An Open Letter to the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America
“Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.”
2 Corinthians 13:11
“Keep an eye on your bishops as far as their Orthodoxy is concerned lest they go so far as to teach doctrines against the true faith or celebrate with heretics and schismatics. As far as other things, they act out of ignorance or because the days are evil and they will give an account to God only.”
St. Gennadios
Greetings in Christ, Your Eminences and Graces,
Christ is Born!
As a layman of the Orthodox Church in the United States, I feel compelled to write to you about two events that have not only scandalized the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese, but all the faithful in America.
On a recent trip to Greece, His Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros conducted a scandalous baptism that was completely unbefitting of an Orthodox hierarch. Yet he remains the head of not only the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese in America, but of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, embarrassing each represented jurisdiction with seemingly little regard for the precedent it sets.
Recent events in Ukraine have also drawn negative attention to the Orthodox Church, this time at the hands of His Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. His consecration of anathematized schismatics within the territory of the Church of Russia has undermined the witness of the blessed Metropolitan Onuphry, who for the better part of a decade was recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate as the legitimate Metropolitan of Kiev and all Ukraine.
Yet in 2018, at the behest of a Ukrainian businessman and politician, His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew issued a Tomos to these unrepentant schismatics installing yet a second Metropolitan of Kiev and all Ukraine, much to the consternation of the Local Churches, not one of whom approved of his actions.
This has resulted in a schism that has ushered in a war of unpresented scale.
How long before this schism manifests itself as acutely here in America where we are multi-jurisdictional, making even the possibility of unity within the Orthodox Church in America all but non-existent?
I ask and pray that as heads of the various jurisdictions in the Orthodox Church, you implore your respective patriarchates to come together in unity to resolve this issue. Not only for the sake of the laity in America, but for the sake of unity throughout the entire world.
In closing, Your Eminences and Graces, Orthodox unity must be preserved and protected over the perceived needs and actions of a single patriarchate. We ask that you reflect on this, as I am far from being the only concerned layperson in America. We know these matters are of grave importance to you, as well, as we have witnessed your commitment and hard work to make unity a reality in this country. We are dependent upon you to protect this dream and with God’s help, we are confident you will find a solution.
Please pray for me a sinner as I continue to pray for you.
Concerned Member of the Laity
Signatures:
- Fedec, Alexios M.
- Hitt, Randall
- Michalopulos, George & Gail
- Nelson, Hilber
- Pearson III, David
- Petros
- Wintheiser, Ronda
Thank you, Petros! Please let us know what communication you receive.
How do we sign our names on this document?
Email me your name and I’ll get in on there. gail.sheppard@usa.net
Thanks for posting this George & Gail
To all who read this, please forward this letter to your respective priest, bishop, or even Patriarch
Petros, Gail and I really liked what you wrote and I’ll be honest: she really punched it up, didn’t she?
She really did! And I appreciate it. She has a better way with words than I do lol
Dream on lemmings! Chekov clearly debunks myths of Russian piety showing them instead to be drunken wife beaters with no understanding if their faith and insistence on pagan rituals.
Thank you! We pray for the awakening and action of our beloved canonical hierarchs. I know our kingdom is of Heaven, but what is being allowed is just wrong!
“Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven!”Lord have mercy!
This is the kill-shot from Rod Dreher’s latest piece:
“He’s right. You can never, ever appease these people. Ever. I advised my Methodist correspondent that there is no way to avoid the hard theological dispute dividing that church. People are going to have to take a stand. Those who believe that there’s a third way are deceiving themselves. Those congregations that choose the path of tradition will likely have more to suffer for their stance. But they will have shown that the fear God more than men. Besides, to the best of my knowledge, every church that has taken the path of formal affirmation has continued its decline. True, conservative churches are also declining. Still, in twenty years, in may places the only people still going to church will be those who are drawn to countercultural congregations who are faithful to the Bible and to tradition.”
Here’s the entire essay by Dreher: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/sorry-anglicans-there-is-no-third-way/?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=editorsweekly&utm_source=The+American+Conservative&utm_campaign=130b32dd98-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_07_29_02_06_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f7b67cac40-130b32dd98-63714250&mc_cid=130b32dd98
The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,
Commonly Called the Didache
https://biblehub.com/library/richardson/early_christian_fathers/the_teaching_of_the_twelve.htm
The Lord’s Teaching to the Heathen by the Twelve Apostles:
‘ 1 There are two ways, one of life and one of death; and between the two ways there is a great difference. …
^4 “Abstain from carnal passions.” …
2 The second commandment of the Teaching: …
^2 … do not corrupt boys; do not fornicate … do not murder a child by abortion or kill a new-born infant. …
^4 Do not be double-minded or double-tongued, for a double tongue is “a deadly snare.”
