THE CYPRIANITES AND THE POWER OF ANATHEMAS
It has always seemed a strange coincidence that the “Ecclesiological Antitheses” of Metropolitan Cyprian of Orope and Fili should have appeared in 1984, only one year after ROCOR anathematized ecumenism and the ecumenists. Although they never admitted it publicly, this first formulation of the Cyprianites’ distinctively new ecclesiology appeared to be an attempted “antithesis” to the “thesis” of ROCOR’s anathema of the year before. These oblique, non-explicit attempts to discredit the anathema have continued unremittingly to the present day. The most recent example comes from the pen of Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna.[1] However, there are signs that the gloves are coming off and it is now considered expedient to attack the anathema openly. We see a clear example of this in a recent interview given by Bishop Ambrose of Methone.[2] An examination of these two assaults will reveal that the Cyprianites do not only question the validity of certain anathemas, but appear to be casting doubt on the very ability of hierarchs to bind and to loose, to exercise their God-given power of excommunication...
Archbishop Chrysostomos writes: “Plato tells us that there were engraved at the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi two mottos in ancient Greek: ‘Meden agan’ (nothing in excess, or all things in moderation) and ‘Gnothi Seauton’ (know thyself). Applied to Christian doctrine, we are called to moderation in the application of the truths which we know as well as we know ourselves: we cannot be moderate without fidelity to that which defines us.
“One can see, quite easily, why our austere stand against the religious syncretism of ecumenism does not render us religious bigots, or sympathetic with those who, usurping the place of God, believe that they have the right to condemn ecumenists and ailing Orthodox (and us, in our witness of love) as heretics outside the Church. We are acting in perfect balance within the dual truths of confessional exactitude and pastoral love, as we should.”
A very strange statement that begins with two quotations from a pagan oracle, continues by stating that we must be “moderate” in the application of the truth of Christian doctrine, and ends by saying that those who anathematize the ecumenist heretics are usurping the power of God!
The Apostle Paul firmly rebuked and then exorcised the girl possessed by a pythonic spirit, although she was speaking the truth (Acts 16). And the Lord forbade the demons to acknowledge His Divinity, although that, too, was the truth. So why should we be more accommodating to the Delphic oracle? It is not enough to reply that even the Holy Apostles and Fathers sometimes quoted from pagan authors. It is one thing to quote from a pagan author, and another to quote directly from a demon!
In any case, the use that the archbishop makes of these gnomic utterances is far from Christian. “Nothing in excess” applies, perhaps, to ascetic practices, but it certainly does not apply to truth! When it comes to truth, we Christians are insatiable! We want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! There can be no “moderation in the application of truth” when “applied to Christian doctrine”. It is the ecumenists who want such moderation. Their heresy derives from indifference to truth. The fullness of Orthodoxy is “too much” for them; so “nothing in excess” would actually be a very appropriate banner for the ecumenical movement as a whole. No excessive condemnation of other religions, please… In fact, no condemnation at all would be preferable… Except, of course, the True Orthodox…
And of course there must be no sympathy for “those who, usurping the place of God, believe that they have the right to condemn ecumenists and ailing Orthodox”. So: no sympathy from Archbishop Chrysostomos for Metropolitan Philaret and the ROCOR Synod that condemned the ecumenists – they were undoubtedly “usurping the place of God”! Of course, Chrysostomos would deny that his words apply to Metropolitan Philaret, whom the Cyprianites continue to praise fulsomely while undermining and denigrating the main achievement of his life. But there can be no doubt about it: even before the anathema of 1983, Metropolitan Philaret condemned the Moscow Patriarchate as graceless, and after it he was perfectly consistent in his application of the anathema to all the ecumenists.
Let us now turn to the criticisms that Bishop Ambrose makes of the 1983 anathema. “Firstly, if you read the text of the anathema, its definition of the teaching of ecumenism is so extreme that almost no orthodox ecumenist, apart from Patriarch Athenagoras, could ever be put into the category of those who were preaching this new doctrine”.
