Official Orthodoxy
by Bishop [now Archbishop] Chrysostomos
The move toward apostasy among many Orthodox in our day grows
out of an incorrect understanding of the Church. Political
ecumenism itself, the clearest expression of this
misunderstanding, rests on the ignorance of our modernist
theologians of the nature of the Church. This ignorance is not an
academic one alone—an ignorance of the Fathers; it is also
the result of a decline in spirituality. For to understand the
Church, one must first understand the spiritual life which the
Church serves.
Many of today’s modernists have covered over their
ignorance of Orthodox ecclesiology by the creation of an
"official" Orthodoxy. The idea of an official Orthodoxy
is especially popular in America, where Greek Catholics returning
to Orthodoxy have brought with them a neo-Papal view of the
Church, which they adopted from the Latins. Many of the
Protestant fundamentalists who have joined the modernist
Antiochian Church also seek a definition of the Church which
rests on "officialdom," partly in reaction to their
correct misgivings about the self-styled church organization
which they created in the name of Orthodoxy, the so-called
Evangelical Orthodox Church.
In reality, officialdom has no place in Christianity or
Orthodoxy. The Church of Christ did not become valid because it
was recognized by the Roman Empire. Nor is an Orthodox Christian
authentic because he belongs to a "Patriarch." We are
not a Church built on political principles or on papal
assumptions. Officialdom in Orthodoxy is based on Apostolic
Succession and on an adherence to Holy Tradition. It is a
spiritual and charismatic thing, since Apostolic Succession and
Holy Tradition describe the passing on of charismatic and
spiritual power from Christ to the Apostles to the Church's,
Hierarchs. Officialdom is not simply a statement of an historical
and legal dimension.
In America, where adherence to Holy Tradition is practically
non-existent and where spiritual maturity is indeed lacking,
there is a frantic attempt by modernists to be official. Thus the
old Metropolia, now the Orthodox Church in America, rushed off to
the communist-dominated Patriarchate of Russia several decades
ago to remove from itself the accusation of being uncanonical.
The Evangelical Orthodox Church, a purely bogus Protestant sect,
likewise entered into the Antiochian Church several years ago,
also hoping to make itself an official Orthodox Church.
In the case of the old Metropolia, it was before these moves
an Orthodox Church, and its clergy were clearly in Apostolic
Succession. It had a number of traditional communities, spiritual
leaders with solid experience, and a tie to authentic Church
tradition. When it joined Moscow, somehow thinking it was then
official, the Church was besieged by modernism. The calendar was
changed. Innovation became the order of the day. A Church which I
can remember as having old Priests who honored their cassocks and
who took seriously their roles as imitators of the Patriarchs
suddenly became a Church with clergy who can hardly be
distinguished in appearance, and often in belief, from Roman
Catholic clergy. This Church gained so-called officialdom at the
cost of much of its Orthodoxy.
The Evangelical Orthodox Church was accepted by the Antiochian
Archdiocese—an excessively modernist jurisdiction—by
every innovation, even reaching to the irregular ordination of
the EOC clergy. Its Faithful are largely uncatechized. Many of
the clergy and Faithful have had no exposure to Orthodox
traditions and have been taught to revile them as
"ethnic" or "foreign." In the name of
officialdom, the body of Orthodoxy has absorbed a foreign element
which still accepts and teaches ideas which are wholly
inconsistent with the experience of the Church. Officialdom has
created a kind of Protestant Orthodoxy. Arid the sad victims of
this false creation are the sincere EOC clergy and Faithful.
The official Churches here in America use their officialdom to
try to silence us traditionalists, who stand in protest to the
innovation, apostasy, and political ecumenism which assault the
Orthodox Church. In a country where an "official"
religion is non-existent, they even use the media to attack us
True Orthodox as "not part of an official Patriarchate"
or "separated from the official Church."
Let us examine this phenomenon for what it is. Recently I read
a publication by "Orthodox People Together," a group
which promotes unity among Orthodox. This is an admirable thing.
