Timeline of the Church of Genuine Orthodox Christians

[Julianna]

Read it here.

[bogoliubtsy]

From the above link:
"Russian Church Abroard unites with the deposed Ecumenist Met.Cyprian of Fili and his "Synod of Resisters", against the stated wishes of Metropolitan Vitaly, who accepts the consensus of his bishops....
In justifying this union, the Russian Church Abroad now affirms that Cyprian's theology is identical to its own, thereby affirming that the Ecumenists are part of the Church and have true Mysteries!"

That's ridiculous. The Russian Church Abroad has always maintained either that 1.)The new calendar churches have grace, or 2.)That they can make no official declaration on this topic.

The Russian Church Abroad are not fanatics.

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

I noticed on another thread the monks at Esphigmenou were stereotyped as "fanatics" because they "wrote off the rest of the Orthodox world". What's more disturbing, these conclusions were completley devoid of a Orthodox reasoning just like the conclusion here.

As if the faith can be placed in worldy categories of "Fanatic", Moderate", and, I guess what would be called "Normal"?

But this is the language of the world, not of the Church.

The Orthodox struggle for the truth and a life in it. The status of multitudes of people who no longer hold this truth is of no bearing what-so-ever, no matter how "orthodox" they appear outwardly, how many they number, or how big their churches are. Grace does not find heretic bishops - their ordinations are not ordinations, their communion is not the body of Christ, and their baptisms are not baptisms. As many as commune with them do not follow Christ, but a fallen man who treads his own path.

You say this sounds fanatical? Then, speaking the language of Orthodoxy and not the world, show me one single Holy Father, Saint, or Holy Synod which concluded one should commune with a heretic? Name one who said they had Grace, just one, because I can name countless which said they don't.

Or are we going to say like Pilate, who had Jesus right in front of him: "what is truth?

Let all who truly seek God stop talking about other "christians". The Church does not admit of "other Christians", no matter how Orthodox they appear, because the Church is One. Men leave her, even if they retain many of her external marks. And the status of even a billion calling themsevles Orthodox but who are incommunion with heretics cannot stack up even an inch ---personally--- to upholding the truth, that is the Orthodox faith, and only communing with truly Orthodox bishops. The monks at Esphigmenou, who commenorate our Archbishop and not the heretic Bartholomew, are not "condemning" or "writing anyone off", they are simple only communing with those who hold the Orthodox faith. If this is "fanatic" or "narrow-minded", then I am very "fanatic".

The devil does not always act as devil; most of the time he appears as an angel of light. He preaches a Christianity just a little different from the real one, and with this trap many more are caught in his net than he would have gained by sending forth an entire army of atheists.

He stigmatizes the faithful, characterizing them as intolerant, narrow-minded fanatics. In this way he has aroused against the Church of Christ the most frightful persecution ever. People are often more afraid of characterizations which diminish their honor and reputation than of the persecutor

[bogoliubtsy]

Of course we shouldn't commune with heretics. Which jurisdiction among the new calendar churches could be termed heretical though? ROCOR's 1983 anathema on ecumenism speaks of the "branch theory". This branch theory is anathemetized as a safeguard(applying only to the ROCOR itself) against such a false idea. You'll be hard pressed to find an Orthodox body that believes the branch theory. Point is...most of the major Orthodox jurisdictions might be walking a dangerous path at times...but have no slipped into HERESY. Where have they changed the churches doctrine?

As for the word "fanatic". In the Church's lexicon there are similar designations or terms...such as "zeal not according to knowledge".

