concordat when there is the slightest doubt that any of this might not be false, and when the majority of free Russian hierarchs do not agree with you; you should have waited (even [if] it takes a hundred years—truth is that important for the Church!) for a true and free All-Russian Council, instead of accepting the poisoned gift of the Moscow Robber Council.“— Fr. Seraphim Rose: Letter 068. Dec, 28/Jan. 10, 1970/71
“Some of our bishops, being under the influence of Solzhenitsyn (who says many good things but is certainly not very aware of church matters), suddenly got the idea of “uniting” with the two schismatic groups in America and Paris. Several bishops have told us themselves that the epistle sent to these groups was very poorly and hastily done, without even mention of the necessity to be one in the Truth. As a result, the Metropolia in America jumped at the opportunity to seduce us into having communion with them, and we really feared (at the time we wrote the article on the Catacomb Church and Metropolitan Theodosius) there might be some kind of hasty “union,” which would be disastrous for the cause of True Orthodoxy, and would have caused a schism, even if perhaps only a few would have been bold enough to separate from this “union.” Now, glory be to God, our Metropolitan Philaret has come out with a strong statement that communion is impossible; but the Metropolia certainly won the propaganda battle in the Russian newspapers by showing how lacking in “love” we are for refusing to have communion with them—as if we hate Christ Himself?”— Fr. Seraphim Rose: Letter 177.
May 16/29, 1975
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom (Luke 12:32)
Stylite Nous wrote: ↑Fri 30 August 2024 5:27 pmto wit, I was actually familiar with the fact that Platina edited Blessed Fr. Seraphim's words for nearly as long as I've been interested in Orthodox Christianity. it weighed on my conscience, of course, as Platina isn't even on the "liberal" end of WO.
But you posted a photo above of some WO Hierarchs. I'm not sure what it's significance is; you'll have to give me a stronger hint. I see Met. Seraphim of Piraeus therein, a figurehead of "conservative new calendarism"
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“Orthodox people would like the World Council of Churches to be the Cradle for the One Church of the Future”— Patriarch Kirill of Moscow
"Clearly the World Council of Churches is the vehicle through which Antichrist will establish his one world church."—Statement issued by Jordanville in 1998-99
It is obvious to all that the calendar innovation caused a schism in the Greek Church in 1924, and the responsibility for the schism weighs exclusively on the innovators. This is the conclusion that will be reached by anyone studying the Patriarchal Tomoi…” letter from St. Philaret of NY to Metropolitan Epiphanios of Cyprus
“It is not we who go into schism by not submitting to Metropolitan Sergius, but rather you who are obedient to him go with him into the abyss of the Church's condemnation.”—Saint Joseph of Petrograd
"If every Orthodox Christian
is commanded by the canons to depart from a heretical bishop even before he is officially condemned, or be guilty also of his heresy, how much more must we depart from those who are worse and more unfortunate than heretics, because they openly serve the cause of Antichrist?”— Father Seraphim Rose, Letter 40, 1970
The MP has not changed since the time of Sergius. For this reason ROCOR has no union with it. ROCOR is in full communion with the True Orthodox Church in Russia, the Catacomb Church.
(Orthodox Russia, 1990, № 1, р. 8-10).
“The clergy in the last years will become an instrument of the Antichrist. They will teach blind obedience as a virtue of peace and salvation. A satanic obedience, which will require from the believer ‘ignorance’ and contempt for the teachings of the Saints and indifference to the truth and superficial piety.” — St. Niphon, Bishop of Constantia on the island of Cyprus (4th Century)
(“If you have a Bishop or Priest that teaches heresy by all means.. The Fathers tell you to flee them in the sense of contact… Not communion with the Church”— Fr. Peter Heers )
“All the teachers of the Church, and all the Councils, and all the Divine Scriptures advise us to flee from the heterodox and separate from their communion.” (St. Mark of Ephesus)
“Chrysostomos loudly declares not only heretics, but also those who have communion with them, to be enemies of God.” (St. Theodore the Studite, Epistle of Abbot Theophilus)
St. Maximus the Confessor said: “Even if the whole universe holds communion with the [heretical] patriarch, I will not communicate with him. For I know from the writings of the holy Apostle Paul: the Holy Spirit declares that even the angels would be anathema if they should begin to preach another Gospel, introducing some new teaching.” (The Life of St. Maximus the Confessor)
May you find the path of good disagreement, as Saint Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain teaches in his Interpretation of the Fourteen Epistles of Saint Paul, saying, "If he [the abbot or bishop] is evil in Faith, that is, he believes heretical and blasphemous doctrines, flee from him, though he be an angel from Heaven."
St. John the Almsgiver said: “We shall not escape sharing in that punishment which, in the world to come, awaits heretics, if we defile Orthodoxy and the holy Faith by adulterous communion with heretics.”
“With all our strength let us beware lest we receive Communion from or give it to heretics. ‘Give not what is holy to the dogs,’ says the Lord. ‘Neither cast ye your pearls before swine’, lest we become partakers in their dishonour and condemnation.” (St.John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, IV, 13.)
