mospat.u
Due to technical difficulties with the previous post, I have opened a new post with the attached link.
Things are getting interesting. I imagine all eyes are going to be on Arb Ieronymus of Athens and all-Greece this Sunday. I urge you to read all of it but most especially the last paragraphs. If I didn’t know any better (and I probably don’t), I’d say that there are plans to recognize certain bishops in the Church of Greece as constituting the authentic Synod.
Excerpt:
“. . . It is sad that in this way the historical merits of the Greek people in spreading Orthodoxy are exchanged for short-term political benefits and support for geopolitical interests alien to the Church. But these gambles on national feelings will not succeed. They will not be able to undermine the unity of our faith, bought by the blood of the New Martyrs and Confessors of our Churches. They will not interrupt the unity of our ascetic tradition, which was created by the exploits of many venerable fathers and ascetics. They will not destroy the centuries-old friendship of the Greek and Slavic peoples, paid for with the blood of Russian soldiers and hardened in the common struggle for the freedom of the fraternal Greek people.
We cherish prayerful communion with our brethren in the Greek Orthodox Church and will maintain a living prayerful, canonical and Eucharistic connection with it—through all those archpastors and pastors who have already spoken out or will further oppose the recognition of the Ukrainian schism, who will not stain themselves by concelebrating with the schismatic false hierarchs, but will show an example of Christian courage and a firm stand for the truth of Christ. May the Lord strengthen them in their podvig of confession, through the prayers of Sts. Mark of Ephesus and Gregory Palamas, Maximus the Confessor and all those Greek saints who were and are venerated in our Holy Rus’.
At the same time, we remember that the sacred canons of the Church condemn those who enter into prayerful communion and concelebration with those who are defrocked and excommunicated (Apostolic Canons 10-12; Canon 5 of the First Ecumenical Council; Canon 2 of the Council of Antioch, etc.). In this regard, we cease prayerful and Eucharistic communication with those bishops of the Greek Church who have entered or will enter into such communication with representatives of the Ukrainian non-canonical schismatic communities. We also do not bless pilgrimages in dioceses managed by the aforesaid bishops. The relevant information will be widely distributed among the pilgrimage and tourist organizations of the countries that make up the canonical territory of our Church.
The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church authorizes His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia to stop commemorating the name of His Beatitude the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece in the diptychs if the primate of the Greek Church begins to commemorate the head of one of the Ukrainian schismatic groups during Divine services or takes other actions testifying to his recognition of the Ukrainian Church schism.
Recent Comments