Now the anathema is divided into several parts. The first is directed against “those who attack the Church of Christ by teaching that Christ’s Church is divided into so-called ‘branches’ which differ in doctrine and way of life”. In other words, the branch theory of the Church is anathematized. What is wrong or extreme about that? All the ecumenists confess the branch theory. So they are all under anathema.
The anathema continues: “or that the Church does not exist visibly, but will be formed in the future when all ‘branches’ or sects or denominations, and even religions will be united in one body.” Here a more extreme form of ecumenism is anathematised. Not all “Orthodox” ecumenists would fall under this part of the anathema, although many would – and not only Patriarch Athenagoras. So in the first part of the anathema a “moderate” form of ecumenism, the inter-Christian branch theory, is condemned, and in the second part a more extreme, inter-religious form is condemned.
The anathema continues: “and who do not distinguish the priesthood and mysteries of the Church from those of the heretics, but say that the baptism and eucharist of heretics is effectual for salvation”. This is simply a re-statement of Apostolic Canon 46, so it is not “extremism”, but straightforward church doctrine. In essence, it is the branch theory as applied to the sacraments. Of course, there is a question whether the Cyprianites themselves fall under this part of the anathema, because they do not distinguish the priesthood and mysteries of the Church from those of the heretics; for, while saying that the ecumenists are heretics, they still recognize that they have true sacraments…
The anathema continues: “therefore to those who knowingly have communion with these aforementioned heretics or advocate, disseminate, or defend their new heresy of Ecumenism under the pretext of brotherly love or the supposed unification of separated Christians, Anathema.” Here not only the ecumenists themselves, but also those who remain in conscious communion with them, are condemned. This applies perhaps most closely to the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, which, while often expressing reservations about ecumenism, nevertheless remains in communion with the ecumenists.
So we see that the range of application of the anathema is very broad, and applies to far more than the most extreme ecumenists such as Patriarch Athenagoras. In fact, a strict interpretation of the anathema would place the Cyprianites themselves under it, as well as those who accept their ecclesiology. Thus when ROCOR entered into communion with them in 1994 and officially accepted their ecclesiology, Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) pointed out that the Cyprianites “confess their own and by no means Orthodox teaching on the possibility of the grace-filled action of the Holy Spirit in churches that have clearly become heretical”. Moreover he declared: “In passing this Resolution on communion with the group of Metropolitan Cyprian, our Council has unfortunately also forgotten about the text of the Resolution accepted earlier under the presidency of Metropolitan Philaret, which anathematized the ecumenical heresy… In fact, by not looking into the matter seriously and forgetting about the anathematizing of the new calendarist ecumenists that was confirmed earlier (and perhaps not having decided to rescind this resolution), our Council, however terrible it may be to admit it, has fallen under its own anathema… Do we have to think that our Hierarchical Council has entered on the path of betraying the patristic traditions, or only that out of a misunderstanding it has allowed a mistake which it is not yet too late to correct at the November session in France?”[3]
That mistake was thankfully corrected some years later, and now, of those parts of the old ROCOR that have not entered into communion with the MP only the followers of Bishop Agathangel remain in the clutches of the Cyprianite ecclesiology (and not only of their ecclesiology – their apostolic succession also depends critically on the Cyprianites’ legitimacy). But Bishop Gregory’s main point remains: the Cyprianite ecclesiology is incompatible with Metropolitan Philaret’s anathema against ecumenism. So all Orthodox have to choose the one or the other, and cannot claim to be loyal to both.
Bishop Ambrose continues: “Secondly, the way that this anathema was approved, or rather not approved by the Russian Synod is altogether very peculiar. Having spoken to many bishops of the ROCOR, most of them claimed to have been unaware of the existence of this anathema until it was published, including the late Metropolitan Lavr, and this makes, at least, a curious impression.”
