Orthodoxy: “Our Little Grocery Store” For Sale
Another step into the mainstream and “respectability” – another step into confusion and away from confession – was made at Holy Cross recently. “A Roman Catholic Jesuit priest has been named chairman of the newly established Orthodox Patristic Institute of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. Rev. Robert J. Daly, professor emeritus of Theology at Boston College, was chosen by Holy Cross to organize the Institute. In response to the question how and why a Jesuit priest has been placed at the helm of an Orthodox Institute, Rev. Clapsis said that Rev. Daly ‘has experience in Institutes. He is one of the founders of the Boston Theological Institute, as well as the first Director of the Jesuit Institute at Boston College,’ adding that ‘we appointed a Roman Catholic to help us so our Institute is not a small grocery store, but to have a serious structure. We (the Orthodox) are only a handful, and sometimes there are personal sensitivities and animosities.’”
What can be said? The following excerpts from a letter to the editor, which appeared on the Orthodox News site, are a sample of what the body of faithful had to say in response:
“The appointment of a Jesuit and a Papist theologian to head the Holy Cross Seminary Orthodox Institute of Patristic Studies is simple astounding for its boldness in betraying Orthodox principles and sensibilities. Beyond this betrayal, however, the mentality underlying this decision is very revealing, although sadly typical. Namely, that on account of the desire to “not remain a little grocery store” but be accepted by the worldly, a papist theologian, and no less a Jesuit, was chosen. How sad. How pathetic. It is not enough that this kind of inferiority complex has permeated so much of the immigrant Orthodox community and ruined many a soul through immersion into the worldliness of “fulfilling the American dream”, etc. etc., but now this mentality is informing major decisions regarding the faith.
If those who supported his decision have no sense, at least they should have some shame and repent of this betrayal of Orthodox principles. If one does not confess the Orthodox faith and live it, how can he possibly run an Orthodox Institute for Patristic Studies?! Have we gone back into our western captivity so soon? Have we learned nothing of the failure of western Christians who subjected their faith to scholastic scrutiny and rationalism? Have we now jettisoned the maxim that a theologian is one who prays and one who prays is a theologian? Is experience now unnecessary in order to theologize?...”
Click here for the full letter to the editor.
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We’re all Orthodox Now…
It is as if the union has already happened. That is what you’d think when reading this article posted on the Orthodox Church in America website.
The OCA and the other Orthodox jurisdictions in the US don’t seem to mind at all that they and the Monophysites are all “Orthodox.” In the aforementioned article there is nothing to let one know that the two are not in communion and that the Monophysites are not considered Orthodox - right-believing- by The Orthodox Church. And, yet, the truth is that the agreements reached between the theological commissions have never been endorsed by the Synods of the Local Churches. There are still serious problems with anti-Chalcedonian theology. The Monophysites do not accept the 5th, 6th, and 7th Ecumenical Councils, nor do they accept the condemnation of Dioscoros and Severios. In short, there are no shortage of major obstacles to accepting the anti-Chalcedonians back into communion with the Church.
It one thing to use pastoral discretion when approaching the heterodox in an effort to gain them as brothers in the Faith. It is another thing entirely - and entirely unacceptable - to give them the impression that they have already “arrived” when there is considerable road ahead of them. The Lord Who said “knock and it shall be open to you” refuses no one, turns no one away. The Lord of the Harvest is He Who reaps souls for paradise. We are just His unworthy servants. Nothing more.
The task of the Orthodox with reference to the heterodox, and the anti-Chalcedonians in particular, is one and it is simple: to help them to have ”a good uneasiness”, a productive problematic and fruitful soul-searching, that they might embrace the Faith once delivered to the Saints. When they do that - when they become Orthodox “according to all” and not “according to all else, except...” - then we will with joy pray together with them as Orthodox.
The Trojan Horse of Ecumenists
There is an idea circulating among the Orthodox that there are “dark powers” working against the Church. Undoubtedly, there are. First of all, the fallen angels, with the evil one at their helm, and afterward all those among the race of men who serve their interests. And, yet, the greatest enemy of the Church has always been the enemy within.
With the signing of the latest ecumenistic agreement in September in Germany with the Lutheran Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has opened the door to the Trojan horse of ecumenism in an unprecedented way. According to this document, from now on it will be impossible to baptize again Christians transferring from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy and vice versa. This means, in simple terms, that the Ecumenical Patriarchate has abandoned Orthodox ecclesiology and even the possibility of applying akrivia(essentially making oikonomia the rule) and embraced the theory of “primordial unity” in one “common baptism” - a novel (and heretical) idea dreamed up by modern ecumenists, originating with the decrees on ecumenism of Vatican II.
