Before talking about the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the ecumenical movement, some clarifications should be made. In the proper sense of the word, the ecumenical movement is understood as a movement of numerous, mainly Protestant, denominations that declare as their goal the achievement of the most complete unity between followers of various Christian denominations. The first conference of different Christian denominations was the World Missionary Conference in June 1910 in the city of Edinburgh, one of the commissions of which was called “Cooperation in the Field of Achieving Unity.” The conference took place without the participation of Orthodox representatives. Almost simultaneously, in October 1910, at the annual conference of the American Episcopal Church in Cincinnati (United States of America), a resolution was adopted to form a special commission to convene a world conference on issues of faith and church structure. Hence this date, October 19, 1910, can, with a certain degree of convention, be considered the beginning of the ecumenical movement in modern sense this word. This decision subsequently led to the creation of the so-called World Council of Churches.
The decision to create the World Council of Churches (now a widely used abbreviation for the WCC) was made in May 1938 at a consultative conference in Utrecht (the Netherlands). And the first assembly of the World Council of Churches, held in 1948 in Amsterdam, essentially completed the process of organizing the ecumenical movement. Thus, in relation to the history of the Russian Orthodox Church before 1917, it seems generally difficult to use the term “ecumenical movement.” In this sense, the title of such books as “Orthodoxy and Ecumenism”, involving material from the 18th–19th centuries, is not entirely historically correct. It is advisable to talk only about interfaith contacts of the Russian Church. During this period in the history of the Russian Church, from the point of view of the topic we are considering, we may be interested, firstly, in the statements of authoritative hierarchs, theologians, and devotees of piety of the Russian Church, many of whom are now canonized, on issues relating to the attitude of the Orthodox Church to heterodoxy and issues of church unity and church communication, as well as, naturally, the official judgments of the hierarchy, the Holy Synod on these problems. Secondly, we should also be interested in direct contacts of the Russian Church with the heterodox world, both on a personal level ( famous correspondence A.S. Khomyakov with Archdeacon of the Anglican Church William Palmer), and at the official level, contacts aimed at religious unity and the establishment of full church communion.
First of all, it should be noted that the judgments of Russian theologians on these issues are characterized by an extremely insignificant range of opinions. Almost all Russian theologians define heterodox (Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans and others) as heretics and directly call them by this word. This is true even for such diplomatic and cautious authors as, for example, St. Philaret of Moscow. It is not possible to form a complete picture of St. Philaret’s position on this issue, say, on the basis of the thoughts expressed in his early work, “Conversations between the testing and the confident,” since this book, written in 1815 under certain conditions and with certain goals, reflects the still emerging views of the great hierarch and saint of our Church. Subsequently, the saint spoke about the heterodox, including Catholics, much more sharply: “Tolerance does not mean the recognition of heresy, but only the absence of persecution, allowing those of other faiths to remain in their natural religion, to remain stuck in errors until the light of grace illuminates them. Whether he is a Quaker or a Jew, a Herrnhuter or a Muslim, a pagan or a pagan.” Which pair - a pagan or a pagan - are on the same level! (M.K.) (Collected opinions and reviews. T. 4. P. 557).
It is also interesting to consider how Russian theologians resolved the question of the validity of the sacraments performed in heterodox communities. There are 2 main approaches to this issue. Some authors completely exclude the possibility of performing sacraments in a non-Orthodox Church and, accordingly, consider all non-Orthodox sacraments, with the possible exception of baptism, as graceless. This opinion was shared by Saint Ignatius (Brianchaninov), A.S. Khomyakov, Archbishop Hilarion (Troitsky), Metropolitan Eleutherius (Epiphany), and Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky). A position close to this was taken by Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev), who, while recognizing the validity of such sacraments as anointing or priesthood, nevertheless refused to recognize their effectiveness, and therefore their salvific value.
The official position of the Russian Orthodox Church on this issue can be judged, for example, by the response message of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church dated February 25, 1903 to the District Letter of Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople, which states that the Russian Church recognizes the baptism of Western Christians and honors the apostolic succession of the Latin hierarchy. The majority of Russian theologians then adhered to this moderate position. The question of the attitude of the Russian Church to heterodoxy and the validity of the sacraments in communities separated from the Orthodox Church was developed in more detail in the works of His Holiness Patriarch Sergius (Stragorodsky). The essence of the views of Patriarch Sergius is briefly expressed in the words of this outstanding theologian of the Russian Church, who is not fully appreciated in everything: “Although indeed some sacraments are held by non-Orthodox people, although they have the right to the name of Christians with the ensuing consequences, although they remain within the boundaries of the church and even on the porch, yet they do not participate in the church Eucharist. There cannot be two Eucharists that do not communicate with each other, equally Christlike and equally true, just as there cannot be two Christs and two Churches.” Without pretending to make any generalizations, we can nevertheless note that as much as we have studied this topic, we have not been able to find any official documents Russian Church, nor the statements of our authoritative theologians XIX - early 20th century, in which it was asserted with any certainty that certain heterodox confessions possess the true Eucharist. Position on this issue His Holiness Patriarch Sergius and the Russian Church was considered generally accepted, at least until the 60s. Thus, back in 1959, professor of the Leningrad Theological Academy Nikolai Uspensky on the pages of the ZhMP (No. 7 for 1959) characterizes the works of Patriarch Sergius as the last word Russian theological science on the issue of the attitude of the Orthodox Church to heterodoxy. Thus, Russian theological thought at the beginning of the century did not make a fundamental distinction between modern Western Christians and heretics of antiquity.
Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) wrote in 1915 that “...The Orthodox Church does not believe in any qualitative difference between the so-called heterodox Christians of Europe in secular language and the ancient heretics, for when the former express their desire to join the Church, the Roman Catholics are accepted into communion in the same order as the Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites and the like, and Protestants, as even more distant from the Church than the named heretics, through confirmation.” The consequence of this view of the heterodox world was the unconditional recognition of only the Orthodox Church as the true Church. The response message of the Holy Synod dated February 25, 1903 states that the task of the Orthodox Church in relation to non-Orthodox people is to reveal to them Orthodox faith and the truth that only our Eastern Orthodox Church, which has preserved intact the entire deposit of Christ, is at present the Universal Church. Naturally, the restoration of church unity was conceived only as the reunification of non-Orthodox people with the entirety of the Orthodox Church. At the same time, the achievement of complete unity in matters of doctrine was considered as an indispensable condition for the foundation of such a reunification.
In the message of Metropolitan Isidore of St. Petersburg, which in 1870 was sent on behalf of the Holy Synod to the American Episcopal Church, it was noted that “before mutual communion in the sacraments, complete agreement in faith is necessary, since the former can only be based on the latter.” However, it should be noted that such a principled and consistent position of the Russian Church in matters of achieving inter-Christian unity was combined with tolerance, goodwill towards non-Orthodox people, openness to dialogue with them at all levels and with a sincere desire for unity. There has never been such a tendency, so characteristic of para-church journalism, to emphasize the shadow sides, to be satisfied with the state of division and one’s own correctness, while it can be assumed that numerous marriages of representatives of the Romanov dynasty with representatives of Protestant dynasties at one time had a softening influence on the position of the resolutions of the Holy Synod, and on the other hand On the other hand, the very possibility of these marriages was in the context of the theological approach to heterodoxy of the Russian Orthodox Church.
As for official inter-confessional contacts that were directly related to the issue of restoring communication with non-Orthodox people, during the period under review the Russian Orthodox Church did not have many of them. First of all, it should be noted the contacts with the Anglicans that took place as early as 1716–1720. Before that, one can only remember a peculiar dialogue between Tsar Ivan the Terrible and a Lutheran pastor. Tradition says that after a brief discussion about the comparative soteriological significance of faith and good works, the pastor had the imprudence to compare Luther with the Apostle Paul, after which the king stopped the discussion with completely non-theological arguments, hitting him with a whip, with the words: “Go (hereinafter not publicly quoted expression) with his Luther." At this point, communication with Lutherans ceased.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the question of reunification with the Russian Orthodox Church was addressed by a group of Anglican bishops, the so-called “non-sworn” bishops, who separated from the Anglican Church in 1690 after they refused to swear allegiance to King William III. Contacts with the Anglican Church intensified in the 60s of the 19th century due to the contact of both Churches on the northwest coast of America. The discussions about reunification continued until 1870, but did not lead to concrete results due to the fact that the parties viewed the essence of unification differently. The Anglicans previously sought practical unity based on communion in the sacraments, without attaching importance to dogmatic differences; the Orthodox did not allow unity without agreement in faith. Contacts with the Anglicans resumed at the end of the 19th century. Negotiations on the possibility of rapprochement took place in 1895–1897. At the beginning of the twentieth century, negotiations with the Episcopal Church in the USA were resumed with the participation of St. Tikhon, the future Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', then bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church North America. It should be said that Saint Tikhon personally treated representatives of the Episcopal Church very favorably. Two such very characteristic facts are known. This zealot of Orthodoxy and paternal traditions was once at the ordination of the Anglican Bishop Grafton in the city of Fond du Lac in the state of Milwaukee, was in a bishop's robe, stood in the apse of the altar of the Anglican church and prayed during this service (this photograph of St. Tikhon is very famous, it was published in the 1st volume of the “Orthodox Encyclopedia” in an article about the Anglican Church) and it is also known that when a terrible earthquake occurred in California, St. Tikhon sent one of the parishes with which he had previously had direct communication as a gift of the Eucharistic vessels, which clearly demonstrated his attitude to the then Episcopal Church in America. But let us emphasize that it was precisely in that time, and not in what it has become now, at the beginning of the 21st century, having introduced not only the female episcopate, but also having recently ordained an open “bishop” -pervert, after whom our Church was forced to withdraw from all dialogues with the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.
In 1894–1914, the Russian Orthodox Church also conducted a theological dialogue with Old Catholics, which was carried out within the framework of the so-called St. Petersburg-Rotterdam Commission. However, these attempts were not crowned with success. The ultimate goal - the restoration of church unity - was not achieved. Speaking about interfaith contacts, which are directly related to the restoration of church communion, we have to admit that in the Russian Orthodox Church before 1917 they were mainly of a random nature. On the other hand, their very initiative more often came from the heterodox side. It is historically impossible to talk about the participation of the Russian Church during this period in some movement aimed at achieving inter-Christian unity. In addition, it should be recognized that at this time the Russian Church did not have any developed concept of such participation. However, the need for such a concept was undoubtedly felt at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was reflected in the decisions of the Local Council of 1917–1918, within the framework of which the Unity Department operated Christian Churches. On last meeting The Council of November 7–20, 1918, decided to continue the dialogue on unity with the Anglicans and Old Catholics, based on the doctrine and traditions of the ancient undivided Church. The council's resolution prescribed the creation of a permanent commission with branches in Russia and abroad to study disagreements on the path to unification with the Anglicans and Old Catholics. The commission was tasked with ensuring the speedy achievement of the set goal for church unity. However, it is clear that subsequent events in the post-revolutionary years certainly prevented these decisions from being implemented.
