Good Works of Ecumenists and Heterodox Gain Nothing

[Maria]

^ Interesting, I hadn't thought of this approach, Icxpion.

Maria, was Elder Ephraim with Rocor BEFORE ? I had not at all realized that. I thought he was a product of Mt Athos somehow, sent over
to start Athonite-traditioned monasteries here in the West.

He is a strange fish, it seems like, from all accounts...

That is what I was told by several knowledgeable monastics and hierarchs.

When Elder Ephraim left Mt. Athos to establish monasteries here in the United States of America, he joined ROCOR and encouraged Catholics and Protestants to be baptized by triple immersion. At that time, he was under the Old Calendarists or the True Orthodox. For some strange reason, he changed and started concelebrating with the New Calendarists, stopped baptizing people unless they were not baptized as Protestants or Catholics, and began telling people that they did not need to be baptized if they had received baptism from Catholics or Protestants. Then his monasteries became very popular and gained tremendous financial support. However, the OCL began to persecute Elder Ephraim with their expensive GOAL publication, which was mailed out to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese mailing list in the late 1990's when Archbishop Sypridon was in charge of GOARCH. This GOAL publication was mailed without the permission of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. However, some of the Greek Hierarchs here in the USA were part of the OCL and GOAL. I know this because I received that publication unsolicited and then read the repercussions in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan newspaper.

[Matthew]

Actually, that is not all that pushed him back into New Calendarism. Elder Ephrem was summoned by Bartholomew to see him at the Phanar. He went there and was told to come back to the EP or ELSE!... Bartholomew told Ephraim, "I will expel all your spiritual children from Mount Athos if you do not come back to me." That would include of course all the monks at Philotheou. So, for their sakes he recanted and went back. Not much of an excuse, but that was his own account of why he returned to the EP. I say, you should have left him and called Bartholomew's bluff. If was really serious enough to follow through there would have been a huge uproar around the world and the Ecumenical Patriarch would have been seen quite clearly to be a vicious dictator. That would have helped our cause, because he would have destroyed his own credibility.

[Barbara]

Oh ! I appreciate all this background.
I had NOT realized it was this complex !

So Elder Ephraim was received into Rocor ? By the Metropolitan at the time, or a decision of the Synod ?

I am curious about that aspect, for it seems SO out of character for him to then turn and kowtow to "EP = Bartholomew",
which was clearly not warmly regarded in at least Classical Rocor -

We need to understand this process maybe because it is such a case in point of why people abandon Old Calendar and
go to the New, and modernist jurisdictions.

Who is behind this OCL ? Good to know that it is Masonic - sure sounds like it if they had the slick publication attacking
Elder Ephraim and were SO AGGRESSIVE to leech off the Greek Archdiocese mailing list.

Now I thought that Archbishop Spyridon was billed as a traditionalist fighting other wings of his church ? Or was that someone else ?
I am thinking of one who was dramatically deposed. I remember reading in Time magazine at that time about it
[I have barely looked at that rag ever since, needless to say !]

[Maria]

Oh ! I appreciate all this background.
I had NOT realized it was this complex !

So Elder Ephraim was received into Rocor ? By the Metropolitan at the time, or a decision of the Synod ?

I am curious about that aspect, for it seems SO out of character for him to then turn and kowtow to "EP = Bartholomew",
which was clearly not warmly regarded in at least Classical Rocor -

We need to understand this process maybe because it is such a case in point of why people abandon Old Calendar and
go to the New, and modernist jurisdictions.

Who is behind this OCL ? Good to know that it is Masonic - sure sounds like it if they had the slick publication attacking
Elder Ephraim and were SO AGGRESSIVE to leech off the Greek Archdiocese mailing list.

Now I thought that Archbishop Spyridon was billed as a traditionalist fighting other wings of his church ? Or was that someone else ?
I am thinking of one who was dramatically deposed. I remember reading in Time magazine at that time about it
[I have barely looked at that rag ever since, needless to say !]

Although Archbishop Spyridon was billed as a traditionalist because he favored the use of Greek in the Greek Archdiocese, readers and chanters instead of choirs and organs, monasticism, and tradition as opposed to the innovations of the Modernists, he encouraged and attended a lot of interfaith Vespers services as he was an Ecumenist.

Apparently, he was brought down by the apparently false accusation that he was harboring homosexuals much like Cardinal Mahony of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Finally, he was summoned to the Phanar where the EP striped him of his title as Archbishop of America and transferred him elsewhere upon the recommendation of the Bishops of the USA and the EP Synod. Basically, he has been silenced, much like St. Nectarios.

[Matthew]

They never do much to really solving these sexual problems with clergy. Just relocate. That is about all they ever do. In the old days, they would put them in monasteries under full obedience and the watchful eye of a staretz who would make every effort to rehabilitate them, and at least make sure they didnt repeat their crimes.

[Maria]

They never do much to really solving these sexual problems with clergy. Just relocate. That is about all they ever do. In the old days, they would put them in monasteries under full obedience and the watchful eye of a staretz who would make every effort to rehabilitate them, and at least make sure they didnt repeat their crimes.

Not only have the Ecumenists used false charges of sexual immorality against saintly bishops to remove them from their office or get priests defrocked, but also others have falsely accused the True Orthodox of said immorality. St. Nectarios of Aegina was removed as Bishop of Pentapolis with false charges that were never proven. The Ecumenist Archbishop Spyridon of North America was likewise falsely accused with charges never brought against him nor proven. Once accused, these accusations remain and cast a shadow of doubt on their character for the rest of their lives.

[Matthew]

Lord knows how terrible a sin such slanders are! May God preserve the members of our Church and our monastics and clergy from such accusations, and even more, deliver them from committing such things. For no doubt the devil would like to tempt them or send such men into our camps unawares only to expose them later under the flag of True Orthodox Church.