Wednesday, 04 June 2014 21:28
Announcement
Athens May 22/June 4, 2014
Our Holy Synod of the Church of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of the Patristic Calendar, under His Beatitude Archbishop Kallinikos, makes the following announcement concerning the recent ecumenistic meeting in Jerusalem between Pope Francis of Rome and Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople.
1. This meeting, as it is known, took place on the 50th anniversary of the meeting of Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenistic Patriarch Athenagoras in 1964. At that time, this event was characterized by its supporters as “world-historic.” The Pope and Patriarch in their secret discussions made a common program, among other things, to promote their ecumenistic union. This meeting occurred during the Papists’ Second Vatican Council (1962-5), through which they made an “attack of love,” as is was aptly named, on the ecumenistic events and even on their relationship with the “official Orthodox,” based on their Romeocentric or Papocentric Ecumenism in order to achieve a union according to the Uniate formula, for an ecumenistic Unia.
For this reason, the meeting in Jerusalem in 1964 occurred as the result of the insistent requests and attempts of the Uniate Patriarch Maximus IV. For this reason also, Pope Paul VI before the meeting with Athenagoras had a fervent meeting with the Uniate Primates, whom he told to preserve their traditions and their liturgical rites. Thus, after the meeting with Athenagoras he called the “separated brethren” − that is, the Orthodox − into union in his flock, highlighting his “Primacy” and his “Infallibility.”2. And while this meeting really meant the “beginning of a new phase” in the relations between the “Orthodox” Ecumenists and the Papists it incited a strong reaction from eminent clerics, Athonian monks, and the majority of the flock, the “Orthodox” Ecumenists rushed headlong onto their ecumenistic path and proceeded with such things as the characteristic “Lifting of the Anathemas” in 1965. These things are in stark contrast to the conciliar, Patristic and canonical tradition of the Orthodox Church. The fallen Athenagoras preferring the “Coinage of Love,” as he called it, proclaimed that the “Orthodox” and Papists constitute “one Church and one religion.”
The so-called Dialogue of Love, begun in 1980 between the “Orthodox” and the Papists, led to the well-known Balamand Agreement in Lebanon 1993, in which they both proclaimed themselves “Sister Churches” who both hold in common the Apostolic Confession of Faith, who both take part in the same Mysteries, and especially the priesthood and the Apostolic Succession of Bishops, without having resolved any of the dogmatic and other differences between them.
The Unia as well, while it was condemned in the wake of the violence against the Orthodox (1990 and later), was essentially recognized and its representatives were accepted as partners in the dialogue.
All of this constitutes the victory of Papal diplomacy and tactics. The Papists reached the point of saying that a new type of Primacy was needed for the Orthodox Churches, and that union meant the maintenance of diversity, the reëstablishment of communion, spiritual enrichment and the exchange of divine gifts. The “Orthodox” Ecumenists accepted those things concerning “Sister Churches,” and that “the Church is divided,” and that they are trying with all their ecumenistic concoctions to reëstablish full communion, and that their union – which is already being lived and expressed with joint prayers, and joint statements and coöperation at every level – is making a so-called common witness of faith to the world.
All these things constitute an unacceptable ecclesiological legitimization of heterodoxy and its equation with Orthodoxy, while simultaneously the Papists continue to adhere to their ancient heresies and delusions and have even added modern ones. These ecclesiological modernisms and oddities which certainly alter the conscience and mindset of the Orthodox Church testify to the great and essential erosion of the “Orthodox” Ecumenists, and to their Uniatization.
3. That being the case, the Anniversary Meeting between Pope Francis and Patriarch Bartholomew in Jerusalem (Sunday of the Blind Man − May 25, 2014) constitutes another important step in their irreversible ecumenistic mess and apostasy.
The Ecumenist Patriarch of Constantinople proclaimed his faithful continuation of the path that was forged by the “enlightened ecclesiastical men” Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI in 1964. According to Bartholomew, these two “ecclesiastical leaders” were sent “by God” in order to unite the divided Church, something which none of the holy men of East and West have managed to achieve in the second millennium.