In the period 1917–1945, international contacts of the Russian Orthodox Church were reduced to a minimum. Russian church emigration did not have a unanimous opinion on the issue of participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the ecumenical movement. The Synod of the Russian Church Abroad has taken an irreconcilable position on the issue of attitude towards ecumenism in all its forms. At the same time, part of the Russian Church in Western Europe, which was under the omophorion of Metropolitan Eulogius (Georgievsky), quite actively participated in the ecumenical movement. However, this part, firstly, was completely isolated from the Russian Church in the USSR, and secondly, it was too small in number to be able to adequately express the position of the entire Russian Church. In addition, since 1930, this part was actually in schism and, therefore, did not have the right to speak at ecumenical events on behalf of the Russian Church, which was rightly pointed out at the meeting of heads and representatives of the Autocephalous Local Churches in Moscow in 1948. Direct interaction of the Russian Orthodox Church with the ecumenical movement in the proper sense of the word begins as the Moscow Patriarchate resumes international contacts after the end of the Great Patriotic War. Patriotic War. In the person of the ecumenical movement, especially which was rapidly gaining strength in the WCC, our Church was faced with a qualitatively completely new phenomenon, which had no analogues in the history of interconfessional contacts of the Russian Church before 1917, which presented a number of challenges to the Russian Church. serious problems both theological and practical. The ecumenical movement of the mid-twentieth century differed from the practice of inter-Christian contacts of the early twentieth century both in form and in spirit, and in goals, and in the means of achieving these goals.
Interfaith contacts of the 19th and early 20th centuries were bilateral dialogues. The parties participating in them were completely free and independent of each other. In the mid-twentieth century, ecumenism was a worldwide movement with a specific structure, the core of which was already the World Council of Churches. Integration into this movement automatically made this or that Church part of a huge whole and inevitably imposed on it certain obligations, the acceptance of which could be in conflict with its tradition. Thus, for the Russian Church, the question of the permissibility of Orthodox Christians to participate in joint ecumenical prayers with non-Orthodox Christians became especially acute at that time, since by this time these prayers had become an integral part of ecumenical events. The structural design of the ecumenical movement forced us to approach the question of joining it with the utmost caution, because it was already obvious that joining it would be much easier than leaving back. The very spirit of this movement could not help but confuse the Orthodox. When they talk about the entry of the Russian Orthodox Church into the ecumenical movement, they point to the experience of the participation of the Russian Church in inter-Christian contacts at the beginning of the twentieth century, in particular to the activities of St. Tikhon that we mentioned, as a historical precedent, but they lose sight of the fact that these were not exactly the same heterodox ones. The Anglicans and Old Catholics with whom the Russian Church negotiated at the beginning of the century were then the heterodox closest to us, who were also sincerely interested in Orthodoxy and were thinking about reunification with it. For example, the head of the Episcopal Church in America, Bishop Grafton, in his article “The Union of the Eastern and Anglican Churches,” called on all Anglican bishops to accept the Orthodox faith in its entirety. Well, why not communicate with such a person? Is it even possible to imagine that any of the modern Protestant representatives, the leaders of the World Council of Churches, would make such an appeal? In the middle of the century, the tone in the ecumenical movement was set by the Protestant majority, which was internally alien to Orthodoxy, and did not show serious interest in it.
The only goal of the dialogues of the Russian Church with non-Orthodox people in the 19th and early 20th centuries was the restoration of full church communion, the achievement of which was thought possible only on the basis of complete unity in faith. In the ecumenical movement of the mid-century, achieving unity in faith was only one of the goals of the movement, and not always the dominant one. As we have already seen, Russian theological thought at the beginning of the century understood the restoration of church unity only as the reunification of non-Orthodox people with the entirety of the Orthodox Church. Naturally, such an approach was completely alien to the Protestant majority in the ecumenical movement of the mid-century, which in the question of church unity was inspired by the ideas of interconfessionalism or the so-called branch theory, therefore it was very difficult for the Orthodox to accept the very term “ecumenical”, at least in that sense , which is invested in it by ecumenists.
The definition of “ecumenical” was given at the Second World Conference of the Life and Order movement in June 1937 in Oxford. I quote this definition: “The term “ecumenical” refers to the expression in history of the unity of the Church. The consciousness and actions of the Church are ecumenical, since they are aimed at realizing the one holy Church, the brotherhood of Christians recognizing one Lord.” It’s as if this Church is not on earth! The meaning of this term was explained in a similar way by the then Secretary General WCC Dr. Visser't Hooft: “The following reasons seem to explain the widespread acceptance of this term. It could determine the nature of the modern movement of cooperation and unity, which seeks to reveal (!) the basic unity and universality of the Church of Christ.” Again, the classic Protestant idea is to reveal unity, as if it were not manifested in the historically existing on earth Universal Church Christ's. Thus, undoubted for everyone Orthodox fact the real existence of the one holy catholic apostolic Church, the faith in which we profess in the ninth article of the Creed, in this case is posited as a goal that must still be identified and realized.
