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Freemasonry Compared to Christianity and the

Famous Freemasons in Greece
1. FREEMASONRY COMPARED TO ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY

 [By Hieromonk Ambrose - A letter from the celt-archive, egroups,1999]  

Introduction

A little about Masonry and why it is incompatible with being a Christian. Each section starts with quotes from
Masonic authorities, and is concluded by quotes from Christian Scripture. When you put them side by side
like this, the two are clearly seen as incompatible.

Jesus Christ

Masonry: "In his private petitions a man may petition God or Jehovah, Allah or Buddha, Mohammed or
Jesus; he may call upon the God of Israel or the First Great Cause. In the Masonic Lodge he hears petition
to the Great Architect of the Universe, finding his own deity under that name. A hundred paths may wind
upward around a mountain; at the top they meet." (Carl H. Claudy, "Introduction to Freemasonry." p. 38)

Christianity: Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the Life: no man cometh to the Father, but
by me. (Jn.14:6) Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name {but Jesus} under
heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. (Acts 4:12)

God

Masonry: "...Since every man's conception of God must be proportioned to his mental cultivation, and
intellectual powers, and moral excellence. God is, as man conceives Him, the reflected image of man
himself. (Albert Pike, "Morals and Dogma," 14th Degree, p. 234) "The only personal God Freemasonry
accepts is humanity in toto...Humanity therefore is the only personal God that there is." (J.D. Buck, "Mystic
Masonry," p. 216) "The Absolute is Reason. Reason IS, by means of itself. It IS because IT IS...If God IS,
HE IS by Reason." (Albert Pike, "Morals and Dogma," 28th Degree. p. 737)

Christianity: In the Beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Gen. 1:1) For there are three that
bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word {Jesus}, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. (I Jn.
5:7) God said undo Moses, I AM THAT I AM... (Ex. 3:14)

The Holy Bible

Masonry: "...the literal meaning (of the Bible) is for the vulgar only." (Albert Pike, "Digest of Morals and
Dogma," p. 166) "Masonry makes no profession of Christianity...but looks forward to the time when the labor
of our ancient brethren shall be symbolized by the erection of a spiritual temple...in which there shall be but
one alter and one worship; one common altar of Masonry on which the Veda, Shastra, Sade, Zend-Avesta,
Koran and Holy Bible shall lie...and at whose shrine the Hindoo, the Persian, the Assyrian, the Chaldean,
the Egyptian, the Chinese, the Mohammedan, the Jew and the Christian may kneel..." ("The Kentucky
Monitor." Fellowcraft Degree, p. 95) The removal of the name of Jesus and references to Him in Bible
verses used in the ritual are "slight but necessary modifications." (Albert Mackey, "Masonic Ritualist." p. 272)
Christianity: The Words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven
times. (Psa. 12:6) All Scripture is given by inspiration of God... (II Tim. 3:16) ...if they speak not according to
this Word, it is because there is no light in them. (Isa. 8:20)

Redemption

Masonry: "These three degrees (1st, 2nd, 3rd) thus form a perfect an harmonious whole, nor can it be
conceived that anything can be suggested more, which the soul of man requires." (Daniel Sickles, "Ahimon
Rezon or Freemason's Guide." p. 196) "If we with suitable true devotion maintain our Masonic profession,
our faith will become a beam of light an bring us to those blessed mansions where we shall be eternally
happy with God, the Great Architect of the Universe." (Daniel Sickles, "Ahimon Rezon or Freemason's
Guide." p. 79) "...salvation by faith and the vicarious atonement were not taught as now interpreted, by
Jesus, nor are these doctrines taught in the esoteric scriptures. They are later and ignorant perversions of
the original doctrines." (J.D. Buck, "Mystic Masonry." p. 57)

Christianity: As it is written. There is none righteous no not one: (Rom. 3:10) For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. (Rom. 3:23) For He hath made Him {Jesus} to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that
we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. (II Cor. 5:21) For by grace are ye saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Eph. 2:8-9)

Satan 

Masonry: "The conviction of all men that God is good led to a belief in a devil..." (Albert Pike, "Morals and
Dogma." 19th Degree, p. 324) "...there is no rebellious demon of Evil, or Principle of Darkness coexistent
and in eternal controversy with God, or the Principle of Light..." (Albert Pike, "Morals and Dogma," 32nd
Degree, p.859)

Christianity: Ye are of your father, the devil...he is a liar, and the father of it. (Jn. 8:44) Resist the devil, and
he will flee from you. (Jas. 4:7) Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the
wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers, against the rulers of the
darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Eph. 6:11-12) ...your adversary the devil,
as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. (I Pet. 5:8)

Truthfulness

Masonry: The Mason Doctrine teaches that it right to lie, if necessary to protect the secrets of the Lodge, or
to protect brother Masons by concealing his wrongdoing. It can even be right to deliberately deceive sincere
Masons seeking to learn the lessons and secrets of Masonry. "The Blue Degrees are but the portico (porch)
of the Temple. Part of the symbols are displayed there to the initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false
interpretations. It is not intended that he shall understand them; but it is intended that he shall imagine that
he understands them...their true ecplication (explanation / understanding) is reserved for the Adepts, the
Princes of Masonry." (Albert Pike, "Morals and Dogma," 30th Degree, p. 189) "You must conceal all crimes
of your brother Masons...and should you be summoned as a witness against a brother Mason be always
sure to shield him...It may be perjury to do this, it is true, but you're keeping your obligations." (Ronayne,
"Handbook of Masonry." p. 183) "Furthermore do I promise and swear that a Master Mason's secrets, given
to me in charge as such, and I knowing them to be such, shall remain as secure and inviolable in my breast
as in his own, when communicated to me, murder and treason excepted; and they left to my own election."
(Master Mason's / 3rd Degree Oath of Obligation)

Christianity: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. (Ex. 20:16) Ye shall not steal, neither
deal falsely, neither lie one to another. (Lev. 19:11) ...lie not to one another. (Col. 3:9) ...all liars, shall have
their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone; which is the second death. (Rev 21:8)

Secrecy and Blood Oaths

Masonry: Secrecy is indispensable in a Mason of whatever degree." (Albert Pike, "Morals and Dogma," 4th
Degree, p. 109) I...do hereon most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear that I will always hail, ever
conceal and never reveal any of the arts, parts or points of the secret arts any mysteries of ancient
Freemasonry which I have received, am about to receive, or may hereafter be instructed in..." (Oath of
Obligation, Entered Apprentice/1st Degree, and include in all subsequent degrees, always on penalty of
mayhem and violent death) "...binding myself under no less a penalty that that of having my body severed in
twain, my bowels taken out and burned to ashes, the ashes scattered to the four winds of heaven..." (from
the Oath of Obligation, Master Mason/Third Degree) "...In willful violation whereof may I incur the fearful
penalty of having my eyeballs pierced to the center with a three-edged blade, my feet flayed and I be forced
to walk the hot sands upon sterile shores of the Red Sea until the flaming Sun shall strike me with a livid
plague, and may Allah, the god of Arab, Moslem and Mohammedan, the god of our fathers, support me to
the entire fulfillment of the same." (from the Oath of Obligation, Ancient Arabic Order of Nobles of the Mystic
Shrine ["Shriners"])

Christianity: I {Jesus} spake openly to the world; I ever taught in the synagogue, and in the temple...and in
secret have I said nothing. (Jn. 18:20) Provide things honest in the sight of all men. (Rom. 12:17) Thou shalt
not kill (murder). (Ex. 20:13) But above all things, my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the
earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation.
(Jas. 5:12)

2. In Reproof of the Audacity of the Freemasons in Greece

 [From The Rudder, Orthodox Christian Education Society, Chicago, p. 285-86]  

The doctrines of Freemasonry are contrary and opposed to the doctrines of Christianity, and especially to
the fundamental dogma of the faith, which consists in the belief that Jesus Christ is a Son of God and a son
of man. The Freemasons think that by means of their Lodges they themselves can effectuate the social and
political doctrine of the Gospel, as respecting a common brotherhood in Christ, on the strength of their
usurpation of the dogma of equality of all men before the laws, denying the source from which this was
taken and the power by which it shall be realized, and denying the Godhead of Jesus Christ, and taking the
latter to be a certain wise man similar to Pythagoras and Plato and Socrates. Thus they present themselves
upon the scene as reformers of society, without any belief in Christ, deists, and repudiators of the Christian
doctrine and of the Christian dogma.

Christianity teaches that the fraternization of mankind can be attained only though Christ, that the equality of
all men before the laws, without any national or racial discrimination, is a principle which can be put into
actual practice only through Christ. Both these principles are Evangelical, Christian. Before the advent of
Christianity there prevailed national and racial hatreds and passions, divisions due to false religions, and
wars waged in the name of racial claims, and these things formed the status quo, or established order, of
ancient society. But when the Sun of truth diffused His brilliant beams of light, the overlying darkness was
dispelled, the personal freedom of each person was recognized, the God of truth was revealed, and the law,
the canon of freedom, became manifest, while, on the other hand, the responsibility and common obligation
of all men before the law was expressed in no uncertain terms, and the human race was invited to a new life
of brotherhood and of mutual love, after the likeness of Christ's love, who so loved man that He died upon
the cross because of love of him. The Christian status quo, i.e., the order of things established by
Christianity, is founded upon truth, love, and justice. Any action, therefore, that is opposed to the principles
of Christianity is in reality a defense of the ancient status quo of lawlessness--it is a return to the times of
ignorance and of the practice of injustice. The Freemasons are blindly doing this. They are conspiring
against the fundamental dogma of Christianity, being in reality followers of [Gnosticism,] Arianism and
deism, which denies the Godhood of Christ and usurps the social truths of the Gospel.