The faithful may rightly ask with indignation:
• Is this not already a “false union” - albeit “partial”?
• Do we need to wait for the “common cup” when we already have the “common baptism”?
• In this agreement are the heterodox not recognized as being baptized into the Church? If so, what else do they then lack? Are we not, therefore, one with them in the baptismal womb?
• What, besides prejudice and bigotry, now prevents us from communing with them?
Read The Mystery of Baptism and The Unity of the Church for a complete analysis of this and other similiar agreements.
The New Uniates and the New Ecumenism
The New Uniates I
It is indeed one of the greatest ironies of our day that, just when the legacy of the papacy is nearing its tragic, but long-awaited end in Western Europe, certain rationalist Orthodox theologians are running to prop it up and lend it legitimacy. History is repeating itself, only far more tragic and devoid of justifications. The Orthodox are being called upon, once again by other Orthodox, to grant full ecclesiastical recognition to the papacy, as if we were back at the Council of Florence again being led by the likes of the scholastic Johannes Bessarion and the pagan Gemisthos Plethon, the uniates of that day.
In an interview which appeared at risu.org on September 6th, 2004, Antoine Arjakovsky, an Orthodox Frenchman and professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv gives us a glimpse into the thinking of the new Uniates:
“The assembly of bishops in France and Western Europe, except for representatives of the Russian Church, does not agree with the position of Patriarch Alexis. Everyone says that we are not the church of Paris: we exist through the principle of economy, because the church in France is a Roman Catholic patriarchate.”
The Church exists kat’oikonomia; heresy kat’akrivian? It is no wonder that Prof. Arjakovsky is teaching at a Uniate theological school. Certainly his reading of the Church Fathers must agree with that of his colleagues at his school, or perhaps he simply ignores the Patristic witness of the last five hundred years? Perhaps he has adopted the scholastic view that the Patristic era ended with St. John of Damascus? Otherwise, how can the testimony of the last five centuries be so blatantly ignored? From St. Gregory Palamas, through St. Mark of Ephesus, St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, St. Nectarios of Pentapolis, and up to our own day and such spiritual and theological giants as Frs. Justin Popovich and Dimitri Staniloae – all of these pre-eminent ecclesiastical giants proclaimed with one voice that the Papacy and its innovations were nothing less than heresy.
With Prof. Arjakovsky’s approach, however, it is as if time has stood still and we haven’t lived through the dogmatic alienation, not to mention spiritual estrangement, of the Papacy and the West in general. It is as if time has stood still and St. Mark has not uttered his well-known warning to flee the Latins as one would snakes and that they have been cut off precisely because they are heretics. St. Nikodemos has not written his well-known case against receiving Latins by Chrismation, in which he says that besides being heretics they also disdain the apostolic form of baptism. St. Nectarios has not written his two-volume history on the schism and given lengthy explanations of the delusions of the papacy. Prof. Arjakovsky has succeeded in transporting us back in time. We feel as if we have been introduced to the Uniates of old.
And, yet, the New Uniates, however much they resemble their predecessors, are set apart from them in one very important aspect. Instead of leaving the communion of the Church and uniting themselves to heresy, they remain within in her bosom in order to slowly drag, if possible, the whole body of the faithful with them. Their first goal is for the pious to accept, without its repentance, the papacy as the legitimate Church of the West. If this is done, the battle is nearly won. Full communion is just a matter of re-arranging the chess board. Beyond the “sister church” recognition, a whole range of save-face “solutions” present themselves, from the joint recognition of baptism, and by implication, all the mysteries, to a “re-classifying” of the dogmas of infallibility and jurisdictional primacy as “theologoumena”.
All such so-called “solutions”, however, overlook the inseparable chasm which exists between the life and spirit and mind of the Church and that of the papacy. The professional theologians work on a level and in a climate decidedly non-ecclesiastical, with ecclesiastical being defined above all as hagiographiki and agio pnevmatiki. By ignoring the presuppositions for true union of soul and mind, the ecumenists will only succeed in removing themselves and their followers from the Church, no matter how “successful” and “acceptable” it may otherwise seem.
One only has to remember where Bessarion and Gemisthos Plethon ended their lives to understand this.
In the future installments of “The New Uniates” we’ll continue more analytically our examination of Prof. Arjakovsky’s ideas.