Metropolitan Lavr is, of course, not the most reliable witness that Bishop Ambrose could have cited! It has been reported that he died on the eve of the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, just after ordering that this anathema should not be read in the service the next day. Surely a more reliable witness is Metropolitan Philaret himself, who sent a copy of the anathema to Fr. Anthony Gavalas of New York City, confirming that this was now official ROCOR doctrine. Nor did Metropolitan Vitaly deny its existence. In his Christmas Epistle of 1986/87 he commented on the anathema without at any time hinting that it may have been a forgery, and in 1998 his Synod reiterated it without changing its wording in any way. Why, if it was a forgery, did the ROCOR Synod never say so? The conclusion can only be: it was not a forgery, but some of the bishops did not like its clear implications…
“Thirdly,” continues Bishop Ambrose, “this anathema was actually written in Greek, and translated into English, then into Russian: this is evident from the syntax. Was it the work of the Russian bishops? No, we know where it originated… The monastery of Boston - namely Holy Transfiguration Monastery. This led to all the qualifications that were made by Metropolitan Vitaly and other ROCOR bishops when they said that the anathema refers only to the members of their own flock – “we are not anathematising anybody outside… It would thus be absurd to claim that the anathema was proclaimed with the aim of cutting all ecumenists off from the Church even if they did profess the extreme doctrines described in the text of the anathema.”
There is more than one non-sequitur in this extract. First, so what if the anathema was written by Holy Transfiguration Monastery? The important fact is that the Synod accepted the text and it became part of ROCOR’s official confession of faith. So what if the anathema were originally written in Greek? This would be relevant only if the official Russian or English versions are inaccurate in some way – which Bishop Ambrose does not claim.
Then, according to Bishop Ambrose, the fact that the anathema was originally written in Greek by HTM is the cause of the further supposed “qualifications” of the anathema by Metropolitan Vitaly and others. But this doesn’t follow. Any interpretation of the anathema – whether Metropolitan Vitaly’s or anybody else’s – is valid if, and only if, it can be shown to have a firm basis in the text of the anathema, and for no other reason. The fact that the anathema was originally written in Greek, or in HTM, is completely irrelevant. As it is, the interpretation that “it would be absurd to claim that the anathema was proclaimed with the aim of cutting all ecumenists off from the Church” cannot in any way be justified from the text, which is a perfectly general anathematization – i.e. exclusion from the Church – of all those who confess the branch theory. The attempt to interpret the anathema as applying only to members of ROCOR not only has no basis in the text but leads to absurd consequences. Thus if this interpretation were correct, an ecumenically-minded babushka in ROCOR would find herself under anathema while the Pope of Rome, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Patriarch Alexis of Moscow and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople would all get off scot-free!
Immediately after this Bishop Ambrose moves to absolve Metropolitan Philaret of all criticism, saying that we should not confuse the “unclarities” in the anathema (which, as we have seen, do not exist) “with Metropolitan Philaret's uncompromising, confessional, and absolutely clear condemnation of the ecumenist heresy which he saw advancing around him, and which he expressed in his ‘open letters’”. In other words, the early Philaret – the Philaret of the Open Letters – was good, while the late Philaret – the Philaret of the Anathema against ecumenism – was, well, not exactly bad, but “unclear” – and we can blame this lack of clarity on bad advisors…
However, if we look at Metropolitan Philaret’s confessional stand from the Open Letters of the 1960s to the Anathema of 1983, we see a very clear and consistent path. The Open Letters warned the heads of the Local Churches that ecumenism was a heresy, that they were betraying the truth of Orthodoxy. However, nobody was anathematized, nor were all relations with these Churches broken at this time. However, when it became obvious that the Local Churches were not going to respond to his warning, the metropolitan moved his Synod to strengthen sanctions against them and in other ways to adopt a stricter position:
(i) In 1967 he led the ROCOR Synod of Bishops to reverse its 1964 ruling on the preservation of communion with the official Serbian Church. The decision was marked “Top Secret” and dated June 1. Early in 1970, he announced to the members of the ROCOR Synod that since the Serbian Patriarch German had chosen to serve as Chairman of the World Council of Churches, ROCOR should avoid joint prayer and service with him, while at the same time not making a major demonstration of the fact.[4]
(ii) In 1969-71 he led the ROCOR Synod into communion with the Greek Old Calendarists, accepting their confession of faith.