Those who wish to be Christians, faithful to the Gospel truths, faithful to the dogmas of the Christian truth,
distinguish Freemasonry from Christianity and denounce its hypocritical and baleful nature. Freemasonry
and Christianity are two opposite and contrary systems, of which each annuls the other. Christ-slaying
Judaism and antichristian paganism combined to form the society of Freemasonry, with a view to hindering
the course of Christianity, which course they could not have hindered otherwise, and to overthrowing its
basis. Because of the fact that they fear the light, they are doing their antichristian work secretly, thinking
that in the course of time they shall be able to proselytize all men to their own dogmas, and, when sufficient
in number, to come out into the open and fight Christianity. They believe this because they suppose
Christianity to be a human, and not a divine, institution. But as for a society that is working in secret and not
proclaiming its own principles openly, manifestly one that is evil, one that is concocting evils, one that is
aiming at the overthrow of what has been well established, the organization of such a society is prohibited
by the established laws of the city state! Christianity, because of its being truth and light, comes in the light
and is not afraid of the light.

"Handle me, and see that I am truth come out of God," (Luke 24:39). Truly indeed by means of all the
methods of truth when the Christian truth is investigated, it is proved that it is an enlightening light that
dispels the darkness of moral night. The cosmological, anthropological, and theological sciences,
philosophy, and history all confirm the fact that Christianity is a doctrine derived from God, that it is not
derived from the earth, is not derived from men, is not derived from the elements of matter; and that it is not
a doctrine of a finite mind, or of a finite spirit, but that, on the contrary, it is a doctrine of God become
incarnate in man and ridding him of ignorance, error, the fetters of sin, and with the further object of
elevating him to knowledge of the truth, and of strengthening him for the practice of perfect virtue.

3. Greek "Orthodox" Hierarchs and Rulers Who Were Members of the Masonic
Lodges

The Grand Lodge of Greece, on its website (http://www.grandlodge.gr/famous.html), lists many of the
famous Greek Freemasons, including several Greek kings, princes, bishops and even patriarchs. Among
them are the following:

Royals

Andrew, prince of Greece

Christopher, Prince of Greece
George II, King of Greece [adopted the new calendar as the political calendar of Greece]

Politicians

John Kapodistrias (Komis), first ruler of Greece

John Metaxas (Prime Minister) [persecuted the Old Calendarists of Greece]

Patriarchs

Joachim III, Ecumenical Patriarch [unsuccessfully attempted to introduce the new

calendar]
Photius (George Peroglou), Patriarch of Alexandria
Meletius (Manuel Metaxakis), Ecumenical Patriarch, later Patriarch of Alexandria
[convened the False Council of Constantinople in 1923 at which the new calendar and
other innovations were proposed, and introduced the new calendar into the Patriarchate of
Alexandria]
Basil III, Ecumenical Patriarch [an open preacher of the Origenist heresy]
Benedict (Basil Papadopoulos), Patriarch of Jerusalem [an open ecumenist during the
1970s]

Bishops
Cherubim (Anninos), Metropolitan of Paronaxia (Paros and Naxos)
Chrysanthus (Charilaus Philippides), Metropolitan of Trebizond, later Archbishop of
Athens [persecuted Greek Old Calendarists and Anti-Ecumenists]

The Frankish Papacy's

Involvement in Judeo-Masonry
 [Excerpts from "The Two Babylons," Bible Believer's Newsletter, #167, Sydney, 2002.]  

The Pope's Attitude towards Judaism

Journalist Robert K. Dahl says that Pope John Paul II's acquiescence to Judaism "has the appearance of
treason, regardless of intent" (The Remnant, [St. Paul, MN], April 15, 1998). Indeed, in 1999, when John
Paul II made the unprecedented decree that "the seeds infected with anti-Judaism" must "never again take
root. . . " he was forbidding opposition to the religion of the Pharisees and proscribing the basis of the
mission of Jesus Christ (Statement of Pope John Paul II in his "General Audience" at Rome, April 28, 1999,
as reported in the official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, May 5, 1999).

Since adherents of the religion of Judaism do not have faith in either Jesus or the Old Testament Law and
prophets, but in the Talmudic and Kabbalistic traditions, exactly what faith is it that John Paul II shares with
these "elder brothers" of his?

When this pope claimed that opposition to the religion of Judaism was opposition to the Old Testament, that
the religion of Judaism is "a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant" and that the "Eucharistic
prayers" of Christian worship are "according to the models of Jewish tradition," he was either babbling
dementia or falling far short of the truth ("Jews and Christians Share Much Together," L'Osservatore
Romano, English ed., May 5, 1999).

When, on Good Friday, 1998, the Pope turned the Christian Gospel upside down and proclaimed that "Jews
have been crucified by us for so long," it was one of the most atrocious examples of modern Catholicism's
slavishly Judaic orientation.

John Paul II is pretending that Judaism is the Old Testament faith minus Christ. But even if that false
proposition were true, the Pharisaic leadership would still be guilty of deicide, as Thomas Aquinas held:

"The rulers of the Jews knew that He was the Messiah: and if there was any ignorance in them it was
affected ignorance, which could not excuse them. Therefore their sin was the most grievous, both on
account of the kind of sin as well as from the malice of their will" (Summa Theologica, Q. 47, Art. 6 Pt. III).

Moreover, the Bible itself declares unambiguously the guilt of the Jewish leadership and the fact that those
who adhere to the dogma of these assassins are under wrath:

"For ye brethren became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also
have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: who both killed the Lord
Jesus and their own prophets and have persecuted us; and they please not God and are contrary to all
men: forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the
wrath is come upon them to the uttermost" (I Thessalonians 2:14-16).

No pope, preacher, president, prime minister, or professor has one scintilla of authority or competence to
overthrow the preceding Words. The whole world may be arrayed against the Word of God but its force and
validity endures.
The recent movement within the Church to declare opposition to Judaism an accursed form of "anti-semitic
racism" is, in its inspiration and praxis, thoroughly Talmudic, for it either extinguishes the New Testament's
teachings or distorts them to such a degree that they are effectively made "of none effect."

This movement must also ignore or negate 2,000 years of historic Christian exposition of these teachings.

The extra-Biblical and anti-Christian nature of this fifth column within the Church is patent. It derives its
credibility almost entirely from the blind allegiance it commands from Christians duped by usurpers and
traitors occupying high ecclesiastical office, and by the tremendous glamour which the media accord it.

Since the great criterion of Jesus Christ for assessing the diabolic or the divine was "by their fruits ye shall
know them," we discern that the fruits of today's Protestant and Catholic leaders are mostly rotten in this
regard. As such, their actions reveal that they are neither "vicars of Christ," nor His ministers or saints. They
are in fact agents of Judaism in all but name.

Therefore, the various anathemas these impostors and apostates thunder against Christians, whose only
crime is to believe as all the apostles, martyrs and saints of the Church always did, has about the same
moral authority as a pronouncement from the Secretary General of the U.N. or the Master of the Masonic
Lodge. (Given that the occupation of even the highest of church offices is no longer a guarantor of fidelity to
Jesus Christ, the question of who holds true Christian authority is one of the thorniest questions facing
Christians today).

The hidden hand of Talmud and Kabbalah is revealed wherever the Jewish people are made the objects of
veneration and sanctity. Jewish supremacy was opposed from the earliest days of the Church. John
Chrysostom wrote: "Jesus said to them, 'If you are children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham, but as it
is, you are seeking to kill Me.' Here He repeatedly returned to their murderous design and reminded them of
Abraham. He did this because He wanted to detach them from their racial pride and to deflate their
excessive conceit, and to persuade them to no longer place their hope of salvation in Abraham or nobility of
race, for this was the thing that prevented them from coming to Christ; namely that they taught that the fact
of their descent from Abraham sufficed for their salvation" (The Fathers of the Church: St. John Chrysostom
New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1960, p. 70).

By his radical departure from Biblical teaching and Christian practice, John Paul II and hundreds of
thousands of Catholic and Protestant leaders who share his "elder brothers in the faith" falsehood, reveals
himself as an accomplice of Antichrist, by Scriptural definition: "Such a man is the anti-Christ who denies the
Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father" (I John 2:23).

Christ testified that "no man cometh unto the Father except by Me." Yet men have grown "dull of hearing"
(Hebrews 5:11) and to the great drama of Christian salvation prefer instead a bland accommodation with the
spirit of the modern age, which holds that a civilization based on the Father can be created by those who
have made a religion out of denouncing and rejecting His Son.

This delusion, which would be laughable were its consequences not so tragic, has led to the rise of legions
of "Judeo-Christians," who equate Judaism's strange gods with authentic Old Testament Israel and who go
so far as to claim that it is necessary for Christians to embrace Judaism in order to be justified before God.