^5 Your words shall not be dishonest or hollow, but substantiated by action. … ‘
ie: Neither do it, nor encourage nor celebrate it;
for it is the way of death.
From a true Holy father of latter times, Archbishop Averky [Taushev] of thrice blessed memory.
STAND FAST IN THE TRUTH FROM THE TEACHINGS OF ARCHBISHOP AVERKY TAUSHEV
ON THE APOSTOLIC WORK OF PRINCE ST. VLADIMIR [from the 70’s]
What is this faith in Christ and true Church and what is its significance for us?
[…]
Faith in Christ and the true Church as the repository and disseminator of that faith are given to us so that we might know the true God and, knowing Him, learn to believe in Him, hope in Him, and love Him.
Faith in God must be “true” and “uncorrupted,” that is, not just any sort of faith thought up by people themselves according to their own taste, but correct, or orthodox, as that true Christian faith, pure and uncorrupted, undistorted by human sophistry, preached by the holy Apostles and preserved without change by the true Church, has always been called. The criterion for this faith is this: “That is true which has been believed everywhere,. at all times, by all people” (St.’ Vincent of Lerins). And that faith must be “uncorrupted” in us, that is, we must preserve it so steadfastly, firmly, uncompromisingly that no one will be able to seduce us or draw us away from it.
[..]
Christ our Savior said clearly, “I will establish my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt., 16:18). Consequently, He created one Church, not many different churches, for in that case He would have spoken in the plural “churches.” This is why it is odd to hear the speeches, which claim to be authoritative, of some modern leaders of the [ecumenical] movement who call themselves “Christians” to the effect that the existence within Christianity of various “churches” (the Roman Catholic, the Protestant ones, etc.) is a positive phenomenon, since each person can select his own “.`church” according to his own taste, selecting whichever one he likes best, whichever one suits him best. It was even stranger for us to hear the words of a certain liberal, progressive professor who eloquently developed the idea that Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism are all the same Christianity, just from “different viewpoints.” “It is as if,” he continued in this comparison, “an airplane is flying over a city from various points during its flight it sees the city in its various parts, and therefore the city seems different to it, depending on the point from which one is looking at it.”
Of course, such an idea is fundamentally opposed to the Word of God, which clearly teaches: “That they may be one” (John 17:11); “One Lord, one faith” (Eph. 4:5); “Be like-minded one toward another” (Rom. 15:5); “Be of one accord, of one mind” (Phil. 2:2); “Be ye all of one mind” (I Peter 3:8); “Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things… Be not wise in your own conceits” (Rom. 12:16).
+++
Wherever the inherited spiritual link of grace going back to the holy Apostles and their successors the Apostolic Men and Holy Fathers has been broken, wherever various innovations have been introduced in faith and morals with the aim of “keeping in step with the times,” of “progressing,” of not getting out of date and of adapting to the demands and fashions of this world lying in evil there can be no talk of the true Church.
+++
Where one finds the dogmas shaken and the moral teachings of the Gospel and the canonical structure of the Church founded on them undermined, this is clearly the work of servants of the coming Antichrist, no matter what they might call themselves and no matter how they are dressed.
The “gates of hell” will not prevail against the Church, but they have and certainly can prevail against many who consider themselves pillars of the Church, as is shown by Church history; this happens when they are full of their own conceits, abandon the one mind and one spirit of the whole One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and rely on their own conjectures and imaginings which contradict the teachings of the Gospel, the Holy Apostles, and the Fathers of the Church.
Read the complete homily @ https://archbishopaverky.blogspot.com/2012/08/stand-fast-in-truth.html
Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, preserve us!
John D
If I may be controversial, this is why Protestantism happened and Christianity is the better for it.
Ah, yes, because 35,000 new heretical sects and counting is far superior to having a minority of dysfunctional bishops. Great take, Bob.
Instead of a single voice, the Holy Spirit becomes refracted, reflected and projected through lenses of broken glass. Not an improvement by any stretch of the imagination, but I can see the allure. If you can create your own version of the truth, of course it would seem better.
Until you realize it isn’t true.
That’s the problem, Gail. Luther rejected the whole concept of holiness of the church, because he saw no holiness in the papal church of his day. So, he decided to “roll his own.” And that process has been repeated countless times.
“…Luther rejected the whole concept of holiness of the church, because he saw no holiness in the papal church of his day. So, he decided to “roll his own.” And that process has been repeated countless times.”
I am not sure I’ve read a more succinct and profound summary of the origins of the protestant church (where my wife and I spent 40 years, not unlike wandering in the desert, searching for something we knew was out there).