“Are all the many quotations from the holy Councils and Saints not enough for you? Or do you fear, perhaps, being cast out of the synagogue of the heretics? The fact that the other patriarchates hold communion with the Phanar is not really important. What is important is, who follows in the footsteps of the Saints and is with the truth?”— Elder Savvas
“Come out of her, My people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues.” (Revelation 18:4)
“Some have suffered final shipwreck with regard to the faith. Others, though they have not drowned in their thoughts, are nevertheless perishing through communion with heresy.” (St. Theodore the Studite)
“Guard yourselves from soul-destroying heresy, communion with which is alienation from Christ.” (St. Theodore the Studite, P.G. 99.1216.)
“Chrysostomos loudly declares not only heretics, but also those who have communion with them, to be enemies of God.” (St. Theodore the Studite, Epistle of Abbot Theophilus)
"Having called these false teachers "deceivers and antichrists," the apostle forbids her to accept them into her house or even to greet them, clearly because whoever becomes friendly with a false teacher subjects himself to the danger of being affected by his heresy. This unusual strictness of the "Apostle of love" is striking and so contrary to the modern idea of ecumenism that hopes for closer cooperation with the heterodox for the sake of
'mutual understanding.”
St. Nikephoros the Confessor, Patriarch of Constantinople (9th C.): Even if false hierarchs, while being in heresy, “will succeed in deceiving and enticing a certain number of ignorant ones and in gathering even a considerable number of followers, then they are outside the sacred walls of the Church just the same. But even if very few remain in Orthodoxy and piety, then it is precisely these that are the Church, and the authority and leadership of the ecclesiastical institution remains with them.” [Minor Apologetics, 8, P.G. 100, 844 D; quoted in “The Fifteenth Canon of the First-and-Second Council,” Vertograd-Inform, December, 1999, p. 18.]
St. Nikolai Velimirovich: "Are the people at fault if godless elders and false prophets lead them onto foreign paths? The people are not at fault to as great an extent as their elders and the false prophets, but they are at fault to some extent.For God gave to the people also to know the right path, both through their conscience and through the preaching of the word of God, so that people should not blindly have followed their blind guides, who led them by false paths that alienated them from God and His Laws." (The Prologue from Ochrid, Birmingham: Lazarica Press, 1986, vol. II, p. 149)
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom (Luke 12:32)
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“St. Mark of Ephesus, stood up for the truth against the whole council, rejecting its decree (the Unia) because it contradicted Orthodox tradition—the whole Orthodox Church eventually likewise rejected it. Even so today the proponents of reform and unia will have many and subtle arguments, and we will oppose them not only with arguments and citations from the Fathers, but even more with the example of St. Mark of Ephesus.”— Fr. Seraphim Rose: Letter 094. Aug. 29/Sept. 11, 1971
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“Do you know the Life of St. Maximus the Confessor? All the Orthodox Patriarchs accepted the Monothelite heresy, and he was begged, for the sake of peace and harmony in the Church, to do what everyone else was doing and keep his opinions to himself. And he said: “Even if the whole world enter into communion with the (heretical) Patriarch of Constantinople), I alone will not.” That is the kind of Orthodox confession that has preserved the Church for 2000 years; that is the faith that St. Herman lived; that is what we must follow today. Indeed, we have the example of St. Peter the Aleut who died for refusing to accept Roman Catholicism, which, according to our modern ecumenists, is very little different from Orthodoxy. And we are gladly willing to suffer torture and martyrdom for this faith, but we will never recognize either the Patriarchate or the Metropolia, which have betrayed this faith.”— Fr. Seraphim Rose: Letter 061. August 30/Sept. 12, 1970
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“Do you not realize the seriousness of our firm conviction that the Metropolias concordat with Moscow is a betrayal of the Orthodox Church and of the faithful both within and without the USSR? Do you know of the propaganda benefits which the Moscow Church and the Soviet Government have already obtained from the autocephaly? (Thanks, for instance, to published statements of the Bishop of Sitka that are pure Soviet propaganda.) Do you know the whole story, from 1927 to today, of the Catacomb Church and its persecution by the Soviet Secret Police according to indications given by the Moscow hierarchs? Your Metropolia now supports this persecution by its support of the Patriarchate, and when your bishops appear in the Soviet Union as honored guests of the Patriarchate, the faith of every Catacomb Christian is publicly trampled upon. Do you see, in a word, how we are opponents of your autocephaly and protest publicly because of sorrow in our hearts that is too deep to hold back? We believe that you and many other sincere people in the Metropolia have accepted the autocephaly out of ignorance of its full implications. But it is then our duty to inform you of the full facts and beg you to stop this path of betrayal and sacrilege. St. Herman cannot possibly be the patron of such an “autocephaly,” and we only pray that in time this will become clear to many.”—Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose) of Platina: (Letter 061.
August 30/Sept. 12, 1970)
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the Kingdom (Luke 12:32)