An oldie but a goodie from our friends at OrthoChristian. – It says here the “Metropolis’ Office of Heresies and Cults is confident that “’Orthodox’ and papists will submit to the Pope through the Ecumenical Patriarch. First in line will be the pope and immediately after him—the Ecumenical Patriarch.”
I wonder if Bartholomew knows this is the plan. He can’t even submit to the consensus of his brother bishops. I would imagine submitting to the pope would be beyond his capabilities.
UKRAINIAN SCHISMATICS PROMOTE UNIFICATION OF ORTHODOXY AND THE PAPACY—GREEK METROPOLIS OF PIRAEUS
Piraeus, February 18, 2020
Through its relation with the Greek Catholic Uniates, the schismatic “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” will prove to be a catalyst for the future unification of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, warns the Office of Heresies and Cults of the Church of Greece’s Metropolis of Piraeus.
His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus is known as a staunch defender of Patristic Orthodoxy and while the majority of his brother bishops in the Greek Church have passively gone along with the Patriarchate of Constantinople’s ill-conceived territorial grab in Ukraine, he has spoken out several times against recognizing the OCU, emphasizing the need for a pan-Orthodox council to resolve the problems created by Constantinople.
According to the authors of the new statement, published on the Metropolis’ website, “Ukrainian autocephaly is aimed at promoting the ‘unification of Churches,’ of papism and Orthodoxy.”
“At the first stage, the goal is to ‘unite’ the schismatics of Epiphany with the Ukrainian Uniates, in order to create a single Local ‘Church,’ which will include the Uniates and those who follow Epiphany,” the statement reads.
Svyatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Uniates, has publicly spoken of the goal of uniting the two “churches” in communion with both Rome and Constantinople, and Epiphany Dumenko has repeatedly spoke about the need to draw ever nearer to the Uniates.
“At the next stage, most likely, they will seek to absorb all Orthodox Churches that follow the Ecumenical Patriarchate, with all Uniate local ‘churches’ that will be subject to the primacy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,” the statement continues.
And finally, “in the third and final stage, the ‘unification’ of world Orthodoxy with heretical papism will be carried out through all these unitized hybrid ‘churches’ created at that time.”
The Metropolis’ Office of Heresies and Cults is confident that “’Orthodox’ and papists will submit to the Pope through the Ecumenical Patriarch. First in line will be the pope and immediately after him—the Ecumenical Patriarch.”
The statement also predicts that “the unification of world Orthodoxy with heretical papism will be officially formalized at the jubilee ‘Ecumenical Council’ in 2025 in honor of the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council.”
The Metropolis recalls that “the schismatics of Epiphany are in very close relations and contacts with the Ukrainian Uniates,” and “Mr. Sergei Dumenko himself, as well as the ‘bishops’ around him not only develop relations of cooperation, but also pray together, as if they were the Uniate Orthodox ‘Church.’”
The statement also says that “The Phanar wants us as Orthodox to swallow communication with schismatics, so that we can swallow the lack of Apostolic Succession in their hierarchy. Gradually we will get used to our relations with the Uniates. And finally, we will take a step towards falling into the arms of the pope.”
In particular, the statement notes that Alexander Drabinko, one of two canonical hierarchs who abandoned the Orthodox Church to join the schismatics, recently prayed with Uniate heretics. “Hierarchs” and “clergy” of the OCU have openly concelebrated with Latin Catholics, Uniate Greek Catholics, Montenegrin schismatics, and Belarusian schismatics.
The statement also emphasizes that the OCU is heavily tied to the U.S. government and the radical nationalists at home in Ukraine.
https://orthochristian.com/128582.html
> ’Orthodox’ and papists will submit to the Pope through the Ecumenical Patriarch.
My response to that statement ends in “that noise”.
I expect Elpi will be on hand,
clutching a new-minted doctrine entitled:
Secundus Sine Paribus
…..”Orthodox and Catholic Churches”…..but, but, but, there is only One Church, The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. There are no other “churches”, just groups or denominations which consider themselves Christian.
And others that call themselves “Orthodox.”
That’s exactly what Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos said. But then, after all his big talk, he caved in on the Ukrainian Autocephaly deal. He rightly condemned Papists and Prods as being outside the church. But then he defers to a patriarch who believes them to be in the church.
As I recall it was Mike Pompeo or some other big shot from the State Department who visited Metropolitan Hierotheos and a day or so later he states that only Constantinople can grant autocephaly. Was he threatened? Who knows? But how is this any different than Metropolitan Sergius caving in to the Soviets? I strongly recommend that no serious minded Orthodox person buy any of Hierotheos’s books again.
He also plugged the experimental gene therapies, though I read that crucial information with regard to the role abortion played in product dev’t and/or production was withheld from him.
All we ever wanted to do was go to church and honor Our Lord. The mayhem going on takes away our peace and serenity – if we let it.
I was baptized and confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church. In my sixties, I was chrismated in the Greek Orthodox church.
