Fr. Seraphim Rose: The EP, and the Ecumenists do not, and cannot, speak for the Church!

"The deviations from Orthodoxy of the present Patriarch of Constantinople [Athenagoras] have reached a new peak in the recent "ecumenical" act of "mutual pardon" with the Pope of Rome (Dec. 7, 1965). It is more than time to bring up in the English language Orthodox press what has been long discussed in the Greek and Russian press. With the formal statement of Metropolitan Philaret, together with a similar one made by Archbishop Chrysostomos of Athens, the voices of protest have now been joined by official declarations, and these have found responsive ears among the other Eastern Patriarchs.

 

The Orthodox world is lining up into two camps; if the new "union" with Rome is accomplished, the unionists will find themselves in schism, cut off from the Orthodox Church. 

 

As regards the Patriarch of Constantinople, a few basic facts should be kept in mind. First, he does not and cannot speak for the whole of the Orthodox Church; the present campaign of the unionists to make him the official spokesman for all of Orthodoxy has absolutely no foundation in Orthodox tradition; he is one bishop among many, enjoying a primacy only of honor among his fellow patriarchs and bishops. 

 

Second, in the Orthodox Church no act or statement possesses validity merely because it comes from a bishop or patriarch; it can possess validity only if it is Orthodox. The actual statements and actions of Patriarch Athenagoras [the same may be said of the current Patriarch Bartholomew - editor] disqualify him to speak for any Orthodox Church, not even his own, since they represent, not Orthodoxy, but apostasy,— a departure from Orthodoxy which, if pursued further, will separate him entirely from the Church of Christ. 

 

The propagandists for "union" disdain such facts; for them, fidelity to Orthodox tradition is a small thing. Their campaign, rather, is waged on the most primitive level, that of pure publicity — empty words and gestures which, though condemned by a sound Orthodox consciousness, are capable of exerting an immense influence over those, even within the Church herself, who are ignorant of Orthodox tradition.

 

The act of "mutual pardon" was such an empty gesture. Possessing no canonical validity in itself, what it was in fact was merely a sign to the world that the "union" is close at hand, that the Patriarch of Constantinople is prepared to abandon the Church of Christ to join the universal pseudo-religious organization envisioned by the Vatican. 

 

Rather than anger, sorrow is perhaps the most appropriate response to such gestures - sorrow over the lack of love and understanding of their own tradition that such gestures reveal in the unionists. Anyone who actually believes that "nothing separates" Roman Catholicism from Orthodoxy, that they are but “two branches of the same Church,” understands nothing whatever of genuine Orthodoxy. 

 

The unionists, apparently, are already Latins at heart, and the final act of union will only confirm their estrangement from the Church of Christ. Let the unionists, then, the betrayers of Orthodoxy, become Catholics if they will; but let them cease from pretending to speak for the Orthodox Church, which most emphatically rejects them."

(Source: "The Orthodox Word" #7, Jan.-Feb.-Mar., 1966.)