Due to the above circumstances, the Russian Orthodox Church could not help but raise the question of how possible and justified Orthodox witness is in such conditions. Can it give positive results, and will it not harm the Russian Church itself? The extent to which these fears were justified is evidenced by the recognition of Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann, who had extensive personal experience in the ecumenical movement, rather supported it, but nevertheless, towards the end of his life, made the following statement: “ Feature The participation of the Orthodox in the ecumenical movement lies in the fact that the Orthodox were left no choice, in that from the very beginning they were assigned a very specific place, role and function within the ecumenical movement. This appointment was based on Western theological and ecclesiological premises and categories and betrayed the purely Western origin of the ecumenical idea itself” (published in the article “Ecumenical Pain” in the collection “Church, World, Mission” M, 1996, p. 235). And two more small quotes from the same Schmemann: “Anyone who has seriously studied the ecumenical movement could be convinced that Orthodox testimony (expressed mostly, if not exclusively in the form of individual statements of Orthodox delegations attached to the minutes of the main ecumenical conferences) has never provided any noticeable influence on the orientation and theological development of the movement as such” (pp. 237-238). “The questions that the West proposed to the Orthodox were formulated (to quote another statement by Schmemann) in Western terms and reflected the specific Western experience and path of development. The answers of the Orthodox were built on Western models, adjusted to categories that were understandable to the West, but hardly adequate to Orthodoxy” (p. 247). This largely determined the internal characteristics of the ecumenical movement. The internal adequacy to Orthodoxy of the answers that were forced to be given in these ecumenical dialogues is questionable.
(End to follow)
Letter from the dean of the Eastern Canadian Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Archpriest Vladimir Malchenko, about the meeting of the Patriarch with the Pope and about ecumenism.
The unexpected meeting of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill with the Pope at the airport in Cuba on February 12, 2016, on the day when our Church celebrates the Council of the Three Hierarchs, caused and still causes great confusion and pain in the hearts of the majority of the clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. This picture of the meeting of the Patriarch with the Pope made us remember those photographs and video broadcasts of the meetings of the Patriarchs of Constantinople with the Popes, first on January 5-6, 1964 in Jerusalem, then twice in 1967, and also in November 1979 in Rome, where both sat in vestments before the throne of the Cathedral of the Apostle Peter; in 1987, 1995, 2002, 2004, 2005 in Rome; in 2006 in Constantinople, October 21, 2007 in Naples, in 2008 in the Vatican, in 2011 in Italy, in 2012 and 2013. in Rome and in May 2014 in Jerusalem. I remember how these meetings greatly upset us in the Church Abroad, because at these meetings all sorts of documents and statements unacceptable for our Orthodox Church were signed, leading to a rapprochement between the Orthodox Church and Catholics. In these photographs we saw how the Pope and Orthodox Patriarch stood together in vestments, performed joint services, and all this was unacceptable and, frankly speaking, disgusting for us. Therefore, seeing such a picture in the news on February 12, 2016, this time with our patriarch and new pope, caused us great pain.
Our late Canadian bishop, Archbishop Vitaly (Ustinov), later the 4th Metropolitan of the Russian Church Abroad, in the 60s ominously warned the entire flock about the great threat of ecumenism and called it “the heresy of heresies.” The result of such meetings between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope of Rome was a great schism in the Greek Church, when many Greek Old Calendarists began to open their parishes under the omophorion of the Russian Church Abroad. There were two such Greek Old Calendar parishes in Toronto, and while visiting these churches we saw many photographs of similar meetings on their notice boards. Every parishioner of the Church Abroad knew the word “ecumenism” and what it means. That's how we were raised.
Back in the 60s of the twentieth century, the Synod of the Church Abroad vigilantly followed the rapidly developing ecumenism. In 1967, Bishop Vitaly (Ustinov) wrote a report to the Council of Bishops, in which he described the entire history of ecumenism from the very beginning of its existence. The report of Archbishop Vitaly has now been forgotten by many, but right now it needs to be disseminated everywhere in order to understand where ecumenism is leading and how ecumenists achieve their goal. As Bishop Vitaly correctly taught: “When St. When the fathers teach us their teachings, they do it out of the fullness of their lives, imbued with prayer. All their sayings were obtained by them, so to speak, in prayer and contemplation, and not from the intellectual syllogisms of the analytical mind. In the purely speculative study of dogma, practiced in all our seminaries and academies, hides a subtle pride intertwined with a thin trickle of blasphemy.”
Metropolitan Vitaly wrote little in his life, but he was spiritually strong through his prayer, asceticism and loyalty to the holy Russian Orthodox Church. To this day we remember his fiery sermons and what he called us to.
The third First Hierarch of the Church Abroad, Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky), understood his responsibility for preserving the Church Abroad and the entire Church as a whole from the anti-Orthodox actions of the Ecumenical Patriarch. Metropolitan Philaret is the author of three mournful letters to the Most Holy and Beatitudes of the Heads of the Orthodox Churches in 1969, 1972 and 1975, in which he exposes in detail the treacherous path of many Orthodox hierarchs and clergy.
In his first mournful letter, the Metropolitan taught: “If temptation appears only in one of the Orthodox Churches, then correction can be found in the same area. But when some evil penetrates almost all our Churches, then it becomes a matter that concerns every bishop. Can any of us remain inactive if he sees how at the same time many of his brethren are following the path that leads them and their flock into a disastrous abyss through the loss of Orthodoxy unnoticed by them?