(iii) On March 31, 1970 he led the ROCOR Synod to condemn the MP’s decision to give communion to Roman Catholics as “contrary to the dogmatic teaching of Orthodoxy”, an act whereby the MP “itself becomes a partaker of their heresy.”[5]
(iv) In September, 1971 the ROCOR Sobor rejected the validity of the election of Moscow Patriarch Pimen, and decreed that all converts from Catholicism and Protestantism should now be received by baptism.
(v) In 1974, at the Third All-Emigration Council in Jordanville, Metropolitan Philaret moved for an official statement that the MP was graceless. According to the witness of a seminarian present at the Council, the majority of bishops and delegates would have supported such a motion. However, at the last minute the metropolitan was persuaded not to proceed with the motion on the grounds that it would have caused a schism.[6]
In the next few years, worried by the metropolitan’s steady increase of pressure for a final break with the whole of World Orthodoxy, the liberals in ROCOR under the leadership of Archbishop Anthony of Geneva fought back. However, the apostasy of World Orthodoxy could not be denied, and after the 1983 General Assembly of the World Council of Churches, meeting in Vancouver, Canada, reached new heights of anti-Christianity, the ROCOR Sobor, also meeting in Canada, anathematized ecumenism. This was the culmination and completely consistent climax of Metropolitan Philaret’s struggle, ever since he became metropolitan in 1964, to draw a firm line between Truth and falsehood, between the True Church and the false church – a line which the Cyprianites have tried to muddy ever since…
Bishop Ambrose continues with a direct attack on the anathemas against ecumenism launched by the Eastern Patriarchs in 1583, 1587 and 1593: “The 16th Century Synods anathematised the introduction of the new Papal Paschalion based on the New, Gregorian Calendar. They did not however specifically anathematise the peculiar hybrid used by the ‘Orthodox’ New-Calendarists who use the Julian Calendar for celebrating Pascha (in order to avoid the clear condemnations of those who change the Paschal calendar), but the New Calendar for the fixed feasts.”
This is sophistry. The seventh point of the 1583 Pan-Orthodox Council (which was attended by the plenipotentiary of the Russian Church) declares: “That whosoever does not follow the customs of the Church as the Seven Holy Ecumenical Councils decreed, and the Menologion which they well decreed that we should follow, but in opposition to all this wishes to follow the new Paschalion and Menologion of the atheist astronomers of the Pope, and wishes to overturn and destroy the dogmas and customs of the Church which have been handed down by the Fathers, let him be anathema and outside the Church of Christ and the assembly of the faithful…” It is obvious that not only the Papal Paschalion, but also the Papal Menologion – that is, “the new calendar for the fixed feasts” – is under anathema.
If Bishop Ambrose wishes to argue that only the combination of both the Papal Paschalion and the Papal Menologion is under anathema, and that of these two innovations only the Papal Paschalion is really serious, he has to answer the question: why did they not say that? Why, on the contrary, do the Eastern Patriarchs give the clear impression that both innovations are equally anathematized? If only the Paschal Paschalion was a really serious innovation, why was it necessary for the Greek Old Calendarists to break away from the new calendarists, since the new calendarists still retained the Orthodox Paschalion? And why have so many Orthodox hierarchs understood the Patriarchs to have anathematized the new Menologion if in fact they meant something different?
