I Believe In ONE Holy Catholic & Apostolic Church...

[1937 Miraculous Cross]

this is all very simple. why all the discussion about conciliarity and so on? Which Churches created the first disturbance in the unity of the Church in the 20th Century? (actually, this is just a manner of speaking, for there is not real "split' within the Church, there is only splitting FROM the Church!)

So, it is clear that the Freemasonry inspired change in the liturgical calendar caused the first "disruption". It has only gotten worse since then. At this point, do you really think the schismatic/heretical "world Orthdox" are going to summon a Pan-Orthodox council to condemn themselves, to condemn their new calendar, to condemn their joint prayers with pagans and heterocox, and so on? No, of course not. Never in any of the Ecumenical Councils were the Arians, or Nestorians, or Monophysites in the majority during those councils. At this point, to expect those who have harmed and "soiled' the Church to call for a council to condemn themselves in "counciliarity" is realistically not going to happen, as it has never happened before.

Only those who are Orthdox can do this. In 1935 a synod of living bishops applied the 1593 Anathemas (and several other local church condemnations of the new calendar) to the State Church of Greece.

[Here is the 1593 Sigillion, section 7, anathema:
"Whosoever does not follow the customs of the Church which the 7 Ecumenical councils have decreed, AND the Holy Pascha AND CALENDAR which they enacted well for us to follow, but wants to follow the newly-invented Paschalion and the new calendar of the atheist astronomers of the Pope; and opposing them, and wishes to overthrow and destroy the doctrines and customs of the Church which we have inherited from our Fathers, LET HIM BE ANATHEMA AND LET HIM BE OUTSIDE OF THE CHURCH AND THE ASSEMBLY OF THE FAITHFUL.

If we consider the 1st EC that fixed the dating of Holy Pascha, we have to ask why was this necessary? Why couldn't different local churches celebrate Pascha on different days according to the traditions they received? The Celtics could celebrate it on the Jewish Passover, the Greeks on the next Sunday, and so on? The obvious reason is about the liturgical UNITY of the Church.

The Gregorian calendar destroys the unity of the Church. The so-called "revised" Julian/New Calendar, destroys the liturgical unity of the Church. The Sigillion makes it clear that any deviation from the "customs" of the Chuch and the "Holy Pascha and calendar" that the Holy Fathers enacted for us to follow, is anathema.

For those, who still defend the Revised Julian by splitting hairs on this issue, the Patriarchs of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Abp of Cyprus all condemned the Revised Julian in 1924, after the adoption of this schismatic calendar!

So, for those who want unity in the Church, first of all the True Orthodox church is not broken assunder...it is One. but for you who are of the "majority" Orthodox...all your bishops have to do is return to the Orthodox Calender which the Fathers enacted for us to follow, for your bishops to stop praying with heterodox and pagans at WCC, World day of Prayer events, and so on, for you bishops to renounce the unilateral lifitng of the Anathemas by Pat. Athenagoras against the Roman Cath. church, and for them to renounce the Balamand Accord "twin Lungs' of the church ecclesiology with the RCC, and for the Antiochians to renounce their communion with the Monophysites.

So, why is it that the focus is all on how the Old Calendarists are so mean spirited and in disarray? These things are only partially true. We are not mean spirited, and yes there may be disunity and divisions, but this is paltry compared to the spiritual violations I mention above by the "majority' Orthodox.

in Christ,
Nectarios Manzanero

[Kollyvas]

Well, what Father or Council has upheld your condemnations of everyone else? And the fatal flaw that you are neglecting is that at one time, arianism, monophysitism, monothelitism, ikonoclasm possessed sizeable majorities in the Church BEFORE COUNCILIAR CONDEMNATION. I have faith in the Holy Spirit...it's how the hand of God works.
R

[Kollyvas]

http://www.pelagia.org/htm/b12.en.the_m ... 09.htm#s91

...When some heresy springs up, the holy Fathers confront it at the place where it appears. Arios, who proclaimed that Christ is the first creature of God and essentially denied the divinity of Christ, was confronted by the Council of Alexandria. But then, when his heretical opinions began to be disseminated beyond the borders of Alexandria as well, the subject was confronted by the First Ecumenical Council. The holy Fathers were called together to make a common decision about the formulation of the orthodox teaching. In the Councils the holy Fathers did not seek to find the truth, making conjectures by reasoning and imagination, but in order to confront the heretics they attempted to formulate in words the already existing revealed Truth, of which they also had their own personal experience.

St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite divides the Councils into Ecumenical, Local and Rural. This division is not according to subjects, but according to the persons who brought them together, for it is possible that the subjects of the Local Councils can refer to serious dogmatic questions.

A Rural Council is a meeting which is convoked by the Bishop, Metropolitan or Patriarch alone with his own Clergy, without the presence of other Bishops.

A Local Council is a meeting in which the Metropolitan or Patriarch joins with his own Bishops or Metropolitans. This takes place when the Bishop of a district or the Bishops of two districts come together to confront various burning questions of the Church.

An Ecumenical Council is the assembly of many Bishops from all districts in order to discuss and decide about a question of the Church. The Ecumenical Council has four distinguishing marks according to St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite. The first is that it is convened “by order, not of the Pope nor of such and such a Patriarch, but by Royal orders”. The second is that there should be discussion of topics of faith “and afterwards a decision and a dogmatic definition should be published in each one of the Patriarchates”. The third is that the dogmas must be correct in their orthodoxy and in agreement with the divine Scriptures, or the previous Ecumenical councils”. The words of Maximos the Confessor are characteristic: “The right faith validates the meetings that have taken place, and again, the correctness of the dogmas judges the meetings”. And the fourth is that it must have universal recognition. All the orthodox Patriarchs and Archbishops of the catholic Church must “agree and accept the decisions and canonisings by the Ecumenical Councils, either through their personal presence or through their own delegates, and in their absence, through their letters”.