They look to a religion based on a Pharisaic sect comprised of the irreconcilable enemies of Christ for clues
on how to become a better follower of Christ!

Worse, they intimate that Jesus is a liar. Jesus directly condemns the "tradition of the elders" and its
"commandments of men," which are the oral basis of the idolized books, Talmud and Kabbalah. (Matthew
15:1-9, Mark 7:1-13).

The brazen betrayal and hypocrisy of Judeo-Christians in the face of clear Gospel teaching on this subject,
bids battle and defiance unto Heaven itself.

The glorified modern popes, preachers, politicians and rabbis often succeed for a time in deceiving the
multitude, and in gathering a large and noisy following in this world, but their deeds also follow them and
proclaim their evil, long after the paeans of media praise have wafted away on the sands of time. God is not
mocked (Michael Hoffman II Judaism's Strange Gods, p. 112- 116).

Catholicism and Islam a Step Closer Together

On February 27, 1994 a bomb was placed in the Maronite Catholic, Notre-Dame de La Delivrance Church,
in Junieh, Lebanon, killing ten Catholics and wounding 60 others. The Vatican is aware of the fact that
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and Interior Minister Michel Samaha indicated the massacre was
engineered by Israeli intelligence. Cf. NY Post, February 28, 1994.

Given the vast repository of documents, manuscripts, learned treatises and privileged correspondence
pertaining to Judaism dating almost to the foundation of Christendom which are on deposit in the Vatican
archives, John Paul II cannot be speaking from ignorance when he claims, as he did in the synagogue of
Rome, April 13, 1986 that "Jews are our elder brothers in the faith" (L'Osservatore Rornano, English ed.,
April 21, 1986, p. 6).

According to ex-Jesuit, the late Alberto Rivera, it was the Jesuits who planned the attempted assassination
of Pope John Paul II, calculating that through this incident Islam would pull closer to the Vatican through the
humiliation of knowing that one of their own shot the one representing the prophet Jesus on this earth. In
fact the Ayatollahs sent condolences and apologies to the pope. And last of all, the blame could be put on
the KGB, making the world believe that the Communists are the pope's enemies when in fact Pope John
Paul II has been a good Communist for many years. And the would-be assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, is one of
Europe's top hit men, and an expert marksman. He fired his weapon at a distance of only ten feet. Each
bullet hit the pope below the navel. He had no intention of killing the pope. He was simply following the
instructions of the Jesuits. It was well planned. Both the pope and the Muslim world thanked the virgin Mary
that he did not die. The upshot was when the world saw the pope forgive Mehmet Ali Agca for shooting him,
almost one billion Muslims had nothing but admiration for 'His Holiness'" (Alberto Rivera, The Prophet, Chick
Publications. p.30-31).

The Judeo-Masonry of the "Society of Jesus"

Those who believe in Darwin's evolutionary theory might be excused for believing history "just happens by
accident", and not by plan, but as Franklin D. Roosevelt revealed, "If something happens in politics you can
bet it was planned that way."

On July 23, 1773, Pope Clement XIV issued the Bull 'Dominus ac Redemptor', abolishing the Jesuit Order,
stating: "The suppression is accomplished, I do not repent of it, having only resolved on it after examining
and weighing everything, and because I thought it necessary for the church. If it were not done, I would do it
now. But this suppression will be my death" (John Dowling, History of Romanism, p.604).

On September 23, 1774 the pope died by poisoning (Eric Jon Phelps, The Black Pope, p. 363), and his Bull
was of no effect in England, Prussia or Russia which had their own State churches and granted protection to
"the Pope's Militia", in hopes of a political advantage over Rome. However their subjects would rue this
bargain with the Devil for the Jesuits infiltrated Protestant and Orthodox churches of the host countries,
laying the groundwork for future strategies of domination or destruction in their pursuit of absolute power.

The Jesuits warred against the Vatican through the forty-one years of their suppression. They exposed the
outrages of the Dominicans' Holy Office of the Inquisition and enfranchised Rome's enemy, the 'Jew', further
humbling the anti-Jewish Roman Catholic sovereigns (into whose royal houses the Khazar had by now
married), and establishing an alliance with the House of Rothschild, set out to extract vengeance from the
papacy and Europe's Roman Catholic monarchs.

In 1770 Rothschild retained Adam Weishaupt to organize a system to execute the age-old Protocols of Zion.
The completed scheme was the Illuminati, unfolded on May 1, 1776. The Protestant princes and rulers in
Germany were well-disposed to Weishaupt's official plan to destroy the Catholic church and sought
membership in his order. Through these men Weishaupt gained control over the Masonic orders, into which
he and his other Jewish cronies were initiated in 1777. In order to prevent the rulers from understanding the
true aims of the Illuminati, he forestalled their contact with the higher degrees.
Following the Wilhelmsbad Convention of 1782 (which voted the death of Louis XVI and the French
Revolution), Rothschild's Illuminati took control of all Masonry for the Asiatic financiers. They had already
worked their way into Catholicism by infiltrating their agents into Jesuitism before their suppression which
seemed to have been the signal for the unleashing of operations with such force that the momentum has
carried through to the present day.

After their expulsion from Spain in 1767, the Jesuits found refuge in Corsica where they raised up their great
avenger, Napoleon Bonaparte. His advisor, Jesuit Abbe Sieyes, had him imprison Pope Pius VII five years
until he restored their Order by the Bull 'Solicitudo omnium Ecclesiarum' on August 7, 1814. They took his
headship and humbled him: Napoleon's soldiers upturned St. Peter's chair beneath which is carved, "There
is no other God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet", manifesting Rome's folly to all men since
Mohammed was born five-hundred years after Peter's death. And 'Peter's chair' had been stolen from a
caliph during the Crusades. (Ridpath's History Of The World). The war was terminated by the Congress of
Vienna and by the secret Treaty of Verona in 1822 (Emanuel M. Josephson, The "Federal" Reserve
Conspiracy & Rockefellers. p. 4-5).

Numerous parallels exist between the self-styled 'Jews' and the so-called 'Society of Jesus'. The former are
generally non-Semitic and persecute the kindred of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, and all Semitic peoples
generally, whilst the latter are Antichrist and persecute the Savior and His saints.

As the self-styled 'Jews' have been driven from the kingdoms of Europe at some time because of their
unconscionable behavior, between 1555 and 1931 the evil 'Society of Jesus' was expelled from at least 83
countries, city states and cities.

These groups both turned exile to advantage, employing their religion as a mask to pursue absolute political
power without principle. Their ends justify their means as evidenced by the Protocols of the Learned Elders
of Zion which guide the self-styled 'Jews', the Permanent Instructions, or Practical Code of Rules; Guide for
the Heads of the Highest Grades of Masonry (Gargano, Irish and English Freemasons and their Foreign
Brothers, 1878, p. 62; Lady Queenborough, Occult Theocrasy, p. 427-435), and the Secreta Monita of the
Society of Jesus. Their aims are mutually anti-Christian. The self-styled 'Jews' and the Jesuits own multiple
citizenship and live as parasitical states within a state, overseen by an elite whose objective is world
hegemony. And Freemasonry was designed by the same hidden hand.

"The Jesuits were driven to co-operate with the other two international brotherhoods, the Freemasons and
the Jews, in the destruction of the Spanish Empire" (Salvador de Madrariaga, The Jesuits, 1820). Jesuit co-
operation with the Rothschilds was also evident in the assassination of President Lincoln.

If the conclusions of Eric Jon Phelps' research expressed in his manuscript "Vatican Assassins" are correct,
the 'Society of Jesus' is certainly Luciferian, if not 'Jewish' AT THE TOP. Here is what he says: "These forty-
one years were absolutely golden for the Company of Jesuits. They punished all their enemies including the
Dominican priests, perfected the inner workings between themselves and Freemasonry, created an alliance
between the House of Rothschild in establishing the Illuminati, punished and then absorbed the Knights of
Malta . . . They used the Orthodox Catherine of Russia and the Lutheran Frederick of Prussia to conquer
and divide Poland, rendering the Pope's Bull of Suppression of no effect in that Roman Catholic land. They
caused the French Revolution, beheading a Bourbon King and a Hapsburg Queen as punishment for their
expulsion from France and Austria. With Napoleon the Freemason they drove the Bourbons from their
throne in Spain and the Braganzas from their throne in Portugal and even attempted to take Palestine from
the Moslems like the Crusaders of old."