Thus Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, Rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, Tutor of the Royal Family and Deputy First-Hierarch of ROCOR writes: “Through the labours of this [1583] Council there appeared: a Conciliar tome, which denounced the wrongness and unacceptability for the Orthodox Church of the Roman calendar, and a canonical conciliar Decree – the Sigillion of November 20, 1583. In this Sigillion all three of the above-mentioned Patriarchs with their Synods called on the Orthodox firmly and unbendingly, even to the shedding of their blood, to hold the Orthodox Menaion and Julian Paschalion, threatening the transgressors of this with anathema, cutting them off from the Church of Christ and the gathering of the faithful…
“In the course of the following three centuries: the 17th, 18th and 19th, a whole series of Ecumenical Patriarchs decisively expressed themselves against the Gregorian calendar and, evaluating it in the spirit of the conciliar decree of Patriarch Jeremiah II, counselled the Orthodox to avoid it…
“Question. Is the introduction of the new calendar important or of little importance?
“Answer. Very important, especially in connection with the Paschalion, and it is an extreme disorder and ecclesiastical schism, which draws people away from communion and unity with the whole Church of Christ, deprives them of the grace of the Holy Spirit, shakes the dogma of the unity of the Church, and, like Arius, tears the seamless robe of Christ, that is, everywhere divides the Orthodox, depriving them of oneness of mind; breaks the bond with Ecclesiastical Holy Tradition and makes them fall under conciliar condemnation for despising Tradition…
“Question. How must the Orthodox relate to the new calendarist schismatics, according to the canons?
“Answer. They must have no communion in prayer with them, even before their conciliar condemnation…
“Question. What punishment is fitting, according to the Church canons, for those who pray with the new calendarist schismatics?
“Answer. The same condemnation with them…” [7]
Again, in a letter to Metropolitan Epiphanios of Cyprus dated September 20, 1975, Metropolitan Philaret wrote: “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 (as that of 1583)…” Since the calendar schism of 1924 affected only the Menologion, and not the Paschalion, it is evident that Metropolitan Philaret, following the supposedly “extremist” Greek Old Calendarists and not the Cyprianites, regarded the 1583 Council as expelling the new calendarists from the Church…
Bishop Ambrose continues his attack on the Pan-Orthodox anathemas as follows: “There is one last aspect to this matter that should be mentioned: all three Synods appear to be saying exactly the same thing. If one Synod had made a definitive and binding pronouncement, then why, after just a few years did another synod need to be called to make the same pronouncement? And why, a few years after that, yet a third? Also, the texts that have been preserved are in demotic Greek – very demotic Greek – and it is a very peculiar thing for an Ecumenical Patriarch to put out such an important encyclical in demotic Greek. Conceivably there was a text in church Greek which has been lost.”
This is really scraping the bottom of the barrel… Why are anathemas repeated? For the same reason that we repeat the same Gospel cycle every year, and the Beatitudes every Sunday: Because they are important!
As for the fact that the encyclical is written in demotic Greek, what possible bearing can this have on the validity of the thought contained in it? If, as Bishop Ambrose hints, following the founder of the new-calendarist schism, “Archbishop” Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, the text of the anathemas is a forgery by someone who wrote only demotic Greek, why was this not pointed out by anyone for over three hundred years? Why, even as late as 1919 (that is, five years before he changed the calendar), did Chrysostomos Papadopoulos himself declare that if he adopted the new calendar he would become a schismatic? The vital fact is that the Orthodox Church has accepted the thought expressed in the anathemas as corresponding to her own thought – and the Church has the mind of Christ. If new calendarist schismatics, or their old calendar fellow-travellers, choose to cast doubt on an event or fact that the Church has accepted for hundreds of years, this should not affect those who trust the Church more than their own or others’ fallen reasoning.