In his second mournful letter, Metropolitan Philaret wrote: “The Roman Catholic Church, with which Patriarch Athenagoras wants to have liturgical communion and with which, through Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad and others, the Moscow Patriarchate entered into communion, is no longer even the same with which the St. rejected the union. Mark of Ephesus and after him the entire Orthodox Church. It is even further from Orthodoxy than it was in those days, since it has introduced even new dogmas and is now more and more assimilating the principles of the Reformation, ecumenism and modernism. A number of definitions of the Orthodox Church recognized the Latins as heretics. If at times they were accepted into communion according to the same rite as the Arians, then for a number of centuries and even to this day the Greek Churches accepted them through baptism. If in the first centuries after 1054 the Latins were received differently in both the Greek and Russian Churches, sometimes through baptism, sometimes through confirmation, then this is because everyone considered them as heretics, but did not have a generally established practice of accepting them into the Orthodox Church . So, for example, at the very beginning of the 14th century, the Serbian prince, the father of Stefan Nemanja, was forced to baptize his son with Latin baptism, but then baptized him in the Orthodox way when he returned to Rasa. Prof. E. Golubinsky, in his major work “History of the Russian Church,” sketching the attitude of Russians to Latinism, cites many facts indicating that when in different ways reception of Latins into the Orthodox Church in different time, i.e. when performing either baptism or confirmation, both the Greek and Russian Churches proceeded from the recognition of them as heretics. Therefore, the statement that during these centuries “unity in the communion of the sacraments and in particular the Eucharist has undoubtedly been preserved” between the Orthodox Church and Rome is completely untrue. The division between us and Rome was and exists, and, moreover, it is real, and not illusory.”
In the same second mournful message, Metropolitan Philaret reports what was a revelation for me: “Ahead of even Patriarch Athenagoras, the representative of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Nikodim, on December 14, 1970, communed Catholic clergy in Rome itself, in the Cathedral of St. Petra. There, while he celebrated the liturgy, the choir of students of the Pontifical College sang, and the Roman Catholic clergy received communion from the hands of Metropolitan Nicodemus. But behind such practical implementation of the so-called. ecumenism also sees broader goals aimed at the complete abolition of the Orthodox Church.”
In these three mournful letters of Metropolitan Philaret, the third First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, one can find detailed and Full description the entire history of ecumenism, how it developed in the Orthodox Church and in the Russian Church, in particular, and this valuable information will make everyone understand what is happening now in our Church.
The meeting of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill with the Pope of Rome caused great indignation in me and many of our parishioners, and the first questions addressed to me were: “How, without the knowledge of his 300 bishops, did His Holiness make such a meeting with the head of the Roman Church? How, without the knowledge of their own bishops His Holiness Patriarch Did Kirill sign some document that was drawn up by the Vatican and one bishop? If the document was drawn up and signed in this way, is the signature of His Holiness the Patriarch on behalf of the entirety of the Russian Church valid? To my great joy and consolation, I felt in my parish almost complete solidarity with my thoughts. This means that we still think and live in the Orthodox way. To my great joy and consolation, I read and listen on the Internet to many truly Orthodox people in Russia, Ukraine, Greece, Moldova, Bulgaria and Mount Athos, who have asked similar questions to the ones I asked myself, and are each acting in their own way to illuminate and explain these issues for ourselves personally and for all our believing people. I am very grateful to Father Deacon Vladimir Vasilik, a cleric from St. Petersburg, for his detailed interpretation document that was signed in Cuba, calling this document purely ecumenical, in which every theological point is ambiguous. For me, an archpriest of the Church Abroad with a simple seminary education at our Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, it was important to get the correct answer from a theologian, historian and philologist in the person of Father Vladimir Vasilik to the question: “What to do?” In this situation, we must fervently pray for His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, remain in the Russian Orthodox Church, but at the same time decisively and clearly inform our hierarchy that we do not agree with these texts.
His Holiness the Patriarch often says in his speeches that the people of God also have a voice in resolving church issues, and let this short letter be my humble voice of the people of God. Wonderful article about. We immediately printed Vladimir Vasilik in Russian and English languages for all our parishioners and distributed them in their parish. We are also pleased that theological conferences were held in both Moscow and St. Petersburg on the topics of the meeting in Cuba and the Pan-Orthodox Council, which is planned for Trinity, and that the people in Russia are worried and concerned about the fate of the Church.
It was sad to listen to the speeches of prominent clergy in the capital, who expressed their complete delight at the meeting in Cuba and said that no one in their parishes was concerned about this meeting. I personally heard how a famous Moscow cleric invited his Catholic friend to speak in front of the parish after the service in the pulpit, so that the parishioners could see a good Catholic man. If I did something like this in Toronto, my parishioners would kick me out for being so tempting. This delight of the capital's clergy is probably explained by the fact that they have a completely different perception of ecumenism than in the Church Abroad. We do not accept it at all and will not accept it, whereas in Russia, in the Russian Church, since 1961, ecumenism has developed and is developing at great speed. Unfortunately, in the Russian Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, ecumenical thinking and education have long been part of the church body. So what should we do? We are one Church and have a completely different perception of the topic and activities of ecumenism. Lord, give us patience, love and faith to survive all this!
I highly recommend finding on the Internet the report of Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov) “Ecumenism. Report to the Council of Bishops of the ROCOR”, as well as “Sorrowful Messages” by Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky). Everyone needs to read these reports, then you will understand us, your brothers and sisters abroad.