"The Company's most important victories were both religious and political. They deeply penetrated the
Russian Orthodox Church and Germany's Lutheran Church, its Tubingen University in particular. Politically,
they took control of the Crown and Bank of England. For this reason England would never go to war with
France again, it would conduct the Pope's Opium Wars against the people of China (just like the Company,
with its CIA and Mafia Commission, is presently conducting a massive Drug Trade against the "heretic and
liberal" people of the American Empire) governed by the Order's enemy -- the Manchu Dynasty -- and would
refuse to help the Italian patriots in their warring with the armies of the Pope during the Italian Revolution of
1848. The Jesuits also captured the Papacy with the Vatican, along with its landed Church properties the
world over, and for this reason the Pope would never suppress the Society of Jesus, ever again!" (Eric Jon
Phelps, Vatican Assassins, p. 307).
Masonic Globalization and the New World Order

"It has been an established fact for years that the political Zionists plan to make Jerusalem the
administrative capital of a One World Government. This lofty (but purely carnal) ambition was laid out in
unmistakable terms by David Ben Gurion, Israel's Prime Minister, in a piece written for Look Magazine in
1962, predicted what would happen on the world scene over the next quarter of a century. His words are
reproduced in their entirety from the original:

"The image of the world in 1987 as traced in my imagination: The Cold War will be a thing of the past.
Internal pressure of the constantly growing intelligentsia in Russia for more freedom and the pressure of the
masses for raising their living standards may lead to a gradual democratization of the Soviet Union. On the
other hand, the increasing influence of the workers and farmers, and the rising political importance of men of
science, may transform the United States into a welfare state with a planned economy. Western and Eastern
Europe will become a federation of autonomous states having a Socialist and democratic regime. With the
exception of the USSR as a federated Eurasian state, all other continents will become united in world
alliance, at whose disposal will be an international police force. All armies will be abolished, and there will be
no more wars. In Jerusalem, the United Nations (a truly United Nations) will build a Shrine of the Prophets to
serve the federated union of all continents; this will be the seat of the Supreme Court of Mankind, to settle all
controversies among the federated continents, as prophesied by Isaiah. Higher education will be the right of
every person in the world. A pill to prevent pregnancy will slow down the explosive natural increase in China
and India. And by 1987, the average life-span of man will reach 100 years" (Look Magazine, January 16,
1962, p. 20).

"Please notice carefully that the Israeli prime minister foresaw the time when America would become a
"welfare state with a planned economy." Unlike the American peasants, he obviously understood what the
backstage manipulators had in mind for our once great Republic!"

"The American slaves would then be merged into a "world alliance [under] an international police force...
Jerusalem will be the seat of the Supreme Court of Mankind, to settle all controversies among the federated
continents."

The first part of Ben Gurion's prediction has reached fruition. Can an attempt to fulfill the second part be far
behind?"

"In the light of Ben-Gurion's statement quoted above, one cannot but be struck by the words of Pope John
Paul II in a 1994 Parade Magazine interview with Tad Szulc. The Roman Pontiff declared that his "greatest
dream" was to go to Jerusalem on a religious pilgrimage as soon as possible; such a visit would have a
"crucial spiritual and peacemaking" meaning for him."

"We trust," said the Pope, "that with the approach of the year 2000, Jerusalem will become the city of peace
for the entire world and that all people will be able to meet there, in particular the believers in the religions
that find their birthright in the faith of Abraham." The leader of the world's one billion plus Catholics declared
that Jews are "our dearly beloved brothers and, in a certain way, it could be said that [they] are our elder
brothers."

"Rome's Chief Rabbi Toaff declared that he was "surprised and delighted" by the Pope's "very courageous
act." "You know," said the Rabbi, "the distance from the Vatican to this synagogue is very short -- only a few
kilometers -- but it took 2000 years to cover it. And John Paul II did it" (Parade Magazine, April 3, 1994)."

"Does this unprecedented move by the Roman Pontiff signal a soon-coming Judeo-Catholic power play to
seize the leadership initiative in the development of a One World Religion in the New World Order? Such a
move is certainly well within the realm of possibility."

"Attempts to establish such a world alliance, with headquarters in Jerusalem, would almost certainly trigger
the third world war prophesied by top Illuminist Albert Pike in his 1871 letter to Mazzini."
"Pike said that this third world war would erupt in the Middle East as a result of animosity between the Arabs
and the Israelis, and that it would culminate in the establishment of a world dictatorship" (Des Griffin,
Descent into Slavery, p. 210-211).

Now we can see why the United States and the (once) Christian West tolerate and participate in the
injustices perpetrated against the nations Rome and the City of London choose to weaken or destroy.
Brother Branham taught from the Books of Daniel and the Revelation how Rome would establish a covenant
with the 'Jews'. And whilst their seven-year agreement of Daniel 9:27 is yet future, these ancient foes are
clearly co-operating openly as never before because, like Communism, they are part of the Luciferian
program to divide and conquer.

Satan's house is not divided. But the Catholic, Protestant, Jew or Communist, because he lacks the Holy
Spirit of God in a new birth, is a pawn in his game and under one or other faction of the Luciferian elite. The
Judaeo-Masonic-controlled Vatican and the International Banking tribe of the self-styled 'Jews' have been
working towards a common Luciferian agenda with Lucifer's church.

Both Peter and Judas In One: The Pope Denies Christ and Betrays Christianity

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Protocol 17 states, "The king of the Jews will be the real pope of the
universe, the patriarch of the international church", and by siding with the heirs of the Pharisees, John Paul
II proves himself to be an agent of the Pharisees, making the modern Roman Catholic church a covert
branch of Judaism.

On Sunday, March 26 , 2000 the Pope prayed at the "Western" or "Wailing Wall" in Jerusalem, making
remarks betraying Christianity -- begging the forgiveness of the heirs of Caiaphas.

Here is the prayer the Pope placed within the wall: "God of our fathers, you chose Abraham and his
descendants to bring your name to the nations," said the note in English, which was later moved to the
Israeli Yad Vashem Holocaust museum to be preserved. "We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those
who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer. And asking your forgiveness, we
wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the covenant. Jerusalem, 26.3.2000.
Joannes Paulus II."

Not one word about Jesus Christ, His Crucifixion or Resurrection, just a nonsensical supposition that the
Khazar Zionists from [lower Mongolia, and more recently,] eastern Europe, who have scourged the Middle
East with blood and fire, and who have as their supreme holy book not the Bible but the Talmud, are
somehow "the children of Abraham and the people of the covenant"! It is a strange Covenant that includes
neither Christ nor the Bible. The Pope is idolizing a nation of people, putting them on a pedestal for worship,
exactly as the Talmud does. What a sad, sick joke on Christianity. John Paul II has betrayed the Gospel not
for 30 pieces of silver but for media approval, for fame, and to fulfill an agenda whereby Rome will rule the
world.

Protesting Catholics see in the pronouncements and symbolic actions of the popes since John XXIII and
particularly in the pontificate of John Paul II, a radical departure from nearly 2,000 years of Christian
teaching and practice.

In March, 2000, John Paul II turned his coat in verbo and facto, making obeisance in Jerusalem to the
religious heirs of the Pharisees who ordered Jesus' execution. The Pope apologized to them for "displays of
anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time in any place" (Jewish Chronicle, March
31, 2000).

This apology would seem to encompass the deeds of thousands of saints and luminaries of the church from
John Chrysostom onward to most of the literary canon of the West, including Dante's Paradisio, which hails
the Roman destruction of the Temple as "living justice," and Chaucer's The Prioress' Tale.

The disapprobatory shadow presumably also falls on Rome's own canonized Pope Pius X who, when asked
in 1904 to recognize Palestine as the rightful Jewish homeland, told Zionist Theodore Herzl, "As the head of
the Church, I cannot answer you otherwise: the Jews have not recognized the Lord; therefore we cannot
recognize the Jewish people" (Sergio I. Minerbi, The Vatican and Zionism, p. 100). Also implicitly consigned
to the hall of shame by John Paul II is Benedict XIV, who warned that Jewish officials in Poland were using
Christian peasants as virtual slaves (A Quo Primum, June 14, 1751).

The Marxist Pope 

". . . During the first day of voting last Sunday, Wojtyla [later Pope John Paul II] nonchalantly read a quarterly
review of Marxist theory as the time-consuming balloting [for the selection of Pope John Paul I's successor]
dragged on.

'Don't you think it's sacrilegious to bring Marxist literature into the Sistine Chapel?' joked a Cardinal. Wojtyla
smiled, 'My conscience is clear'. . ." (Time Magazine, October 30, 1978, p. 87).

Commenting on the history of Karol Wojtyla (later Pope John Paul II) in Poland, Piers Compton wrote: ". . .
Many hundreds of his co-religionists in Poland during the thirty years of Communist domination, had
undergone petty or serious persecution, many being jailed, . . . Wojtyla was all for coming to terms and
continuing 'dialogue' with them, along the lines that had been established by Paul VI; and . . . apart from
never actually condemning atheistic Marxism, stood in the way of those who wished to adopt a more militant
attitude towards it . . ." (Piers Compton, The Broken Cross, The Hidden Hand in the Vatican, p. 169-170).

". . . When he was a bishop, Karol Wojtyla was . . . instrumental in quashing a formal condemnation of
communism at Vatican Council II. Together with Cardinal Ratzinger, (Wojtyla shepherded the Masonic
'Statement on Religious Liberty' to final inclusion in the Council's documents . . .)" (Focus Newsletter, May
1987, Vol. 1., No. 1., Michael A. Hoffman, Wiswell Ruffin House, Dresden, NY).

". . . a few years ago Francoir Mitterand, the Communist who is now President of the French Republic, said
that 'Man is the future of Man.' It was then left for Karol Wojtyla, as John Paul II, to enshrine that belief in a
modern religious setting by declaring that 'Man is the primary issue of the Church;' a papal announcement
that is thoroughly in line with the Marxist principle that 'Man is an end in himself and the explanation of all
things'. . ." (Piers Compton, The Broken Cross, The Hidden Hand in the Vatican, p. 171).