I now enjoy reading Russian church sermons because they help me avoid scrambled American GOA/OCA/ Antioch cacophony. I choose peace.
As for the Catholic hierarchs – stay away.
Read: https://www.bishop-accountability.org/
I doubt any of this hodge podge will be settled during the little time I have left on earth. My home is my church now. And wherever I am, I know God is with me.
Here is a simple song that I would like to share:
https://youtu.be/BpzUyzVEFZc
Pope Francis has openly stated that Uniatism doesn’t work:
https://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=37161
So, yes, it would make sense for the Ukrainian Greek Catholics to stop commemorating Pope Francis.
There’s also a fundamental identity crisis here: Uniates want to be traditional Orthodox, but they’re not, and they don’t fit into the mold of Roman Catholicism either. So all the talk of Patriarch Bartholomew “someday uniting with Rome” sounds more like a pious ruse, perhaps with an intent of getting Pope Francis to help facilitate an eventual reversal of Uniatism. Patriarch Bartholomew actually uniting with Rome, of course, is not a necessary condition to do this.
The reversal of Uniatism by force of government decree doesn’t work either, as the Soviets and the Moscow Patriarchate colluded in their attempt to do this at the “Lvov Council” of 1946. When the Soviet regime eventually began to falter, the UGCC simply came back with a vengeance. Naturally it would seem that the only way forward to reverse the UGCC’s allegiance to the Pope is to have an autocephalous Ukrainian Church.
Yes, the Orthodox churches and Rome should unite, but it can only happen with a proper Ecumenical Council, and with the agreement of all the churches, and in a fully Orthodox manner. At present, there’s no way for that to happen anyways. Patriarch Bartholomew even refuses to call a council. He also surely knows that even if he were to commemorate Pope Francis tomorrow, then all the other Orthodox Churches would stop commemorating him, and not just Russia.
There is no Roman Church. The papists must recant their heresies and be united to the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. In this day and age, the language we use must be exact and precise. What is “the agreement of all the churches?” There is only one Church. The Fathers of The Ecumenical Councils were not after agreement; they wanted to express the will of God. And they did.
Katherine, yes I agree, papal heresies are certainly the chief obstacle to Rome uniting with Orthodoxy, but even still, there would likely have to be an Ecumenical Council to restore communion.
There are many expressions of the One Church, in many localities. St. Paul, for example, describes local churches even in the New Testament.
Overcoming divisions among these churches is undeniably the will of God, that they all be of one mind in Christ. The Ecumenical Councils have traditionally been the expression of this.
“Overcoming divisions among these churches is undeniably the will of God”
Where did you get this idea, Joseph?
Well, you know, there’s the admonition of St. Paul:
“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.” 1 Corinthians 1:10
Then there’s the very words of Jesus Christ:
“Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.” John 17:11
True. But would it be fair to say that The Ecumenical Councils constituted a winnowing? Those who held beliefs contrary to Orthodoxy were under anathema and, thus, cut off from The Church. This constitutes the overwhelming majority of those who call themselves Christian today.
The Church is not divided nor has It ever been. As I said above, it is crucial that we are precise in our language.
Yes, but the Ecumenical Councils, as they are received by the whole church, are primarily healing and work to overcome the divisions that the Church has encountered within.
The Church is surely not divided, but it is quite evident that there are divisions even today. We could probably make a long list of them. Jurisdictionalism in America being one of them.
Even of the churches in America of the Russian tradition, there are at least four jurisdictions: OCA, ROCOR, Moscow Patriarchate, and ACROD. These jurisdictions in America are not even in full communion with each other. We can see that the OCA is in full communion with ACROD, but the Moscow Patriarchate and ROCOR are not.
I don’t think that’s quite right. The OCA is in full communion with ROCOR.
The MP and ROCOR are in full communion. So, the OCA is in full communion with the MP. ACROD is under the Patriarch of Constantinople and they seem unconcerned with the Russian tradition Churches. If this wasn’t so grave it would be a fun game of guess who’s in communion with…fill in the blank. How about a round with the Ukrainians?
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA is even another jurisdiction of the Russian tradition in America.
The OCA is in full communion with all of these, yet neither the Moscow Patriarchate in America nor ROCOR are in communion with ACROD and the UOC-USA.
We can still say the Orthodox Church is not divided, but there’s certainly a division here. Perhaps an important role of the OCA right now is to keep things from getting too divided in America. The OCA continues to maintain warm relations with both Patriarch Kirill and Patriarch Bartholomew, and with exception to rejecting the recently created Slavic Vicariate, the OCA maintains warm relations with Archbishop Elpidophoros too.
With an extreme few individual exceptions, warm is not a word I would use to describe OCA relations with Elpidophoros. He is merely tolerated for the sake of maintaining communion with Greek clergy and faithful in this hemisphere.
Brian, I would heartily concur with your statement.
ACROD is the only one with whom some of the others have broken communion (MP and ROCOR). That is purely because they are under the Fanar. Everything Bartholomew touches turns to boo boo, just like Biden.