Bishop Ambrose continues, answering the question whether only the 1848 Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs should be taken seriously with regard to the new calendar: “Yes certainly, but the others can also be taken seriously but with some reservations. They are not a decision of an ecumenical council where we have the original text and we know when it was done and why.” So according to Bishop Ambrose only anathemas issued by Ecumenical Councils, and of which we have the original text, can be accepted wholeheartedly. That rules out all Church Councils without exception since 787, the date of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, including: the 1054 Local Council that anathematized the Roman Catholics, the fourteenth-century Councils that anathematized the Barlaamites, the sixteenth-century Pan-Orthodox Councils, the 1918 Local Council that anathematized the Bolsheviks, the 1923 Local Council that anathematized the renovationists, the Catacomb Church Councils that anathematized sergianism, the decisions of the True Orthodox Church of Greece in 1935, 1950, 1974 and 1991 that declared the new calendarists to be graceless, the 1983 Local Council that anathematized ecumenism, its reiteration in 1998... It looks as if the all the most important decisions of the higher levels of the Orthodox Church for the last 1200 years must be placed under doubt if we are to accept the Cyprianite thesis.
Perhaps, Bishop Ambrose concedes, some of these decisions should be “taken seriously”: but only with “reservations” – reservations that enable him to escape those consequences that he finds personally unpalatable. Indeed, so resourceful are the Cyprianites in finding excuses for not really taking seriously the most important decisions of the Orthodox Church hierarchy that one begins suspect that they may have a problem with the concept of ecclesiastical anathematization in general. However, such a drastic conclusion is unnecessary: it is sufficient to point out that that the Cyprianites specifically attack only those anathemas – whether by Russian bishops or Greek bishops, whether in modern times or ancient times – that make their own “loving” attitude to the new calendarists and ecumenists impossible.
But the Cyprianite position does have important general consequences, especially when one remembers that they have rejected the right of any other Synod to judge them. Thus they regard themselves as belonging to the Church of Greece, and yet reject the claim not only of the Greek new calendarist hierarchy but also of the Greek Old Calendarist hierarchies to judge them. Perhaps they consider only ROCOR, which resurrected the Greek Old Calendarist hierarchy in 1969, to be their judges? No: they prefer to stand in judgement over ROCOR. Thus last year, having rejected all the (non-MP) Russian bishops who remained faithful to the confession of Metropolitan Philaret, they chose the one bishop who rejects that confession, Agathangel of Odessa, proclaimed him the only true ROCOR bishop, and then ordained further uncanonical bishops with him!
This disastrous invasion into the affairs of the Russian Church shows that the apparent modesty and caution of the Cyprianites when assessing the rights of Orthodox bishops to anathematize heretics, or simply summon other Orthodox bishops to judgement, is distinctly one-sided. If their “stablemates” in the Greek Old Calendarist hierarchy call them to judgement, they say: “That’s none of your business; you cannot judge us.” If, on the other hand, the opportunity presents itself for them to interfere into the affairs of the Russian Church, ascribing to themselves the powers that could only belong to the future All-Russian Sobor, they jump in with both feet…
It should be noted also that in May, 2008 the Agathangelite hierarchy, having steadfastly refused to condemn the MP or ROCOR-MP (and even praising Metropolitan Lavr as a holy hierarch), effectively declared all the True Orthodox Russian hierarchies – the Vitalyites, the Suzdalites and the Tikhonites – to be graceless schismatics. No murmur of protest has so far been heard from their Cyprianite “sister-church” – in spite of the Cyprianites’ refusal to accept decisions of this kind by any except Ecumenical Councils. So we must assume that the Cyprianite-Agathangelite coalition is now committed to the position that the MP and ROCOR-MP (the Lavrites) have grace, but that the True Orthodox Russians are outside the Church!…
So who now is “usurping the place of God”? Who now, in the exquisite phrase of Professor-Archbishop Chrysostomos, is failing to act “in perfect balance within the dual truths of confessional exactitude and pastoral love”? While we wait (and it may be a long wait) for an answer to this question, let us recall the words of the Lord about him who seeks to extract the mote from his brother’s eye while failing to see the beam in his own (Matthew 7.5)…