He stated in his Encyclical of September 15, 1981, on the subject of private property and capitalism:
"Christian tradition has never upheld the right of private property as absolute and untouchable. On the
contrary, it has always understood the right as common to all to use the goods of the whole creation." This
stands in direct contravention to papal teachings from Leo XIII to Pius XII: "The Socialist endeavor to
destroy private property, and maintain that an individual's possessions should become the common property
of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies . . . It is unjust, because it would rob the legal
possessor, bring the State in to a sphere that is not its own, and cause complete confusion to the
community."

"Karol Wojtyla was once a Marxist" (Christian Married Love, Edited by Raymond Dennehy, Ignatius Press,
1981, p. 101). Msgr. Jerzy Turowicz, editor-in-chief of the weekly 'Tygodnik Powszechny' has told Le Monde
that "If the new pope is intransigent in opposing Communism and has always defended the rights of man, he
is not a visceral anti-communist" (Le Monde, October 18, 1978).

Pope John Paul II and Judeo-Masonry

That the objectives of Masonry, Illuminism and Marxism are also those of the Roman Catholic hierarchy is
now an open secret. These related systems were established by a vastly wealthy elite whose objective is
world hegemony. In 1798 John Robison wrote exposing Freemasonry, "Their first and immediate aim is to
get possession of riches, power, and influence, without industry; and, to accomplish this, they want to
abolish Christianity; and then dissolute manners and universal profligacy will procure them its adherence of
all the wicked, and enable them to overturn the civil governments of Europe" (Robison, Proofs of A
Conspiracy, p. 209).

As Mrs. Webster has shown in her book, World Revolution, the ideals of Illuminism were:
  Abolition of Monarchy and all ordered Government.
 Abolition of private property.
 Abolition of inheritance.
 Abolition of patriotism.
 Abolition of the family (i.e., of marriage and all morality, and the institution of the communal
education of children).
 Abolition of all religion. (Nesta Webster, World Revolution, p. 22).

A hundred and fifty years later the same objectives were fathered by Communism. According to the
Congressional Report of the Fish Committee (p. 4), they are:

 Hatred of God and all forms of religion;

 Destruction of private property, and inheritance;
 Absolute social and racial equality; promotion of class hatred;
 Revolutionary propaganda through the Communist International, stirring up communist activities in
foreign countries in order to cause strikes, riots, sabotage, bloodshed and civil war;
 Destruction of all forms of representative or democratic governments, . .
 The ultimate and final objective is by means of world revolution to establish the dictatorship of the
so-called proletariat into one world USSR, with the capital at Moscow.

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, the Masonic war cry of the French Revolution has now become the catch cry
of the papacy as Rome seeks to embrace all within the iron bands of her empire.

Already in 1963, Msgr. Wojtyla had embraced the modernist errors which have been destroying the Roman
church. 'Concerning first the right to Religious Liberty, "developing new relations between Church and
State", -- that is the secularization of the State, the rejection of the Catholic State. It was the Vatican which
demanded of the Italian State the revision, of the Concordat, so that, in her Constitution, Italy is no longer a
Catholic country. On February 19, 1984, the Pope publicly rejoiced of this on the balcony of St. Peter's,
Rome.

Then, Collegiality [Equality], the promotion of "decentralization in the heart of the Church", that is to say, the
growing importance of episcopal conferences and the "re-evaluation of the laity" and thus, the destruction of
authority, especially that of the Pope and of priests.

Ecumenism [Fraternity], finally, developing "on a scale unknown up till the present in the Church's history" is
the recognition of spiritual values contained in the other religions, especially in Judaism. Thus we see in
perspective, the visit on December 11, 1983, to a Protestant temple, the meeting with the Jews in Rome's
synagogue, the scandalous re-union at Assisi, the 'pantheon of all religions'. Then there is Africanisation,
Indianisation, Japanisation and so called inculturisation which throws an advance shadow over the sacred
wood of Togo where Pope John Paul II took part in an animist rite.

He permitted women into the sanctuary (as altar girls) for the first time in Church history, presided over a
Mass in Papau New Guinea with topless female lectors where the Epistle was read by a woman nude from
the waist up, in India he was marked on the forehead with the sign of the adorers of the goddess Shiva; he
praised the demonic traditions of the Voodoo witchdoctors of Benin and said they contain "the Seeds of the
Word", and allowed the statue of Buddha to be placed on the tabernacle of Assisi (Michael A. Hoffman II,
Pope John Paul II: Media Legend vs. the Record; Abbe Daniel Le Roux, Peter Lovest Thou Me?)

Pope John Paul II Bows Down To Islam

During his trip to Belgium in May, 1985, the Pope met representatives of the Islamic community in Brussels
and told them:

"Christians and Moslems, we meet one another in faith in the one God, our creator, our guide, our just and
merciful judge. We strive to put into practice in our daily lives the will of God, following the teaching of our
respective holy books" (Documentation Catholique of July 7, 1985, p. 682).
Is the Koran an expression of "the will of God?" Is it an inspired book like the Bible? Some quotes will serve
to enlighten us:

"Infidels are but base impurities, let them not approach the mosque" (R. Blachere, Le Coran, sourate 9,
verse 28, p. 216).

"Infidels are those for sure who say: Allah is the Messiah, Son of Mary" (Ibid. sourate 5, verse 19/17, p.
135).

"When you meet infidels, kill them so as to make a great slaughter and tighten the chains of the captives"
(Kasimirski, Le Coran, chapter 47, verse 4, p. 415).

"You will fight [the infidels] or better, they will convert to Islam" (R. Blachere, Le Coran, sourate 48, verse 16,
p. 544).

"O Moslems, you who believe, take not your friends from among those to whom the Scriptures were given,
Christians and Jews, from among those infidels" (Ibid. sourate 5, verse 62/57, p.141).

"Do not marry polytheist women [who believe in the Holy Trinity], unless they become believers. A believing
slave is better than a free and polytheist woman. Do not marry your daughters to polytheists before they
believe" (Pleiade, D. Masson, Le Coran, sourate 2, verse 221, p. 42).

As for the laws of the Koran and Islam, like the Talmud, they simply call Christians impure beings:

Article 1. "Eleven things are impure: urine, excrement, sperm, bones, blood, a dog, a pig and the non-
Moslem man and woman, plus the Trinity [Father, Son and Holy Spirit]"

Article 2. "He who believes in the Trinity is impure just like excrement and urine."

Finally, the Koran promises to Moslems a paradise of carnal love based on vice: "As regards women, they
will be . . . burning with passion . . . all virgins and after your union, their virginity will be restored" (Joseph
Bertuel: 'L'lslam, ses veritables origines', tome 1, p. 187).

http://www.orthodoxfaith.com/ecumenism_papacy_masonry.html

The Frankish Papacy and the Ecumenical Movement

Originally, ecumenism was concerned with unity among so-called denominational 'Christians'. But it is now,
increasingly, extended beyond its original borders. Ecumenism today extends to a larger field: it seeks the
union of all religions, Christian and non-Christian. Underlying this ecumenical attitude is more than a search
for immanent truth in all religions. Behind this innocent mask is a strategy to subvert the jurisdiction of all
religions. The Bible teaches us, Rome has a plan.

We can not say that the Pope is badly advised. His actions and his humanistic convictions were inherited
from the Theosophy of Helena Blavatsky and Annie Besant, plus Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy diffused
through theatre and dance, and his seminary studies in philosophy. "It seems that, being unable to
recognize the unchangeable character of truth, he is condemned to intrigue and sooner or later to
abandoning doctrine" (Abbe Daniel Le Roux, Peter Lovest Thou Me? p. 71).

"Knowing the Jewish roots of the Masonic plotters, their aim is to establish a society without God, without
redemption, the search for peace and order without Christ. Chevalier de Bonneville formed a chapter of
twenty-five degrees of the so-called High-Degrees in the College of Jesuits of Clermont, in Paris in 1754.
The adherents of the House of Stuart had made the college of Clermont their asylum, they being mostly
Scotsmen. One of these Degrees being the "Scottish Master", the new body organized in Charleston, South
Carolina, in 1801, gave the name of Scottish Rite to these Degrees, which name ever since that time has
characterized the Rite all over the world." (William O. Peterson, Masonic Quiz Book "Ask Me Another,
Brother", p. 194-195). These Scottish Rites were devised as an aid to restoring the Jesuit-controlled House
of Stuart to the throne of England. The main consequences of the humanism of the Roman church since
Vatican II is the uncrowning of what little of God Rome had in creed and tradition (Revelation 16:12-14), and
the rejection of all authority that does not come from man.

Which is that religion "on which all men are in agreement?" The former Grand Master of the Grand-Orient of
France tells us: "To ask this question is already recognizing the revolutionary text of Anderson [who codified
modern speculative Freemasonry]... Firstly, Anderson repudiates the State religion... That is however, not
enough. He leaves every man to his own opinion. Thus, all opinions, and the religious opinion in particular,
are equal before the law. Such ideas had to go a long way. They really constitute a universal religion"
(Jacques Mitterand, La Politique des Frances -- Macons, p. 45).