“…..there would likely have to be an Ecumenical Council to restore communion.”
This idea of a council to restore communion strikes me as wishful thinking rather than anything grounded in reality. A Council wasn’t used to break communion, don’t need one to restore communion either.
The only way for Orthodox and Catholics to unite any longer are for individual Roman Catholics to become Orthodox, or for Orthodox to become Roman Catholic, at the individual/family/parish level. That’s pretty much it, regardless of how distasteful one finds this reality.
The Roman Catholic episcopate is apparently so corrupted through-and-through, so replete with homosexual behavior as normal and acceptable, that any episcopate-level unity is ridiculous, except perhaps with those Orthodox jurisdictions that are also corrupted through and through with homosexual deviancy (don’t need to name them here again), or perhaps with those Orthodox jurisdictions that are bedazzled by the wealth and power that union with Rome would offer (who would want that? not me…).
Also, by and large, most Orthodox aren’t waiting with baited breath until Catholic/Orthodox unity is restored. Most of us go one with our lives, living our Orthodox Christian faith and prayerfully hoping for the return of Roman Catholics on an individual or parish basis as God wills it. Same as we prayerfully hope for the return of the Southern Baptists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, etc. It’s not much different anymore.
It’s the Roman Catholics who more clamor for unity with the Orthodox, from what I understand, simply because we offer a foundational gravitas, a depth of Christian faith and year-round liturgical life that has more and more become completely unknown in the Western Christian churches.
Orthodox Christianity best expresses who men and women are meant to be — who God created us to be. This Orthodox anthropology in its undiluted form is meant for the entire world, not to be unified with a corrupted Latin Church just so that some can feel better about themselves.
FTS, we claim to be the True Faith and the One Church, yet it’s evident there’s some serious divisions, and overlapping jurisdictions being just one obvious example.
With the present state of the Orthodox Church, I really don’t see Patriarch Bartholomew making good on his purported pledge to reunite Rome with Orthodoxy. It sounds to me like a pious ruse. Maybe his intended pledge only actually refers to the UGCC in Ukraine.
Reversing the Unia would be a noteworthy accomplishment though. Perhaps you’re right, that wouldn’t require an Ecumenical Council.
Perhaps, but as things stand today,
wouldn’t the Uniates just be swapping
one Pope for another – and an ersatz one at that?
Joseph,
We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I think that Patr B’s behavior over the past several years *only* makes sense when understood in the context that the desired end-state is union with Rome by 2025, as has been published previously.
His behavior with respect to his brother Orthodox hierarchs and his “first among equals” (ahem) status among Orthodox primates makes absolutely no sense otherwise, unless it’s predicated that union with Rome is the desired end-state. Once it’s understood that union with Rome is desired, then the behavior of the Patr of C’ple over the past years makes perfect sense.
Seems to me that’s where he and his jurisdiction are headed, and seems that they’re hoping to take along as many autocephalous Orthodox Churches that choose to follow them. Maybe they’re trying to capitalize on the “Greeks will often do what other Greeks do” phenomenon to get as many of the Greek churches as possible to go along with them? Count me out.
And God bless those Greeks who have the courage and personal/emotional fortitude to dissent and to “just say no.”
As long as the Greeks have bishops like Seraphim of Pireus, Neophytos of Morphou, Nektarios of Corfu, etc., not to mention countless priests and monastics, the Greeks still stand a chance.
During the false union of Florence, St. Mark of Ephesus was the lone voice, today the Greeks are fortunate to have many voices speaking out.
We should ask St. Mark of Ephesus and St. Spyridon to pray for the Greeks and to pray for a solution to the Ukrainian problem.
If the Ukrainian schismatics and Bartholomew decide to go headlong into perdition, then so be it, but Orthodoxy will still stand.
Very well said Petre !
Looks like Sanfilipo’s high hopes are thoroughly dashed, poor fellow.
https://orthodoxyindialogue.com/2022/11/04/patriarchal-vicar-for-antiochian-archdiocese-condemns-sexual-and-gender-diversity-womens-rights-feminism-etc-as-mental-illness-satanic-pagan/#more-22560
Let the kvetching begin! They wanted changed – they definitely got it. Patriarch John might have sent his most based old school Arab bishop.
My heart breaks for Mr SanFillipo
This is quite good. Surprising that OiD published it, even with the cursory condemnation. There is hope yet in the Syrian Church.
Based and blessed.
Listen to Bart, Come to Pope, or end up like Milosevic and Putin. GOA can only hope to be a gateway to western religions as we will not allow your islamosoviet cult to contaminate the holiness of America.
End up like Milosevic? Not so good.
End up like Putin? What’s the problem?
The 2025 date has long been touted as the unification date of new calendarist Christianity. A joint reading of the Creed in remembrance of Nicea during the anniversary of that council. It’s possible as Europeans have all bought into Europeanism and it’s values (whatever those are) and Latin clergy are always present at Orthodox liturgies throughout Turkey.