Contemporary Orthodoxy: Some Observations
by an Anonymous Traditionalist Orthodox Clergyman
I. The heresy of Papism: One Bishop, from among all of the Bishops of the
Christian Church, holds primacy, and this, not by virtue of personal sanctity, but because
of the See which he occupies.
The destructive effects of the Papacy: The local Church of Rome, over the
centuries, separated itself from the unity of the Christian Church, declaring itself to be
the criterion of Christianity. The Bishop of Rome, as the Universal Pope (Father) or
Pontiff of the Church declared all who did not recognize his primacy to be outside the
Church.
II. The trap of Papal ecumenism: Drawing on his personal charisma and downplaying (though
NEVER denying) his role as Vicar of Christ on earth, the Pope has in our time reached out
to other religions, asking for a unity that goes beyond dogmas and human differences
(though, we must note, NOT beyond the dogma of the Universal Pontiff). Of particular
interest to him has been the Orthodox Church, since it predates the creation of a "universal"
Roman Church (and since his early predecessors considered themselves part of the Orthodox
Church) and compromises his historical claims to universal jurisdiction in Christianity.
III. The shame of Orthodox ecumenism: Orthodoxy, emerging from the Islamic yoke in Greece
and the Levant and the martyrdom of Communism in Eastern Europe, has been lured into the
modern world by the promise of recognition, wealth, power, and pride. Ecumenism, demanding
that the Orthodox Church abandon the claim that it has preserved the unity of ancient
Christianity, has provided a vehicle for the attainment of all of these aims by our
Church. The cost of compromise has been covered the by the lush green blanket of dollars
flowing from the Protestant World Council of Churches and other ecumenical agencies.
IV. The betrayal of Orthodoxy by the Protestant ecumenists: Having bowed down to the Baal
of Protestant ecumenism, the Orthodox are now seeing themselves vilified by Protestant
leaders (from Billy Graham to their "brothers" in the World Council of Churches)
and one of the oldest Churches in Christianity, that of Serbia, declared a "so-called
Christian" community and accused of "murder and rape" by Protestant Evangelicals. The Orthodox are
likewise seeing their Churches, monasteries, and convents in Kosovo bombed, as the
civilian population of Serbia (including the Albanians who are supposedly under the
protection of NATO) is bombed into oblivion. Men, women, and children are giving their
lives to their former ecumenical friends, whose countries first helped built theological schools in Serbia and then began
bombing them.
V. The betrayal of Orthodox by Papist ecumenism. Even the Orthodox ecumenists, finding
themselves at the receiving-end of NATO bombs and unscrupulous missions by American
Evangelists into Orthodox countries after the fall of Communism (the latter taking
advantage of the weakness of the Orthodox Church to make converts to a foreign religion),
have begun to have some second thoughts about ecumenism in general. Thus, the Patriarch of
Constantinople, educated in Roman Catholic institutions and an for years an avid
ecumenists, as well as the Patriarch of Moscow, who has been accused of being a former KGB
agent (an accusation which emerging evidence is slowly proving to be absolutely true) but
who is a polished veteran of the ecumenical movement, though anxious for world power and
recognition, have nonetheless shown great reticence in receiving the Pope into the
Orthodox domain.
The Papacy, however, with worldly lust, recently took a long look at the one Orthodox
country that has repeatedly been the object of Jesuit missions and, of late, vulgar
attempts by American Protestant Evangelicals and fundamentalists to win the Orthodox away
from their traditional Faith, and which pines for Western recognition. So, earlier this
month the Vatican sent John Paul II to Romania, where he accomplished what is called one of the most
important steps in modern history towards the reunion of Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism
(that is, the submission of Orthodoxy to Papal rule, which has several times been
realized, in Romania's uneven political history, through the establishment of Greek
Catholic, or Uniate, regimes, resulting, incidentally, in the scrapping of the Orthodox Church Calendar for the Papal
Calendar). If anyone questions the calculated and cunning tactics of the Vatican, which
hopes to open up other Orthodox nations through this first contact in Romania, look at the
figure whom they chose to use in their machinations: the Patriarch of Romania.
In an AP release from the Cedar Rapids "Gazette," dated May 29, 1999, we see a
description of Patriarch Teoktist: "One of eight children from a poor town in
northern Romania, he entered the monastery at 15. During communism, he failed to oppose
the demolition by communists of dozens of Orthodox churches. He regularly sent obsequious
letters of praise to the atheist dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu." As the same article
notes, "For years, there was nothing that seemed to mark Teoktist as a man with a
mission." Imagine, this is the man whom the Pope decided to visit. Once more, this
was not by accident, but a wise choice. A man who would betray his Church to the
communists would certainly betray it to the Pope. And thus, the first religious leader
ever to ride in the "Popemobile" opened the door to Papal domination in Orthodox
Eastern Europe, proclaiming his love for the "Holy Father" and his hope for
union with him.
VI. The apostasy of the Orthodox. While Orthodox leaders have decried the
events in Kosovo and quite rightly taken offense at Vatican and Protestant Evangelical
missions into traditional Orthodox lands, they have not been unable to turn the tide of
Orthodox apostasy worldwide. Many Orthodox in the Holy Land have been lured into Greek
Catholicism by social programs designed to buy off the poor. Protestant Evangelicals,
laden down with food, clothes, and money, have converted Orthodox in Eastern Europe who
were often betrayed by their Priests and Hierarchs under Communism and who have had little
exposure to their own Faith. And while Orthodox Bishops have sipped sweet wines with the
ecumenists in the WCC, the Faithful were being won over by some of the very same
ecumenists with whom their Shepherds were sharing the fruit of the vine. (The same
ecumenists who now call us Orthodox "so-called" Christians, we might add.)
If there is any greater proof needed of this trend than the visit of the
Pope to Romania? Patriarch Teoktist, despised and hated by his countrymen, has now become
a virtual hero in that country, drawing from the charisma of the West. He is now
acceptable, not because he is an Orthodox prelate (50,000 attended a Liturgy celebrated by
him in Bucharest, while 250,000 attended a Mass celebrated by John Paul), but because he has called for unity with Rome.
Ecumenism has alienated the Faithful, making many of them strangers to Orthodoxy and
lovers of all that is Western (shrouded as the West is in the mighty buck), and has
created a situation in which Orthodox leaders are popular only when they betray their
Faith and kowtow to the West. This apostasy among the Faithful is not their fault, but of
those who set all of this in motion: the Orthodox ecumenists (many of whom, tragically
enough, did not even realize that their actions would result in such apostasy!).
Abandoning Orthodoxy, our leaders have, through the wonderful
"gift" of ecumenism, brought us into a new millennium with the reputation of
murderers and rapists; have brough upon the Serbian Orthodox people horrible death and
destruction under a shower of NATO bombs; and have, through their ecumenical betrayals,
set the stage for an Orthodoxy with Orthodox leaders who are popular only when they bow to
the Pope and the West. What except apostasy could ever have come of a heresy, ecumenism,
that teaches us to betray the treasury of Orthodoxy, take from the stone of those whom we
should be offering bread, and give to same, in the name of Orthodoxy, the same stone which
we use to assault those among our brethren who resist the self-denying sin of ecumenism?
Summer, 1999
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