Mitred Archpriest Vladimir Malchenko,
Rector of Holy Trinity Cathedral in Toronto,
Dean of the Eastern District of the Canadian Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
Source: http://www.blagogon.ru/news/429/print
Elder Paisius the Svyatogorets of blessed memory said: “The devil cast nets to catch all of humanity in them. He wants to capture the rich with Freemasonry, the poor with communism, and the believers with ecumenism." "Ecumenism, a common market, one big state, one religion, tailored to their standards - these are the plans of these devils."So what is ecumenism?
The modern Serbian saint, the great theologian Reverend Justin (Popovich) wrote: “Ecumenism is the general name for all types of pseudo-Christianity and all pseudo-churches of Western Europe. It contains the essence of all types of humanism with papism at its head. And all this has a common gospel name: all heresy.”
The words of the ever-memorable elder, Archimandrite Charalampios (Vasilopoulos) echo the opinion of Saint Justin: “Ecumenism is a terrible scourge. He sets as his task the destruction of the One Holy One and Apostolic Church Christ's. It's a furious whirlwind forces of evil directed against Orthodoxy." The outstanding theologian, elder of blessed memory, Archimandrite Athanasius (Mytileneos) called ecumenism the last forerunner of the Antichrist. A professor of theology, a tireless fighter for the preservation of the Orthodox Tradition, Father Theodore (Zisis), characterized the ecumenical heresy this way: “Ecumenism is not only an external threat (and this makes such an ideology especially dangerous) ... The worst thing is that it operates inside the Church. Many shepherds, whose duty is to protect their flock from plunder by wolves (heretics), are inactive because they consider Catholicism and Protestantism not heretical formations, but “brotherly churches of grace”...
According to the ever-memorable professor, a leading specialist in the field of canon law, Konstantinos Mouratidis: “Ecumenism (religious syncretism) is not just a heresy, but a super-heresy. Indeed, in essence, such an ideology leads to the denial of the right of Christianity to be the only bearer of absolute truth, reducing it to the level of one of many religious systems claiming to be true.
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Just as globalists want to unite the world and create a world state with a common economy, currency and a single electronic government, ecumenists strive to unite all religions and heresies into a global religion, ignoring the colossal dogmatic contradictions between them.
Ecumenism is the largest ecclesiological heresy of all time, because it involves the equalization of all religions and faiths.
It should be especially emphasized that the source and progenitor of ecumenistic ideology is Freemasonry, which through it propagates the global religion of Eosphorism (in turn, Freemasonry gave birth to international Zionism).
There is a developed plan for the unification of all religions (intercommunio), which is planned to be implemented in three stages.
- Uniting all Christian denominations
- Uniting all religions
- The formation of a single world religion led by the Pope, who will transfer power over the world to the Antichrist.
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Inter-Christian ecumenism involves the unification of various Christian “confessions” (Papists, Protestants, Anglicans, Pentecostals, Monophysites) with the Orthodox Church on the basis of dogmatic minimalism. Ecumenists (who are dogmatic syncretists) argue that the differences between Christians are unprincipled, the only difference between them is supposedly only in the formal traditions and customs of individual “churches”. According to them, all differences and originality must be sacrificed for the sake of the desire for “unity of the Church,” which can be expressed in many ways and in various forms.
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To achieve its goals, ecumenism forces the fundamental principles of Orthodoxy to be revised or forgotten.
He promotes the idea of "Divided Churches", according to which the Christian Church is one and includes Christians of every denomination from the moment they are baptized. Thus, all “Christian denominations” are “sister churches”. It's about on the theory of baptismal theology.
The theory of the “Worldwide Visible Church” is built on the same principles. The Church, which supposedly currently exists “invisibly” and consists of all Christians, will appear in its visible dimension through common efforts aimed at unifying it. Such views are a product of the Protestant “branch theory,” according to which the Church is a “tree” with “branches” from all “Christian denominations,” each of which contains only part of the truth. This also includes the theory of “two lungs,” which was developed among Orthodox ecumenists and papists. According to it, Orthodoxy and papism are the two lungs with the help of which the Church breathes. Therefore, in order for her to start breathing correctly, it is necessary to synchronize the breathing of the two lungs.
The fundamental principle of ecumenistic ideology is the permissibility of joint prayers between Orthodox Christians and heretics (only joint worship is prohibited). The goal of Ecumenism is not to empty churches. Quite the contrary - ecumenists want churches to be overcrowded with people, but only for these “believers” to profess the distorted creed of ecumenism.
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As for dogmatic maximalism, then it should be understood as the desire of some to add new words and terms to dogmas in order to supposedly better explain the faith or strive for a new, broader interpretation.
An undoubted product of ecumenism is the blossoming Lately post-patristic (neopatristic) heresy .
Such an ideology proposes to overcome the Patristic Tradition and consign to oblivion the heritage of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, replacing them with modern “new fathers” neopatrists - ecumenists.
The goal of the struggle with the Holy Fathers is quite obvious: neopatrists seek to pave the way for pseudo “union” with heretics and heterodox, erasing the line established by the Church Fathers between truth and error, Orthodoxy and heresy.
To be continued.
Translation by Tasos Mikhailidis.
Ecumenism and its place in modern world. What does the word ecumenism mean? Who are ecumenists? You will learn about this from our article.