Freemasonry wants therefore to remake the world by starting a new gospel, around a new religion, where all
men are in agreement. This is a true revolution which the famous Swiss Freemason, Quartier-la-Tente,
expresses in these terms: "Freemasonry has imposed a task; a mission on itself. It is nothing less than the
reconstruction of society on a completely new basis" (Leon de Poncins, La Franc-Maconnerie d'apres ses
Documents Secrets, p. 14).

However to accomplish this mission it was first necessary to undermine the 'old' Christian and monarchist
principles. Freemasonry has done this by the different revolutions it has brought about during more than two
centuries, first in central Europe, then in the world. To conform to the wish of Anderson, the religion of the
State was rejected. The era of separation of Church and State opened the gate to secularism, to laicism, to
indifferentism and finally, atheism. However, as destruction alone is no good unless there is replacement by
something else, Freemasonry had to explain the precise nature of this "completely new basis". This it has
often done, especially by the work of Masonic writers such as: Andre Lebey, Edouard Plantagenet, Albert
Lantoine and Oswald Wirth, spokesmen for the different branches.

"This pseudo-mysticism is based above all on the principle of Democracy; it is stated that this is the key to
the art of Masonry, that the Great Secret is, so to speak, the lofty royalty of man. This is continuing the
primacy of man before Revelation... Man, says Freemasonry, is a potential god. Let us organize him
socially, internationally, world-wide and he can mock at being the god of the legend and of the nightmare
which pursues him. This is the liberation of Man with respect to the divine" (Abbe Daniel Le Roux, Peter
Lovest Thou Me? p. 85).

The attitude of the Catholic Church for the last two centuries has therefore been clear and unequivocal. The
Popes have condemned the Masonic sect because it tends to destroy both the religions and the Christian
social order. Freemasonry likes to present itself under the colors of mutual tolerance and respect for others
and for itself. It states that it must extend the hand of brotherhood to all mankind, which unites the Masonic
brethren over the whole earth. It recalls that the Freemason has the duty in all circumstances to help, to
enlighten and protect his brothers even in danger of life and to defend him against injustice. All that
however, is but the velvet glove of Freemasonry and the only one that most members know. Its true aim is to
reconstruct society on a new basis without our Lord Jesus Christ, to arrive at a world-wide religion through
the principle of democracy. Leo XIII was not mistaken when he wrote in the encyclical Humanurn Genus:
"The sect of Freemasons has invaded all the ranks of social life and is beginning to assume a sovereign
power in the heart of modern states."

Since this sect succeeded in implementing its ideas, there have been in France five revolutions; (1789,
1830, 1848, 1870, 1945) four foreign invasions (1815, 1870, 1914, 1940), two persecutions of the Church,
the banishment of religious orders, the suppression of Catholic schools, the secularization of institutions
(1789, 1901) etc., What would Leo XIII say of our era when all governments obey the decrees of the lodges?
(Ibid., p. 87).

"To achieve its ends, Freemasonry makes use of High Finance, the high forms of Politics, and of the world
press; Marxism in turn, makes use of social and economic revolution against country, family, private
property, morals and religion. The Freemasons achieve their ends by secret and subversive means, the
communists by openly subversive means" (G. Virabeau, Supreme Congregation of the Holy Office, p. 6).

The Papacy's Gradual Liberalization

From 1962 [Vatican II] Rome adopted liberal positions which had been those of the Freemasons for 250
years. Through the mediation of [Jewish] Cardinal Bea, the Freemasons obtained the Decree on Religious
Liberty and applauded the victory of false ecumenism and of collegiality. They were assured of the arrival of
democracy in the Church, and through that, little by little, the realization of a universal religion, Paul VI
surpassed their expectation.

In 1964, during his trip to the Holy Land, on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Pope Paul VI embraced the
[so-called] Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras I, Freemason of the 33rd degree, and just prior to the closing of
the Council, both of them lifted the mutual excommunications thundered forth in 1054.

On May 19, 1964, he officially founded the Secretariat for Non-Christians... On November 13, 1964, he gave
up the tiara, then gave his cross and ring to the Burmese Buddhist U'thant, Secretary General of the United
Nations, so as to help the poor.

On March 23, 1966 he slipped his new Council ring on the finger of Dr. Ramsay, Anglican Archbishop of
Canterbury, symbol no doubt, of the new conciliar alliance.

On June 3, 1971, he received the Masonic Lodge of the B'nai-B'rith in public audience at the Vatican... from
1963 Msgr. Wojtyla [later Pope John Paul II] wished the Catholic Church to recognize the trilogy: "Religious
Liberty, collegiality and ecumenism" and... he pursued this "ideal" since his election... (Abbe Daniel Le Roux,
Peter Lovest Thou Me? p. 89-90).

As Benjamin Disraeli and Edward Mandell House foretold the "Jew's" plans in their novels, Coningsby, and
Philip Dru, Administrator; George Orwell spilled the beans on the planned enslavement of the human race in
his book, 1984; James Bond thrillers by Ian Fleming exposed how our 'democratic' governments traffic in
narcotics, sponsor murders, wars and assassinations, as Morris West in his book The Shoes of the
Fisherman foretold the pontificate of Karol Wojtyla, and their Hollywood tribes people filmed the
Clinton/Monica Lewinski affair ahead of the event in the movie, Wag the Dog. These writers were all
insiders, not prophets. Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "If something happens in politics, you can bet it was
planned that way".

On 22 March, 1984, John Paul II received in a private audience representatives of the Jewish-Masonic
organization B'nai B'rith. He stated, all the while even naming the Savior: "Dear Friends: I am very happy to
receive you in the Vatican... You are the league of the B'nai B'rith against defamation. You are also
connected with the Commission for religious relations with Judaism, founded ten years ago by Paul VI, with
the aim to foster good relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish community... The simple fact of
your visit, which I appreciate, is in itself proof of the development and constant strengthening of those
relations... the encounter between Catholics and Jews is not one between two ancient religions that go their
own way and that have known serious and sorrowful conflicts: it is a meeting between 'brothers'... a dialogue
between the first and second part of the Bible. And just as the two parts of the Bible are distinct, and closely
related, so are the Jewish people and the Catholic Church... This mutual knowledge makes us discover
even more what unites us in a greater solicitude for the human race, for example, in the struggle against
hunger, poverty, discrimination, everywhere it exists... Thank you again for coming here and for your
involvement in dialogue and the aim it pursues. Let us acknowledge it before God, the Father of us all."
(Catholic Counter-Reformation #1874, pp. 509-510).

The Antichristian Legacy of Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtila)

"Many millions of words have been written since the election of Karol Wojtyla in attempts to analyze and
understand what kind of man he is. As can be seen, he is the kind of man who could allow men like Villot,
Cody, Marcinkus, Mennini, de Strobel, de Bonis, and Poletti to remain in office. There can be no defense on
the grounds of ignorance..."

It is a papacy of double standards: one for the pope and another for the rest of mankind. The papacy of John
Paul II has been a triumph for the wheeler-dealers, for the corrupt, for the international thieves... While His
Holiness has maintained a very highly publicized image, not unlike some endless rock 'n' roll tour, the men
backstage are ensuring that it is business as usual. It is to be regretted that the severely moralizing
speeches of His Holiness cannot, apparently, be heard backstage.
"... With the election of Wojtyla it was straight back to the values of Paul VI, with interest. With regard to the
infiltration of the Vatican by Freemasons, for example, the Vatican, through the current pope, has now not
only taken on board various Masons from various lodges but it has also acquired its own in-house version.
Its name is Opus Dei (God's Work)" (David Yallop, In God's Name, p. 264-265).

"In his 'Diaries', Theodore Herzl describes the visit (to the Vatican). After listening quietly to the Zionist plan
for restoring the Holy Land to the Jews, Pius X, answered in a stern and categorical manner: "We are
unable to favor this movement. We cannot prevent the Jews from going to Jerusalem but we could never
sanction it (Parade Magazine). "It must be understood that Jews, who for 2,000 years were dispersed
among the nations of the world, had decided to return to the land of their ancestors. That is their right... This
affirmation of right was also recognized from the outset by the Holy See, and the act of establishing
diplomatic relations with Israel is simply an international relationship..." The ground of Jerusalem, if it were
not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church, I cannot
answer you otherwise. The Jews have not recognized Our Lord; therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish
people" (Feeney, The Point, April 1957).

"In his diocese of Mantua, John Paul II before he became Pope, had prohibited the celebration of a solemn
mass on the king's birthday because the city council which asked for it had attended a celebration in the
synagogue" (Jewish Encyclopedia). On April 13, 1986 he became the first "Pope" in 2,000 years to visit a
Synagogue during worship services. John Paul kept his head bowed in reverent silence as the Rabbis led a
hymn which looked forward to their messiah who was still to come.

The Pope said, "... the Church of Christ, in examining its own mystery, discovered its bond with Judaism.
The Jewish religion is not extrinsic to us, but in a certain way it is intrinsic to our religion... You are our
favorite brothers and in some ways, one could say, our elder brothers..."