From Fr.Seraphim Rose's "Orthodoxy in America"
The Disease of Correctness
Bound up with this is a disease of today's Orthodox Christians which can be deadly: the "correctness disease." In a way this is a natural temptation to anyone who has just awakened to Christian faith and to spiritual life -- the more one finds out about Christian doctrine and practice, the more one discovers how many "mistakes" one has been making up to now, and one's natural desire is to be "correct." This is praiseworthy, although in the beginning one is probably going to be too artificially "strict" and make many new mistakes out of pride (to which we are constantly blind). If you are critical of others, self-confident about your own correctness, eager to quote canons to prove someone else is wrong, constantly "knowing better" than others -- you have the germs of the "correctness disease." These are signs of immaturity in spiritual life, and often one outgrows them if one is living a normal spiritual life.
But especially in our days, the spirit of worldliness is so strong, and there is obviously so much wrong in our church life -- that there is a strong temptation to make "correctness" a way of life, to get stuck in it. And this is not only a disease of converts; one of the best bishops of the Old Calendar Greeks, Bishop Cyprian of Sts. Cyprian and Justina Monastery near Athens, has written that this spirit of "correctness" has already done untold damage to Orthodoxy in Greece, causing fights and schisms one after the other. Sometimes one's zeal for "Orthodoxy" (in quotes) can be so excessive that it produces a situation similar to that which caused an old Russian woman to remark of an enthusiastic American convert "Well, he's certainly Orthodox all right -- but is he a Christian?"

To be "Orthodox but not Christian" is a state that has a particular name in Christian language: it means to be a pharisee, to be so bogged down in the letter of the Church's laws that one loses the spirit that gives them life, the spirit of true Christianity. In saying this my aim is not to be critical or to point to anyone in particular -- we all suffer from this -- but only to point out a pitfall which can cause one to fail to take advantage of the riches which the Orthodox Church provides for our salvation, even in these evil times.

Even when it is not fanatical, this spirit of "correctness" for its own sake turns out to be fruitless. As an example, I can tell you of a very good friend of ours, one of the zealot fathers of Mt. Athos. He is a "moderate" zealot, in that he recognizes the grace of New Calendar sacraments, accepts the blessings of priests of our Church, and the like; but he is absolutely strict when it comes to applying the basic Zealot principle, not to have communion not only with bishops whose teaching departs from Orthodox truth, such as the Patriarch of Constantinople, and not only with anyone who has communion with him, but with anyone who has communion with anyone who in any remote way has communion with him. Such "purity" is so difficult to attain in our days (our whole Russian Church Abroad, for example, is "tainted" in his eyes by some measure of communion with the other Orthodox Churches) that he is in communion with only his own priest and ten other monks in his group on the Holy Mountain; all of the rest of the Orthodox Church is not "pure."

Perhaps there are only ten or twelve people left in the world who are perfectly "strict" and "pure" in their Orthodoxy -- this I really don't know; but it simply cannot be that there are really only ten or twelve Orthodox Christians left in the world with whom one can have true oneness of faith, expressed in common communion. I think that you can see that there is some kind of spiritual dead-end here; even if we had to believe such a narrow view of Orthodoxy according to the letter, our believing Christian heart would rebel against it. We cannot really live by such strictness; we must somehow be less "correct" and closer to the heart of Orthodox Christianity

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Which jurisdiction is heretical?

First, it is important to understand, if not impossible not to perceive, what is happening around us. The heresy of ecumenism, or really syncretism, is not a new point of doctrine such as the filioque, Monothelitism, or Donatism. Syncretism is a heresy which denies the very essence of the Church. It is a lack of conviction in any one belief where lies and truth are given equal value, and which ultimately only values man

[Justin Kissel]

Orthodoxy or Death,

So you essentially agree with the ROAC position and believe... what? That the Antiochians are heretics? And what of ROCOR? Is it heretical for accepting their baptisms/chrismations as valid? After all, if they are heretics, their sacraments are worthless and so anyone baptized/chrismated by them (lately at least) is not Orthodox from your perspective, correct?

[尼古拉前执事]

I do not think that HOTCA/GOC believes that ROCOR is heretical, as the Metropolitan himself allows GOC members to confess and receive in ROCOR churches. The Metropolitan has been slow to allow it, but he first allowed attendance for a couple far away from a GOC church and then he allowed communion and now he allows confession. So while the GOC and ROCOR may not be officially in communion at this time, at some level they are unofficially. This may be ekonomia for both GOC and ROCOR, but in allowing it, it seems they are not decreeing one another heretics at this time.