Ecumenism
The topic of our conversation today is ecumenism and its place in the modern world. What does the word “ecumenism” mean?
– The concept of “ecumenism” comes from the Greek word “oecumene”, which means “inhabited universe”. After its emergence, Christianity, thanks to its extraordinary spiritual beauty and truth, and most importantly - the help of God, managed to defeat paganism and conquer the greatest Roman Empire. This Empire can probably be compared with the modern USA - just as huge and overwhelming. The preaching of the apostles turned out to be stronger than pagan culture, ideology, and religion. Soon after its emergence, Christianity became in the full sense of the word “ecumenical,” that is, a worldwide, universal religion, far beyond the borders of the Empire. Today Christianity is spread throughout the globe, but, unfortunately, it is far from the only religion in the world.
But we know about ecumenism in its other meaning: as a liberal dialogue of religions, as a relative recognition of the truth of other spiritual paths and beliefs besides Christian. The Church encountered such ecumenism already in the first days of its existence. In fact, the entire religious life of the Roman Empire was ecumenical.
Yes, indeed, the ancient Christians, the first martyrs, were offered ecumenism precisely in our current, modern meaning. In the torture chambers, they were most often required not to renounce Christ, but to admit that all religions are more or less equal. Indeed, in the mind of a Roman citizen, the Empire stands above any private interests; it unites not only peoples and their cultures, but also the faiths of all its peoples. And Christianity was invited to enter alongside - and on equal conditions- with pagan religions. For Christians, this was completely excluded, because, as he says Holy Bible, “all the gods are the tongue of demons” (Psalm 95: 5), that is, all the gods of the pagan peoples are demons. The Empire's ideas about the Divine were distorted, and they are distorted in our time to such an extent that they lead their adherents to very serious spiritual consequences. In many religions now, as in ancient times, bloody and even human sacrifices are performed. In many religions even now such things are done. terrible victims. Everyone remembers the recent martyrdom of three monks of Optina Hermitage: they were precisely sacrificed. The number six hundred and sixty-six was stamped on the blade that struck them. This is not at all accidental... And although they are trying to convince us that the killer was a loner, this is simply not serious.
– When Christians say that they can oppose all this pressure and intensity of evil with their teaching - as the absolute Truth, which is Christ - they are accused of being undemocratic, illiberal, and out of date. They are accused of having too narrow a view of the world, persisting in their “cave” savagery, and generally being hopelessly behind the times. And it is precisely this “narrow” truth that ecumenism contrasts with... How, after all, can we characterize ecumenism in its modern meaning?
– Firstly, about “undemocraticism”. The word “democracy” (from the Greek “demos” - people and “krateo” - I hold in my power, govern) means the power of the people. In ancient times, a democratic form of government was not conceivable without genuine, ardent patriotism; defense of the Motherland was considered a glorious and honorable deed. Nowadays, the word “democracy” is most often used in the opposite sense. For today's Russian democrats, being a patriot is retrograde. However, in its true meaning, the word “democracy” cannot be used in relation to a society that opposes patriotism. Therefore, the society in which we live should be called pseudo-democratic, like many modern pseudo-democracies in Europe and the world. “Who here is so vile that he does not want to love his fatherland? If there is such a person, let him say - I insulted him. I’m waiting for an answer,” - this is how Shakespeare, through the mouth of one of his heroes, denounced those who put material gain and their own selfish interests above such ideals as love and loyalty to the Motherland. Now about ecumenism itself. He is very far from the ideals that Christianity preaches. Modern civilization - and ecumenism is one of its characteristic manifestations - has declared the convenience of life to be an absolute value. I would say that modern society deeply religious. It worships a god whose name is “comfort.” For the sake of this comfort, today you can commit crimes, make deals with your conscience, you can fence yourself off from real life with a wall of indifference - just to be comfortable. All moral boundaries are erased, culture is degraded, because real culture is not only the desire for beauty, not only certain ideals, but also a very strict set of prohibitions. Culture has always included certain “taboos”: it’s impossible because it’s impossible!
Such prohibitions are developed on the basis of the historical experience of hundreds of generations and achievements the best people. Many of the ancient heroes and Christian ascetics did not cross these moral prohibitions even at the cost own life: Let them kill me, execute me, but I still won’t do what is being imposed on me. A modern civilization, including ecumenism, blurs all prohibitions. If it is convenient and habitual for some savages to commit them pagan rituals with human sacrifices, then our pseudo-democratic civilization simply turns a blind eye to this cruelty. Ecumenism proceeds from the premise that all faiths have equal rights. I, they say, am a free person, and a resident of the country where such cults are practiced is also a free person. I have the right to believe one way, and he has the right to believe differently. My faith is no better than his faith. What right do I have to impose my faith on him, because this is undemocratic... But then the same can be said about the criminal: what right do I have to impose my style of behavior on him - if he wants to kill, then let him kill. After all, he is a free man of a free country... And they are trying to involve Orthodox Christians in such a movement, which consciously seeks to blur all moral boundaries. Our faith includes a lot of firm Divine prohibitions. “Thou shalt not kill”, “thou shalt not commit adultery”... But the “modern” view of these moral prohibitions is different, and most often the opposite...
“However, not only moral boundaries are blurred, but also the boundaries of religious belief. The boundaries of teaching about WHO we believe are blurring...