But "... It was Flavius Josephus, writing for the instruction of Greeks and Romans, who coined the term
Judaism, in order to pit it against Hellenism... It was only in comparatively recent times, after the Jews
became familiar with modern Christian literature, that they began to name their religion Judaism" (Rabbi
Adoph Moses and Rabbi H.G. Enlow, Yahvism, and Other Discourses, p. 1).

Were he a Christian, the Pope should have said, "Christianity cannot be called a little Jewish sect which had
some success, as the rabbis claim. Christianity in all its true purity and grandeur fulfilled Judaism and, by
denationalizing it, made it universal and human, according to the expectations of the prophets. Jesus...
could have been accepted as the Messiah in accordance with the eschatology and messianism of Israel...
For two thousand years Judaism had contained the seed of Christianity in spirit. Already prophecy had
pointed to a Christianity in gestation. The birth of the child was a matter of time. Having rejected its own
offspring, Judaism withered and withdrew into itself in morose, proud and sterile isolation. It completely
abandoned proselytism and set itself up as the national religion of a small fraction of the Jewish people.

The Truth of Christianity in the Age of Antichrist

Paradoxical though it may seem to both Jews and Christians, it is in Christianity that the true religion of
Israel was realized. The modern Jew practices a religion which is posterior to the evangelical contribution
established by the doctors of the Law, on a Bible interpreted on the edge of the Revelation. Whereas the
Judaism of the prophets was enriched by the message of Jesus, the Judaism of the rabbis was engulfed in
the Talmud" (Dr. A. Roudinesco, Le Malheur d'Israel, p.140).

"The Judaism of the Diaspora, Hellenic Judaism as it was called, which represented nine-tenths of the Jews
of the Empire, liberated from the constraint of the circumcision, denationalized, open-minded and receptive,
disappeared in about the fifth century, probably as a result of fusion with Christianity. Far removed from
Jerusalem, it was not greatly affected by the catastrophes in the years 70 and 133. After the official creed of
Jerusalem had passed away, the Palestine Jews looked upon the Jews of the dispersion as suspect from
the point of view of strict orthodoxy. The rupture between the Judaism of the Diaspora and rabbinical
Judaism was the work of the scribes, the doctors and the pharisees of the Law. As from the second century,
the rabbis of Babylon and Galilee elaborated a religious, political and social code known as the Talmud. This
book regulated the life of the Israelite in a different spirit from that of the prophets and the Bible.
If serious divergences had existed between the Old and the New Testament, the Christians would not have
kept the two texts, the one following on from the other. Having rejected the Gospel, the rabbis were obliged
to re-interpret the text of the old Bible. They carried out this work by means of oral traditions more or less
consistent with the old texts: the Mishna and the Gemara. The result of this compilation was a new bible; the
Old remains with the Christians.

The Talmud is composed of eleven thick volumes. This baneful book, for the most part unintelligible, a sad
wreck of the Judaism of the prophets, does not enrich the human spirit (Salomon Reinach). The aim of the
Talmud was to save what remained of Israel from being absorbed by Christianity... the old spiritual treasure
of the prophets was abandoned by the rabbinites...

"The imposition of the ideals of the Talmud on the new branch of Judaism has been the calamity of the
Jewish people even to this day" (Ibid., pp. 25-26).

The Roman Catholic Index Expurgatorius of Leo XIII says, "... the impious Talmudic, Cabalistic and other
nefarious books of the Jews are entirely condemned and they must remain always condemned and
prohibited, and that his Constitution about these books must be perpetually and inviolably observed." Yet on
the cover of the Winter 1991 issue of the American Jewish Journal, John Paul II is shown smilingly
accepting a copy of the Steinsaltz edition of the Talmud while making what appears to be the Jewish sign
made famous by "Mr. Spock" with his left hand; which Leonard Nimoy has stated is a secret Jewish sign
made over those being Bar-Mitzvahed [or adopted and placed in authority].

Neither Truth nor Papal 'infallibility' can hinder Rome's grand design to rule the world from a reconstructed
temple at Jerusalem in non-Semitic, anti-Semitic, Zionist Israel.

"Such a secular, earthbound state [Israel] could easily become the political and military power base for the
Antichrist when he comes. For the Antichrist will be in perfect accord with the ideals of such a Zionist state.
Moreover, the State of Israel has demonstrated that it has the will and ability to go to war and win the
secular goals to which its heart is attached. Thus when the Antichrist comes to power as head of such an
efficient, superbly equipped, scientific State, founded on nationalism, race and blood, he will be able to
conquer the rest of the world. He will be the first, the only Jew to reign with political, economic, military
power over the whole world from his capital city, Jerusalem, the city in which Our Lord was crucified" (Fr.
Vincent Miceli, S.J., The Antichrist, p. 152).

http://www.orthodoxfaith.com/ecumenism_masonry_councils.html

The Orthodox Councils Condemning Freemasonry

1. THE ACT OF THE CHURCH OF CYPRUS (1815)

This is the aphorism of the national New Martyr, Cyprian, Archbishop of Cyprus, who in the year 1821,
during the Greco-Roman revolution against the Ottoman Turks, shed his blood in defense of the liberty of his
homeland from Turkey. [From The Rudder, Orthodox Christian Education Society, Chicago 1983, p. 550]: 

The Aphorism Against Freemasonry - By St. Cyprian, Archbishop of Cyprus

Wherefore clad in the sacred vestments of epitrachilion and omophorion, we say, If any man preach unto
you any other gospel than that which we have preached unto you, even though an angel from heaven, let
him be anathema (Galatians I8:9). As many as are befitting, that pursue after such a diabolical and lawless
employment of Freemasonry, and all they that follow unto their infatuation and unto their error, let them be
excommuicated and accursed by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. After death, they shall be
unpardoned, indissoluble, and bloated. Groaning and trembling, as Cain, shall they be upon the earth
(Genesis 4:14). The earth shall cleave and swallow them up, as Dathan and Abiram (Numbers 16:31-32).
The wrath of God shall be upon their heads, and their portion together with Judas the betrayer. An angel of
the Lord will prosecute them with a flaming sword and, unto their life;s termination, they will not know of
progress. Let their works and toil be unblessed and let them become a cloud of dust, as of a summer
threshing-floor. And all they indeed that shall abide still unto their wickedness will have such a recompense.
But as many as shall go out from the midst of them and shall be separated, and having spat out their
abominable heresy, and shall go afar off from their accursed infatuation, such kind shall receive the wagers
of the zealot Phineas; rather let them be blesed and forgiven by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
the Only unconfused and undivided Trinity, the One God in nature, and by us His servants."

 Archbishop Cyprian of New Justiniana and all Cyprus

[ Metropolitan Chrysanthus of Paphos]
[ Metropolitan Meletius of Citium]
[ Metropolitan Laurence of Cyrenia]

Cyprus, February 2nd, 1815

2. THE ACT OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH ABROAD (1932)

The Russian Orthodox Church's attitude towards Freemasonry was very forcefully proclaimed by
Metropolitan Anthony, the presiding member of the Sremsky-Karlovtsy Synod in Yugoslavia, which was at
the head of all the Russian Orthodox Churches outside of Russia. On August 15, 1932, the Metropolitan
issued a Pastoral letter to the faithful, which included the following declaration: advising them "not to believe
every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the
world" (1 John 4:1). Then he gave a short history of Freemasonry, stating that it is one of the most harmful
and false teachings in mankind's history. [From The Rudder, Orthodox Christian Education Society, Chicago
1983, p. 600]:  

The Declaration Against Freemasonry - By Metropolitan Anthony of Kiev

Freemasonry is a secret international organization to struggle with God, Christianity, and all National
Governments, and especially Christian Governments.

In the international organization, the first place of influence and importance belongs to the Jewish
membership.

Because of this, and other important reasons, it is forbidden for all Orthodox Christians to become
Freemasons.

All clergy is duty-bound to question those who come to Confession whether they are members of Masonic
Orders, and in case it will appear that they are Masons and believe and share Masonic teachings, they
should be informed that membership of the Masonic Organization is incompatible with Orthodox Christianity,
and that such should immediately resign from Masonry, otherwise they will be deemed unworthy to receive
Holy Communion, and their further impenitency will bring them to excommunication from the Orthodox
Church.  

 Metropolitan Anthony of Kiev (President of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad)

Sremsky-Karlovtsy, August 15, 1932. 

3. THE ACT OF THE CHURCH OF GREECE (1933)

It is clear from the following statement that Orthodox Christians must disavow the Masonic movement and
resign from it if they have joined it in ignorance of its goals. Pike, in his Morals and Dogma of the Ancient
and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry tells us that "Every Masonic Lodge is a temple of religion; and
its teachings are instruction in religion." (p. 213) "Masonry, around whose altars the Christian, the Hebrew,
the Moslem, the Brahim, the followers of Confucius and Zoroaster, can assemble as brethren and unite in
prayer to the one God who is above all the Baalism." (p. 226) "Masonry, like all religions, all the Mysteries,
conceals its secrets from all except the Adepts and Sages or Elect and uses false explanations and
interpretations of its symbols to mislead those who deserve only to be misled." (p. 105) [From St. Nectarios
Educational Series, No. 22]:

Patriarch Athenagoras and Archbishop Iakovos have frequently quoted or rephrased the following from
Chapter 10 of the above work. "No human being can with certainty say, in the clash and conflict of hostile
faiths and creeds, what is truth, or that he is surely in possession of it, so every one should feel that it is
quite possible and another equally honest and sincere with himself, and yet holding a contrary opinion, may
himself be in possession of the truth." One needs only to read the Christmas 1967, statement of Patriarch
Athenagoras or Archbishop Iakovos’ sermon at St. Patrick's Cathedral, January 19, 1969, to realize that they
continually expound Masonic doctrine which is opposed to sound Orthodox teaching. The very ecumenical
movement's founders and chief exponents are members of the Masonic order which inspires them and gives
them their guidelines. Is it no wonder then that Orthodoxy becomes unimportant to these people?