These characteristic marks mentioned by St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite are noteworthy. But I must clarify two of them, the first and fourth, which are those most characteristic of the Ecumenical Councils and distinguish them from the other, Local Councils.

One is that the Ecumenical council was convened by the emperors, when Christianity had become an official religion of the Empire, and the emperor wanted to make the definition of the Ecumenical Council a law of the Empire for the peace of the Citizens. Fr. George Florovsky observes: “In a certain sense the General Councils as inaugurated at Nicaea, may be described as “Imperial Councils”, die Reichskonzile, and this was probably the first and original meaning of the term ‘Ecumenical’, as applied to the Councils”.

The other was that the authenticity of the Ecumenical Councils as well as that of the other Councils was given chiefly by the deified and god-bearing Fathers. Fr. Georges Florovsky observes also at this point: “the ultimate authority –and the ability to discern the truth in faith– is vested in the Church which is indeed a ‘Divine institution’ in the proper and strict sense of the word, whereas no Council and no ‘Conciliar institution’ is ‘de jure divino’, except in so far as it happens to be a true image or manifestation of the Church herself”. Then he says: “The claims of the Councils were be accepted or rejected in the Church not on formal or ‘canonical’ grounds. And the verdict of the Church has been highly selective. The Council is not above the Church, this was the attitude of the ancient Church”.

In the foregoing chapters we explained in brief who are the true members of the Church, who are the living and who the dead members of the Church. So we can say that the mind of the Church is expressed by its deified saints. Therefore, finally, all the Ecumenical Councils rest upon the teaching of the saints of the past. The reader can find this view developed in an earlier study of mine. Here I want only to mention Georges Florovsky’s opinion that “both a few and solitary confessors of the faith were able to express this experience, and this is enough... the holy worthiness of the meeting does not depend on the number of members who represent their church. A great “general” synod would be able to be proven a synod of thieves (latrocinium) or even of apostates... But it is possible in a synod for the minority to express the truth. And most significant, the truth could be revealed even without a synod. The opinions of the Fathers and ecumenical Teachers of the Church often have greater spiritual value and explicitness than the definite decisions of synods. These opinions are not necessary to confirm and to be demonstrated by “ecumenical agreement”.

Likewise, I would also like to mention the opinion of Fr. John Romanides, that all the holy Fathers followed the same method and had personal experience of the truths of the Faith. Their meeting in an Ecumenical Council gave them the opportunity to agree on the same terminology for the same revealed experience. He writes characteristically: “Neither illumination nor glorification can be institutionalised. The sameness of this experience of illumination and glorification among those having the gifts of grace, who have these states, does not necessarily require sameness of dogmatic expression, especially when those gifted are geographically far apart over long periods of time. In any case when they meet, they easily agree about the same form of dogmatic formulation of their identical experiences. A great impetus towards identical dogmatic expression was given at the time when Christianity became an official religion of the Roman Empire and satisfied the Empire’s need to distinguish the genuine healers from the pseudo-physicians, in the same way in which the governing officials are responsible for distinguishing genuine members of the medical profession from the quacks and embezzlers of medical science, for the protection of their citizens”.

With these basic preconditions the Ecumenical Councils are unerring and express the consciousness and the life of the Church. And of course the terms of the Ecumenical Councils have value, because, on the one hand, they assure the possibility of salvation, and on the other hand they indicate the true way for man’s cure, for attaining deification. We can say that the terms of the Ecumenical Councils are not philosophical nor do they serve philosophy, but they are theological, that is to say therapeutic, and they aim at the cure of man. Therefore we owe great thanks to the Fathers who formed the Ecumenical Councils and acted as ecclesiastic personalities. ...

(See Also An Excellent Article):
http://www.syndesmos.org/en/texts/files ... 201971.pdf

[Joseph]

To Kolyvas:

So what's your point?

[Kollyvas]

That the Church does not function without counciliarity, neither in unity, nor in resistance...Defying it is rebellion against the Church.
R

[Joseph]

True, but the Church is not an organization, even if it is called Orthodox, but the Body of Christ where the True Faith is held and confessed. If the Orthodox Faith has been betrayed and denied, as it has, then it is no longer the Orthodox Church. Those who hold the faith then constitute the Church. Councils only declare what had already happened before. The separation from the Church happens when the heresy is publicly preached, the Council only confirms what has already happened. Grace is uncreated and heresy separates us from God, not a Council pronouncment.

To refuse to have communion with those you still consider to be the Orthodox Church is to be guilty of schism.

[Kollyvas]

It is by conciliarity that determinations of heresy/schism/etc. (not in denial of it or by personal rationales or interpretations) are made, not as a legal structure, but as a charismatic extension of the office of "binding & loosing," "wherever two or three are gathered..." Conciliarity as well as the Canons have primarily a charismatic and not juridicial character. Again, one of the operative conditions of resistance is that Communion is breached with bodies who are believed to be in grave error in anticipation of a conciliar resolution. Faulting others you've condemned without council for not coming into Communion with you seems to be lewis carolesque, don't you think?
R
Remember for every Canon, Father or Council you can site they can reply and distort with another to try and justify themselves. Only a Council can resolve this.