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Post-Conference Press Release
The historic pan-Orthodox conference on Ecumenism, which was announced previously, issued a post-conference press release:
Inter-Orthodox Conference:
“Ecumenism: Origins, Expectations, Disenchantment”
Press Release
“In love, we reject Ecumenism, because we desire to offer to the heterodox precisely that which the Lord richly bestowed upon all of us within His Holy Orthodox Church: the opportunity to become members of His Body.”
This, among other things, was stressed at the Inter-Orthodox Conference: “Ecumenism: Origins, Expectations, Disenchantment”, which was successfully co-sponsored by the Department of Pastoral Theology of the Theological School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the “Society of Orthodox Studies” in the midst of large crowds who filled Ceremony Hall at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
The conference took place from September 20-24, 2004. His All-holiness Metropolitan Anthimos of Thessaloniki declared the commencement of the conference. Other Metropolitans and Bishops, the mayor of Thessaloniki, Mr. Panagiotis Psomiadis, Parliament representatives, and university professors were all on hand to offer greetings to the conference and its attendees. Before a packed audience composed of the Abbots of holy monasteries, clergy, monks, and laity, among which were many theologians and students of the Theological School, over a five day period roughly sixty speakers, including Hierarchs, from nearly all of the Local Orthodox Churches, analyzed thoroughly the phenomenon of Ecumenism.
At the conference it was noted that the roughly one hundred year old movement of Ecumenism—the organized efforts to unite divided Christians—even if it was, in the beginning of its development, animated by good intentions, has today reached a total dead end—a truth which is confessed by even the most fervent supporters of inter-Christian dialogue. This is due to the way in which these dialogues were established and directed, and are conducted even today.
Inter-Christian dialogues, with their unacceptable joint prayers and their syncretism, quickly led to inter-religious syncretism, the underpinning of which is the new age theory which proclaims that all of the religions are paths which lead to the same God.
Ecumenism, with these dialogues, gatherings and joint prayers, is placed among the so-called New Age, the New Order, and Globalization and serves political and geo-strategic aims, which are especially visible, even to the most uninformed observer, after the eleventh of September, 2001.
The ultimate conclusion of the conference is that the conditions have matured and been met and now render imperative the re-examination of the Orthodox Church’s participation in the “World Council of Churches”, and the so-called Ecumenical Movement more generally, as well as inter-religious gatherings.
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Professor George Mantzaridis on Ecumenism and Universality
"Contemporary ecumenism seek first of all the union of the christian world and not the preservation of its identity. It is interested in the body of Christians and not the body of Christ. That is why whatever has to do with the body of Christ - Christ Himself and the Church, which is set forth in christology and ecclesiology - is relegated to a secondary position. Ecumenism sees neither christology nor ecclesiology theologically from above, but ventures to create christology and ecclesiology using the contemporary secularized anthropology and sociology. The “from below” christology, as well as the ecclesiology “of branches,” confirm this state of things.
Here is found the main difference between contemporary ecumenism and the universality or ecumenicity of the indivisible Church. The Orthodox Church persists in the truth of christology, for this offers the base for true anthropology. Heretical anthropology distorts anthropology, in addition to ecclesiology. There cannot exist a healthy body of the Church, when the faith concerning her head, Who is Christ, has been altered. Nor can there be healthy cells in a body which has a mutated head. The contribution of the Orthodox Church, which was present at the formation of the contemporary ecumenical dialogue, has not yielded any substantial result. . . It could be said, on the contrary, that within orthodox circles a certain theological minimalism has been cultivated in the name of some kind of ecumenical cooperation and overture.”
-- Univerality and Ecumenism, Christian Ethics, (Thessaloniki, Pounara, 2002), page 277.
"The universality of the Church is the universality of the Spirit of God. Contemporary ecumenism is a movement of good-willed people. The first unites all those who live within it. The second keeps divided all those that follow it. The methology of contemporary ecumenism leads naturally to, not only confessional, but also religious sycretism. The abandonment of the catholic truth of the Church. . . naturally expands into wider religious syncretism in order to acheive the fullest possible reilgious sythesis. It follows that [ecumenism] is not carried out as an authentic dialogue of christian love and truth, but as an attempt at blending together christian and other religious truths. Indeed, it might even be claimed [by those who hold this position] that any other position held within this perspective would conceal a racist attitude.”
-- Univerality and Ecumenism, Christian Ethics, (Thessaloniki, Pounara, 2002), page 279.
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