Her Stand against Ecumenism and Her Relations with Anti-Ecumenists
1. The Orthodox ecumenists of Geneva, true to form and expressing their
fundamentalistic ethos, maintain that "the resisters have recently taken refuge"
in the Russian Church Abroad "evidently as a bulwark of salvation, in order to invest
themselves with some ‘inter-Orthodox’ standing and to demonstrate to their
followers that they have worldwide significance" ( 6).
a. Such a serious statement or accusation, expressed as it is by Father George Tsetsis,
should surely be founded, not on what is "evident" (!), but on indisputably
objective criteria; what is "evident," then, is this statement’s lack of
credibility and, to be sure, its slanderous nature is, for the following reasons, clear.
First: The Old Calendarists in resistance have no need of any "bulwark,"
quite simply because they are not at risk, as long as their ecclesiological edifice rests
on the unshakable foundations of the Patristic and Synodal Tradition of Orthodoxy (its
principal canonical expression being the Thirty-first Apostolic Canon and the Fifteenth
Canon of the First-Second Synod).
Second: The "little flock" of the anti-ecumenist Greek Old Calendarist
resisters does not regard "inter-Orthodox standing" as a necessary element in
its ecclesiological makeup, for—whatever the case—it has had such standing, by
virtue of communion with the Romanian and Bulgarian anti-ecumenists. Those in resistance
rest their case on the words of the Holy Fathers, who have pointed out emphatically,
indeed in a time of heretical confusion parallel with that of today, the following:
- So mine is a little flock? But it is not being carried over a precipice. So mine
is a narrow fold? But it is unapproachable by wolves; it cannot be entered by a robber,
nor overcome by thieves and strangers. I shall yet see it, I know well, grow wider.... I
fear not for the little flock; for it is seen at a glance. I know my sheep and am known of
mine. Such are they that know God and are known of God. My sheep hear from my voice that
which I have heard from the oracles of God, which I have been taught by the Holy Fathers,
which I have taught in like manner on all occasions, not conforming myself to fortune, and
which I will never cease to teach; in which I was born, and in which I will depart. [1]
- Let us not set up a stumbling-block for the Church of God, which, according to the
Saints, is defined even by three Orthodox Christians, lest we be condemned by the
statement of the Lord. [2]
Third: The Old Calendarist anti-ecumenists have no need to "prove" that
"they—have worldwide significance," given that—by the Grace of
God—they have been in existence, and have been active, for many decades now on an
international level; besides, is it not precisely for this reason that they constitute a
"pastoral problem" for Orthodox ecumenists. [3]
b. In consequence of this, always having as our unerring guide the words of the
Fathers,
...we are, indeed, not unlearned in our exercise of instruction, nor do we hurl
insults, as the many do, who assail not the argument, but the speaker. [4]
We should emphasize that the resisters certainly have not "taken refuge" in
the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, very simply because—as we previously
noted—there was no reason to "take refuge"; the sole thing which they
sought, and at which they aimed, was to enter into liturgical communion with their Russian
brothers, for four basic reasons.
First: They received their Hierarchy from the Russian Church Abroad (1960, 1962).
Second: After 1969, the Russian Church Abroad, under Metropolitan Philaret (+1985),
opened full communion with the Greek Old Calendarist anti-ecumenists, which, though
temporarily broken off, has now been resumed.
Third: The resisters have been in communion for years with the Romanian
anti-ecumenists; since the Romanians established communion with the Russians in 1992, it
was natural for the Greeks in resistance to be in communion with the Russians as well.
Fourth, and most important: The need among anti-ecumenists everywhere for liturgical
communion derives from the ecclesiological nature of their identity as Orthodox.
In a famous epistle, St. Theodore the Studite deals ad hoc with this question,
insofar as he faced the same criticisms at the time of Iconoclastic confusion. The Saint
exhorts: "We should seek after and concern ourselves about with whom we ought to be
in communion."