Finally, we conclude, contrary to the Cyprianites, that the power of a council of bishops to judge another bishop does not depend on its ecumenical status, nor on its locality, nor on the language in which it is spoken, but on the Orthodoxy of the bishops who compose it – and on that alone. For it is God Who judges bishops in the first place: He then inspires those bishops who are Orthodox to proclaim His judgements to the world. So the power of excommunication and anathema held by the hierarchs of the Church is not held independently of God’s judgement, but strictly in consequence of it and in obedience to it. That is why heretics are “pseudo-bishops” even before a synod of bishops has condemned them, as the 15th Canon of the First-and-Second Council of Constantinople declares – for God has already judged them. As St. Dionysius the Areopagite writes: “Insofar as the [hierarch] makes known the judgements of God, he has also the power of excommunication. Not indeed that the all-wise Divinity gives in to his every unthinking impulse, if I may so speak with all reverence. But the hierarch obeys the Spirit Who is the source of every rite and Who speaks by way of his words. He excommunicates those unworthy people whom God has already judged. It says: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ And to the one enlightened by the sacred revelation of the All-Holy Father it is said in Scripture: ‘Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ Thus [Peter] himself and all the hierarchs like him have had the judgement of the Father revealed to them, and, being themselves men who provide revelation and explanation, they have the task of admitting the friends of god and of keeping away the ungodly. That sacred acknowledgement of God came to him, as Scripture shows, not on his own, not from a flesh-and-blood revelation, but as something from the understanding and under the influence of the God Who initiated him into what he knew. Similarly, God’s hierarchs must use their powers of excommunication, as well as all their other hieratic powers, to the extent that they are moved by the Divinity which is the source of every rite. And everyone else must obey the hierarchs when they act as such, for they are inspired by God Himself. ‘He who rejects you,’ it says, ‘rejects Me’.”[8]
Vladimir Moss.
June 17/30, 2008.
St. Nectan of Hartland.
[1] “The Absolute Primacy of Orthodoxy and the Exclusivity of Christ”, June 21, 2008.
[2] http://sbn-nathanael.livejournal.com/, June 27, 2008.
[3] Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), “The Doubtful Orthodoxy of the Group of Metropolitan Cyprian”, in “Arkhierejskij Sobor RPTsZ 1994 goda: Istoria Prinyatia Russkoj Zarubezhnoj Tserkoviu Yereticheskoj Ekkleziologii Mitropolita Kipriana”, Sviataia Rus’, 2003; Vernost, 98, December, 2007.
[4] The metropolitan’s co-worker in this matter was Archbishop Averky, who on September 14/27, 1967 wrote to him: “With regard to the question of the Serbian Church, whose Patriarch German is a stooge of the communist Tito, as the Serbs themselves are convinced, calling him ‘the red patriarch’. We have heard this from many clergy and laity who have fled from Serbia. How can we recognize, and have communion in prayer with, ‘the red patriarch’, who maintains the closest friendly relations with red Moscow? Cannot our Hierarchical Council make erroneous decisions? Do we in the Orthodox Church have a doctrine about the infallibility of every Council of Bishops?”
[5] Archbishop Averky commented on this decision: “Now, even if some entertained some sort of doubts about how we should regard the contemporary Moscow Patriarchate, and whether we can consider it Orthodox after its intimate union with the enemies of God, the persecutors of the Faith and Christ’s Church, these doubts must now be completely dismissed: by the very fact that it has entered into liturgical communion with the Papists, it has fallen away from Orthodoxy and can no longer be considered Orthodox.” (Contemporary Life in the Light of the Word of God: Sermons and Speeches (1969-1973), volume III, Jordanville, p. 216).
[6] Fr. Basil Yakimov, “Re: Fundamental Question”, orthodox-synod@yahoo.groups.com, 4 June, 2003.
[7] Archbishop Theophan, “Kratkie kanonicheskie suzhdenia o letoschislenii” (Short canonical judgements on the calendar), in V.K., Russkaia Zarubezhnaia Tserkov’ na Steziakh Otstupnichestva (The Russian Church Abroad on the way to Apostasy), St. Petersburg, 1999, pp. 29-30 ®.
[8] St. Dionysius, On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, chapter 7, 564B-564D.