The Church of Georgia and the WCC
The April-June 1997 issue of "Orthodoxos
Enemerosis" ("The Orthodox Informer"), a
tri-monthly periodical published in Athens, Greece, by our Synod
of Bishops, was devoted entirely to the withdrawal, on May 20,
1997 (New Style), of the autocephalous Church of Georgia from the
World Council of Churches (WCC) and, subsequently, from another
ecumenical body, the Council of European Churches (CEC). This
move was prompted by a popular uprising among clergyman from some
of Georgia’s more ancient and revered monastic communities,
who, in a now well-known and widely-distributed "Open
Letter" to Catholicos Patriarch Ilia, dated April 14, 1997
(Old Style), flatly condemned their Church’s participation
in the ecumenical movement, which movement they characterized not
only as a "heresy," but, "moreover, as the heresy
of heresies," demanding that the Georgian Hierarchy withdraw
immediately from the WCC and all other ecumenical organizations.
The editors of "The Orthodox
Informer," while expressing "satisfaction, in joy and
with thanksgiving to the Divine Founder of the Church," at
"being informed of the highly interesting developments in
the Church of Georgia," and while noting their great
pleasure with any "resistance against the panheresy of
ecumenism, by whomever and by whatever means it manifests
itself," nonetheless—albeit
"optimistically"—advise caution
about these events (p. 1). Their cautionary statements, which we
shall briefly summarize, are worthy of attention:
First, as the editors point out, Patriarch
Ilia, an avid ecumenist and a former President of the World
Council of Churches, and the Holy Synod of the Church of Georgia
succumbed to the demand that their Church withdraw from the
ecumenical movement only to avoid a schism. Their decision
entailed no point-by-point disavowal of ecumenism, let alone a
careful study of its anti-Orthodox nature, but simply constituted
a reaction to the pressure placed on them by the Orthodox
anti-ecumenists, as well as a hurried attempt to quell threats by
these protesters to cut off communion with the Georgian
Hierarchy: "Indeed, a careful reading of the historic
synodal decree of May 20, 1997, reveals that ecumenism is not
characterized as a heresy...; nor did the Hierarchs or Patriarch
Ilia II of Georgia, for a series of years actively involved in
the ecumenical movement, show even the slightest regret for their
destructive and reprehensible participation, to date, in that
movement" (ibid.).
Second, the anti-ecumenical instigators of this
protest, instead of being praised and honored, as the Holy Canons
would appoint, were, rather, maligned and punished for supposedly
courting "schism" in the local Church. To the synodal
announcement of the Georgian Church’s withdrawal from the
WCC and CEC, in fact, its Hierarchs appended the names of eight
Priests, Hieromonks, and monastics, suspending them from Priestly
functions or from Holy Communion for their participation in the
protests that led to the Georgian Church’s decision in May.
"The Orthodox Informer" pointedly
notes that the actual events in Georgia underscore the fact that,
the only "effective" and "valid" from of
protest against heresy is a "canonical walling-off from
heresy and the rupture of ecclesiastical communion with wayward
ecclesiastical authorities (Canon Fifteen of the First-Second
Holy Synod)" (ibid.). In such a way, its editors opine, we
preserve our actual union in the Faith with the Saints and
Fathers of the Church, a correct confession, and purity of
doctrine (ibid). Only thus do we insure the integrity of our
fight against apostasy and wrong doctrine. So it is that our
Synod of Bishops, several years ago, received a large group of
Orthodox traditionalists in Georgia and established, under its
aegis, the Orthodox Eparchy of Gldani (Tbilisi), headed by the
zealous and well-known Archimandrite Basili Mkalavishvili, which
has walled itself off from the Patriarchate and struggles, in
lawful resistance, to preserve the integrity of the ancient Faith
of the Georgian people.
It is perhaps worthy of note that, according to
"The Orthodox Informer," representatives of both the
WCC and the CEC chose to present the "crisis" in the
Georgian Church as a dispute occasioned by proselytism among the
Orthodox by various Protestant sects. Indeed, this position is
that of Archpriest Victor Petlyuchenko, Deputy Chairman of the
Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow
Patriarchate, who noted, in an interview with "Ecumenical
News International" shortly after the decision by the Church
of Georgia to withdraw from the ecumenical movement, that
"the [Orthodox] people are not opposed to the WCC, but to
the energetic proselytism which they confront on a daily
basis" (ibid., p. 95). Nonetheless, Dr. Konrad Raiser,
General Secretary of the WCC, admitted in a letter to Patriarch
Ilia of Georgia, in the summer of 1997, that, "...the WCC is
fully informed with regard to negative attitudes towards the
ecumenical movement in the Church of Georgia, as well as other
local Orthodox Churches" (informed, that is, not by contacts
with us Orthodox anti-ecumenists, but from the slanted reports of
those often-hostile Orthodox ecumenists who have made ecumenism
their first profession) (ibid., p. 95). The lie—that
the dispute in Georgia is over proselytism—and
the truth—that the issue is that of the
panheresy of ecumenism—stand side-by-side,
in this case, coming forth, not from a witness to the truth and
an advocate of deception, but from two eminent ecumenists. Let us
attend, auribus arrectis.
From Orthodox
Tradition. It is a translation from the
Greek of an article appearing in "Hagios Kyprianos,"
the official publication of the Synod of Bishops of the True (Old
Calendar) Church of Greece under Metropolitan Cyprian in Fili
(near Athens).
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