—He then states: an "irreproachable" clergyman is considered to be one
who 1) "is not a heretic," 2) who confesses that "he preserves both the
Faith and the Canons inviolate," and 3) who rejects "those who have deviated on
both counts [of heresy and simony—tr.]";
—And he finally concludes: "There is no reason for us to keep away from him [viz.,
the irreproachable clergyman]; for such a one is uncondemned, according to the
aforementioned Saints [i.e., Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostomos], and
through them, according to all [i.e., the Saints]." [5]
On the basis of this universal Patristic "guidance" ("according to all
the Saints"), we are not in communion with the Orthodox ecumenists, and we certainly
are in communion (and are not "taking refuge"!) with the Russian anti-ecumenists
of the Diaspora, very simply because they constitute an "irreproachable" and
"uncondemned" Church, and our common participation in "the Holy, Spotless,
and Life-Giving Communion of the Catholic Church" [6] gives joy to the heavenly
world, upbuilds the Church, and strengthens the Orthodox resistance. [7]
c. It is evident that the Orthodox ecumenists are displeased by the consolidation of
Old Calendarist anti-ecumenists everywhere—by Divine Grace—into a
flock—albeit small—, and they do not hide this disquietude of theirs.
We do not know whether the ecumenists are imitating the cuttlefish, as St. Gregory the
Theologian says (see note 4); whatever the case, their satisfaction in the
"unions" of the different branches of Protestantism cannot be concealed by
"the ink (of insults) which goes before them." Father Tsetsis, himself, is
familiar with these "unions," and he points them out and enumerates them in his
account of the ecumenical movement, [8] though he surely recognizes that they are not
"unions" in the Truth and in Orthodoxy, but, on the contrary, "unions"
for the purpose of heightening and consolidating the falsehood of heresy, and are
consequently an occasion for tears.
St. Maximos the Confessor says that,
‘We offend God’ when we give heretics ‘license in any manner
whatever...to parade their falsehood within our circles and to agitate against the true
Faith.... For I reckon it misanthropy and a departure from Divine love to lend support to
error, that those previously captivated by it should undergo still greater
corruption.’ [9]
Endnotes
1. St. Gregory the Theologian, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xxxvi, col. 233abc (Oration
33: "Against the Arians and On Himself," 15).
- The whole of this marvelous paragraph is apropos. This famous oration of the Saint
constitutes an apologia concerning personal attacks against him and was delivered
around the beginning of 380, in Constantinople, when the Arians were still generally in
control and the Orthodox flock was truly small and deprived of churches. Parallel
times....
2. St. Theodore the Studite, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xcix, col. 1049b (Epistle
i.39: "To Abbot Theophilos").
3. See Great Protopresbyter George Tsetsis, "Ecumenism as a Pastoral Problem"
[in Greek], Ekklesia, No. 17 (November 15, 1996), pp. 800 ff.
4. St. Gregory the Theologian, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xxxvi, cols. 472d-473a (Oration
42: "Farewell Speech to the Assembly of 150 Bishops," 13).
- St. Gregory goes on the say that those who attack "the speaker" and not
"the issue at hand" do this, "at times, striving by their invective to hide
the weakness of their reasoning; as cuttlefish are said to cast forth ink before them, in
order to escape from their pursuers, or themselves to hunt others when unperceived."
5. St. Theodore the Studite, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xcix, col. 1105abc (Epistle
i.53: "To Stephen the Reader and those with him").
6. St. Maximos the Confessor, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xci, col. 464d (Epistle
12: "To John the Chamberlain").
7. It should be noted that the Orthodox ecumenists emphasize in particular that mutual
"estrangement" among Orthodox Churches is contrary to their ecclesiological
nature: "Self–sufficient isolation, however, constitutes a heresy. Communion
between Orthodox Churches belongs to the very essence of the Church." (See Episkepsis,
No. 176 [October 15, 1977], p. 6 [in Greek]: "Perspectives and Problems of the Great
Synod of the Orthodox Church." An interview with Metropolitan Damaskinos of
Tranoupolis [now of Switzerland], in the Catholic periodical of Zurich, Orientierung [August
31, 1977, issue]).
8. See Great Protopresbyter George Tsetsis, "The Bilateral Theological Dialogues
Between Heterodox Churches in Relation to the Bilateral Theological Dialogues of the
Orthodox Church" [in Greek], Orthodoxia (April-August 1995), pp. 246-247, 254.
9. St. Maximos the Confessor, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xci, cols. 464a, 465cd (Epistle
12: "To John the Chamberlain").
From Orthodoxy and
the Ecumenical Movement, by Archimandrite Cyprian
(Etna: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies,
1998), pp. 69-74.
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