But the publication reads like a Bible tract from a
fundamentalist Church. It is filled with talk about pastors,
ministry, social concerns, and the like, but is rather short on
references to traditional monasticism, fasting, the ascetic
traditions of the Church, self-transformation, and the like. An
editorial letter about the female diaconate, in fact, makes a
strong and very important plea for the restoration of this vital
service for women in the Church. But in so doing, it suggests
that a liturgical role for the female deacon is not an important
issue, as long as hospital calls and service to the Faithful are
made her official duties. Can we imagine an Orthodoxy in which
service to the Church relegates the liturgical life to a
secondary position and social service to a primary one?
There are modernist monasteries in this countries where
monastic traditions are almost wholly unknown—though made-up
practices are touted as "ancient" and
"Athonite." Indeed, one monastery in the OCA is so
marked by innovation that it even mocks many traditional Orthodox
practices. While True Orthodox monastics spend their days in
services, refrain from ever eating meat, have no personal money
or bank accounts, practice strict obedience, and pray for the
world, many of the modernists seek to create the kind of social
monasticism in Orthodoxy which has destroyed this institution in
the Latin Church. One wonders how official this modernist
monasticism is.
As Old Calendarist resisters, we are constantly assaulted as
"uncanonical" and unofficial by the errant Mother
Church of Greece and the Patriarchate of Constantinople and its
Exarchates in the diaspora. Shaved Bishops, dressed like Roman
Catholic clerics, sitting down to meals of steak and wine on fast
days, turn to us and accuse us of being uncanonical. Embracing
the heterodox with ecumenical love and violating the Church's
canons by praying and even communing with them, they turn to us
and spit, calling us people without love.
Indeed, can these people be canonical just because the Greek
State recognizes them? Or because the White House door is open to
the representatives of the Greek Archdiocese in North and South
America? Certainly not. Officialdom comes from spiritual
commitment to the Church. And in this sense it is we True
Orthodox who are the official believers. Were this not so,
moreover, who would cover the sins of these New Calendarists and
modernists? Who would provide them refuge when they come to their
senses and seek Christianity, and not the world? Who would add to
their rightful claims to Apostolic Succession the complement
which accrues to that state: spiritual achievement?
The goal of Orthodoxy is not unity in officialdom or
recognition by the power of this world. It is the union of man
with God. And where this is the one goal of Christians, they are
by nature united. They come together in their strict adherence to
the path towards salvation which has been set before us by Holy
Tradition. They need no worldly gimmicks such as tracts,
organizations, and public recognition to know who they are. They
are known by their deeds. And they need no redefinitions of their
Faith or of spiritual life, since they maintain communion with
the myriad of Saints who have walked the tried and true path of
Holy Tradition to sanctity.
The official Orthodox whom we see in this country look like
the heterodox and are fast coming to believe what the heterodox
believe. They are becoming part of a world religion which will
one day demand that they reject True Orthodoxy. We
traditionalists have tasted of the first step towards that
rejection in the unbelievable hatred that these preachers of
ecumenical love have for us. Their own actions are a sign to us.
True Orthodoxy is official. It is official because its
contains spiritual authenticity. All one need do is walk in our
Churches, visit our monasteries, or live with our people to know
that, despite our imperfections the spirit of authenticity rests
with us. All one need do is visit the Churches and monasteries of
the modernists—the few that have any monasteries—and
see the compromise, violations and ignorance of tradition,
innovation, and priorities of the social Gospel, to know their
spiritual state. The lack of authenticity bursts forth clearly,
cutting through even the sincerity that underlies some of this
ignorance of and deviation from Orthodox practice.
Once one of our monks, a convert, recited from memory Small
Compline in Greek. A visiting modernist monk, who had earlier
expressed his admiration for us traditionalists but his
misgivings about our separation from the official Church, was
then asked to say the service in English. He was silent. He did
not know the service. Nor could he properly bless a meal. Nor did
he know the proper way to fast. Nor did he know any of the many
unwritten practices of monastic tradition. I always, remember
this young man when I think of officialdom and wonder if he knew
how loudly his silence spoke.
From Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VIII, No. 2, p. 7
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