– Yes, modern democracy is transferred to the celestial sphere. What is this god worse than that god? Why is Perun better or worse than Thor? Or why is Christ better than Buddha? They are all, as it were, equal. And here Christianity very firmly, despite ridicule and accusations of retrogradeness, backwardness, narrow-mindedness and lack of democracy, stands on the confession of its fundamental exclusivity. Because there is a Revelation, preserved by the Orthodox Church, that the living God really came to Earth and became a man in order to save humanity, to heal human nature stricken by sin, in order to show the world a model of perfection, a model of spiritual beauty, holiness. This pattern is infinitely perfect because God Himself is infinite. And it is to this infinite ideal that every person is called. He must strive for this incomprehensible Divine beauty, and this is precisely what Christianity reveals. The Orthodox Church cannot refuse this highest calling: otherwise it will inevitably renounce God and itself.
– Here another question arises: who do representatives of other religions revere? It is often said that God lives in the heart, that in different religions God appears in different images and forms, but that He is nevertheless the same for all beliefs. In this regard, how can the Orthodox Church respond, for example, to such statements that Buddha is just another image of the Holy Trinity or that Jesus Christ is the same as Krishna...
When it is stated that God appears in different forms, in different incarnations in all religions, Hindu philosophy is accepted. Here, it is not the Christian doctrine that is adopted, but the pagan religion, which is terrible in its spiritual essence. If we affirm that God is One, then we confess the truth on which Christianity stands: we believe in One God. But if we say: God is one in all religions, then this second part of the phrase will overturn the first. Because what kind of unity can we, Orthodox Christians, have with those religions in which, for example, ritual fornication is committed - in the so-called phallic cults? What about ritual murders? Or when, in order to get into an excited spiritual state, drugs, psychotropic, albeit natural, substances are used? When does a person entering such a frenzied state begin to broadcast something, and those present at the same time think that they are hearing the revelation of some deity? Which one? Probably the one about whom the Bible says (I will repeat this again): “God is the tongue of demons.” Once in the mid-nineties, I saw on the street several preachers with a speaker - who, dancing and clapping their hands in time to modern rhythmic music, chanted: “Where the Spirit of God is, there is freedom.” These words belong to the Apostle Paul (2 Corinthians 3:17) and reflect the spiritual reality: where the Spirit of God is, there is freedom. People gathered around, watched, and someone also started dancing and clapping. And I stopped and thought: that’s how it is, but is the Spirit of God present here? Obviously not.
hieromeEcumenism(from the Greek οἰκουμένη, inhabited world) is a widespread concept in the modern world that has three meanings:
1. Communication of Orthodox Christians with representatives of Christian and non-Christian communities. Such ecumenism is a dialogue between the Orthodox Church and other religious communities, aimed at coordinating peacemaking actions in the non-Christian world. This dialogue does not imply the creation of some kind of unified organization or the adjustment of dogmas.
2. A liberal movement with a tendency to unite various denominational movements within the framework of one church. This form of ecumenism is denied by Orthodoxy, since the artificial creation of a “new church” will be a denial of an already existing one, preserving apostolic succession and intact dogmatic teaching, and will lead to the derogation of Christian spirituality, for it will proceed from the neglect of the grace-filled gifts of the Church and all the treasures of patristic wisdom. (cm.: ).
3. The doctrine of the possible unification of all religions in some new one (). This understanding of ecumenism is characteristic, for example, of the neo-pagan New Age movement. It is emphatically anti-Christian. Like other false teachings, it is categorically denied by the Orthodox Church.
Not unity, but truth, according to the experience and conviction of Orthodoxy, should become main goal ecumenical movement; unity is, according to this experience, nothing other than the natural consequence of truth, its fruit and blessing.
If the Lord said that where two or three are gathered in His name, there He is in the midst of them, then doesn’t it follow that for the salvation of a person there is no fundamental difference in what particular Christian denomination he belongs to, and in general, whether he is a member of any Church?
Speaking about presence among those gathered in His name, the Savior did not expand the meaning of His words to such an understanding, according to which any social group, which declared the purpose of its unity to be the confession of the name of Christ, automatically becomes a place of God’s special presence, His Holy Church, a partaker of God’s blessings.
The problem is that not every confession of Christ (teaching about Christ) is pleasing to God, just as not every religious activity carried out under the guise of true Christianity.
History teaches that even the most malicious heretics often united around the name of Christ, such as the Ebionites, Docetes, Arians, Monophysites, and Monothelites. Despite the fact that they all declared themselves to be true Christian believers, representatives of each such community did this in a break with the Apostolic Tradition, each in their own way (see:).
We must not forget that it was under the slogan of serving Christ that such outrages as persecution, torture, reprisals, trials were committed).
Teaching about the Church as a godly assembly of believers, the Lord did not mean any religious communities in general, but the one and only True One. It is this Church that Holy Scripture speaks of as the pillar and affirmation of the truth (), as one that must exist until the end of time and which the gates of hell will not overcome (). This is the Orthodox Church.
The idea that any Christian community, including the Orthodox Church, contains only part of the truth, and the fullness of the truth can only be seen in the totality of all these communities, serves as one of the main arguments motivating those supporters of ecumenism, whose task is the formation of a New Church in the basis of cooperation between currently disparate “Christian” communities.
But such an idea not only does not find justification in, but directly contradicts it. After all, if we imagine that today the Orthodox Church only partly possesses the truth of its doctrine, and partly its teaching does not correspond, then now it is not the pillar and foundation of the truth, which means that hell has still overcome it.