In their Common Statement, the Pope and Patriarch are considered to be members of the same Christian family and ecclesiastically recognized by one another, even without full communion, they confess together that they walk by means of Dialogue – and not only by this means – in “the exchange of gifts” and the “deepening [of their] grasp of the whole truth.” By praying together, blessing together, signing documents together, giving a “common witness” and coöperating for the so-called good of mankind, they have shown that they are certainly inclined toward interreligious movements for world peace.
At the same time moves have been made to achieve their coveted common celebration of Pascha and “Communion in diversity” without real dogmatic unity, and their intention has been revealed to convene a common Ecumenical (or rather, Ecumenistic) Council in Bithynia in 2025. However, the “inexplicable” fire in the cave of Christ’s Nativity only one day after the ecumenistic innovations constitutes a sure sign of divine disapproval of all these things.
However, all these things have been characterized by a very vocal Metropolitan of the innovating Church of Greece – who has a reputation for being traditional – as the “ingenious diplomacy” of the Phanar. But recently harsh accusations against us Genuine Orthodox Christians were launched from the office of his Metropolis, unworthy of consideration because such an indictment has been adequately confronted in the past. But also, from the same Metropolis there came an invitation calling us to dialogue with the innovating Church so that we can be “reintegrated” into it. Certainly, the majority of us have never been innovators and we do not need such “rehabilitation.” This invitation came in response to the joyous news of our union into one Synod with those brethren of the Patristic Calendar formerly in Resistance.
4. Our joyous union in True Orthodoxy this past March was accomplished with the help of God, based on the Common Ecclesiastical Document entitled “The True Orthodox Church and the Heresy of Ecumenism: Dogmatic and Canonical Issues.” The Grace of God anticipated the staggering ecumenistic events, the chief of which is that in Jerusalem. Through our signing the Orthodox Confession of Faith which effectively confronts the Heresy it makes revealing findings and provides salvific medicine for the union of the Church and the accomplishment of its salvific work.
Based on our recent Ecclesiological Document, the fallen Patriarch Bartholomew, walking the path of the unfortunate Athenagoras is a pseudo-bishop and pseudo-teacher, and those who commune with him, indifferently or accepting or tolerating his mindset and actions, are lost together with him and are not canonical or communicants. The heresy of Ecumenism, with the application of all its condemnable practices which deny the ecclesiological and soteriological uniqueness of the Orthodox Church, alienates the innovators from authentic Orthodoxy, but the Genuine Orthodox Church constitutes the continuation of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
Therefore, we call those trapped in innovation to cease ecclesiastical communion with the agents of Ecumenism, to wall themselves off in order to preserve the uniqueness, unity and catholicity of the Church, in witness of the Faith, and repentance for straying from the truth, and to integrate themselves into the Genuine Orthodox Church.
In order for the invitation to dialogue with the innovating Church of Greece to have meaning, it should be seen in light of what has been said above. This means that it must only seeking to liberate the innovating Church from its Ecumenistic bonds, to return it to the sphere of Orthodoxy, so that in common we may accelerate the active response to multifaceted syncretism. But such things as these are drowned out by the ostentatious and contemptuous invitation of a handful of the innovating Church’s own theoretically anti-Ecumenists Bishops. These things show us that the situation is incurable and that the innovating Church is not looking for help from the Genuine Orthodox, for salvific awakening and return.
As the process of apostasy expands with actions such as the meeting the Pope and Patriarch in Jerusalem, similar things will follow. Thus, the responsibility of the Genuine Orthodox Churches of Greece and abroad increases to struggle in repentance and prayer, to hold the Treasure of Faith at all costs, to preserve unto death the good Deposit of the Faith, with the Confession of the Truth in love, for a true missionary witnesses and philanthropic ministry for those in need.
Brethren, “be watchful and stand in the Faith, be manful, be mighty,” and may the God of Peace be with you.
From the Chief-Secretariat of the Holy Synod
Translated from the Greek
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