Read and reread this statement in order to understand the correct Orthodox opinion in this matter.

The Declaration Against Freemasonry - By the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece

The Bishops of the Church of Greece in their session of October 12, 1933, concerned themselves with the
study and examination of the secret international organization, Freemasonry. They heard with attention the
introductory exposition of the Commission of four Bishops appointed by the Holy Synod at its last session;
also the opinion of the Theological Faculty of the University of Athens, and the particular opinion of Prof.
Panag Bratsiotis which was appended thereto. They also took into consideration publications on this
question in Greece and abroad. After a discussion they arrived at the following conclusions, accepted
unanimously by all the Bishops.

"Freemasonry is not simply a philanthropic union or a philosophical school, but constitutes a mystagogical
system which reminds us of the ancient heathen mystery-religions and cults—from which it descends and is
their continuation and regeneration. This is not only admitted by prominent teachers in the lodges, but they
declare it with pride, affirming literally: "Freemasonry is the only survival of the ancient mysteries and can be
called the guardian of them;" Freemasonry is a direct offspring of the Egyptian mysteries; "the humble
workshop of the Masonic Lodge is nothing else than the caves and the darkness of the cedars of India and
the unknown depths of the Pyramids and the crypts of the magnificent temples of Isis; in the Greek
mysteries of Freemasonry, having passed along the luminous roads of knowledge under the mysteriarchs
Prometheus, Dionysus and Orpheus, formulated the eternal laws of the Universe!

"Such a link between Freemasonry and the ancient idolatrous mysteries is also manifested by all that is
enacted and performed at the initiations. As in the rites of the ancient idolatrous mysteries the drama of the
labors and death of the mystery god was repeated, and in the imitative repetition of this drama the initiate
dies together with the patron of the mystery religion, who was always a mythical person symbolizing the Sun
of nature which dies in winter and is regenerated in spring, so it is also, in the initiation of the third degree, of
the patron of Freemasonry Hiram and a kind of repetition of his death, in which the initiate suffers with him,
struck by the same instruments and on the same parts of the body as Hiram. According to the confession of
a prominent teacher of Freemasonry Hiram is "as Osiris, as Mithra, and as Bacchus, one of the
personifications of the Sun."

"Thus Freemasonry is, as granted, a mystery-religion, quite different, separate, and alien to the Christian
faith. This is shown without any doubt by the fact that it possesses its own temples with altars, which are
characterized by prominent teachers as "workshops which cannot have less history and holiness than the
Church" and as temples of virtue and wisdom where the Supreme Being is worshipped and the truth is
taught. It possesses its own religious ceremonies, such as the ceremony of adoption or the masonic
baptism, the ceremony of conjugal acknowledgement or the masonic marriage, the masonic memorial
service, the consecration of the masonic temple, and so on. It possesses its own initiations, its own
ceremonial ritual, its own hierarchical order and a definite discipline. As may be concluded from the masonic
agapes and from the feasting of the winter and summer solstices with religious meals and general rejoicings,
it is a physiolatric religion.

"It is true that it may seem at first that Freemasonry can be reconciled with every other religion, because it is
not interested directly in the religion to which its initiates belong. This is, however, explained by its
syncretistic character and proves that in this point also it is an offspring and a continuation of ancient
idolatrous mysteries which accepted for initiation worshippers of all gods. But as the mystery religions, in
spite of the apparent spirit of tolerance and acceptance of foreign gods, lead to a syncretism which
undermined and gradually shook confidence in other religions, thus Freemasonry today, which seeks to
embrace in itself gradually all mankind and which promises to give moral perfection and knowledge of truth,
is lifting itself to the position of a kind of super-religion, looking on all religions (without excepting Christianity)
as inferior to itself. Thus it develops in its initiates the idea that only in masonic lodges is performed the
shaping and the smoothing of the unsmoothed and unhewn stone. And the fact alone that Freemasonry
creates a brotherhood excluding all other brotherhoods outside it (which are considered by Freemasonry as
"uninstructed", even when they are Christian) proves clearly its pretensions to be a super-religion. This
means that by masonic initiation, a Christian becomes a brother of the Muslim, the Buddhist, or any kind of
rationalist, while the Christian not initiated in Freemasonry becomes to him an outsider.

"On the other hand, Freemasonry in prominently exalting knowledge and in helping free research as "putting
no limit in the search of truth" (according to its rituals and constitution), and more than this by adopting the
so-called natural ethic, shows itself in this sense to be in sharp contradiction with the Christian religion. For
the Christian religion exalts faith above all, confining human reason to the limits traced by Divine Revelation
and leading to holiness through the supernatural action of grace. In other words, which Christianity, as a
religion of Revelation, possessing its rational and superrational dogmas and truths, asks for faith first, and
grounds its moral structure on the super-natural Divine Grace, Freemasonry has only natural truth and
brings to the knowledge of its initiates free thinking and investigation through reason only. It bases its moral
structure only on the natural forces of man, and has only natural aims.

"Thus, the incompatible contradiction between Christianity and Freemasonry is quite clear. It is natural that
various Churches of other denominations have taken a stand against Freemasonry. Not only has the
Western Church branded for its own reasons the masonic movement by numerous Papal encyclicals, but
Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian communities have also declared it to be incompatible with Christianity.
Much more has the Orthodox Catholic Church, maintaining in its integrity the treasure of Christian faith
proclaimed against it every time that the question of Freemasonry has been raised. Recently, the Inter-
Orthodox Commission which met on Mount Athos and in which the representatives of all the Autocephalous
Orthodox Churches took part, has characterized Freemasonry as a "false and anti-Christian system."

The assembly of the Bishops of the Church of Greece in the above mentioned session heard with relief and
accepted the following conclusions which were drawn from the investigations and discussions by its
President His Grace Archbishop Chrysostom of Athens:

"Freemasonry cannot be at all compatible with Christianity as far as it is a secret organization, acting and
teaching in mystery and secret and deifying rationalism. Freemasonry accepts as its members not only
Christians, but also Jews and Muslims. Consequently clergymen cannot be permitted to take part in this
association. I consider as worthy of degradation every clergyman who does so. It is necessary to urge upon
all who entered it without due thought and without examining what Freemasonry is, to sever all connections
with it, for Christianity alone is the religion which teaches absolute truth and fulfills the religious and moral
needs of men. Unanimously and with one voice all the Bishops of the Church of Greece have approved what
was said, and we declare that all the faithful children of the Church must stand apart from Freemasonry.
With unshaken faith in Our Lord Jesus Christ "in whom we have our redemption through His blood, the
forgiveness of our sins, according to the riches of His Grace, whereby He abounds to us in all wisdom and
prudence" (Ephes. 1, 7-9) possessing the truth revealed by Him and preached by the Apostles, "not in
persuasive words of wisdom, but in the partaking in the Divine Sacraments through which we are sanctified
and saved by eternal life, we must not fall from the grace of Christ by becoming partakers of other mysteries.
It is not lawful to belong at the same time to Christ and to search for redemption and mora1 perfection
outside Him. For these reasons true Christianity is incompatible with Freemasonry.

"Therefore, all who have become involved in the initiations of masonic mysteries must from this moment
sever all relations with masonic lodges and activities, being sure that they are thereby of a certainty
renewing their links with our one Lord and Savior which were weakened by ignorance and by a wrong sense
of values. The Assembly of the Bishops of the Church of Greece expects this particularly and with love from
the initiates of the lodges, being convinced that most of them have received masonic initiation not realizing
that by it they were passing into another religion, but on the contrary from ignorance, thinking that they had
done nothing contrary to the faith of their fathers. Recommending them to the sympathy, and in no wise to
the hostility or hatred of the faithful children of the Church, the Assembly of the Bishops calls them to pray
with her from the heart in Christian love, that the one Lord Jesus Christ "the way, the truth and the life" may
illumine and return to the truth who in ignorance have gone astray."

4. THE ACT OF THE TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF GREECE (1949)

In 1949, the Synod of Metropolitan Matthew of Athens, Archbishop of the True Orthodox Church of Greece,
assembled at Keratea in Attica and declared the following condemnation of Freemasonry. [From The
Rudder, Orthodox Christian Education Society, Chicago 1983, p. 550]:

Declaration Against Freemasonry - By the True Orthodox Church of Greece

Wherefore clad in the sacred vestments of epitrachilion and omophorion, we say, If any man preach unto
you any other gospel than that which we have preached unto you, even though an angel from heaven, let
him be anathema (Galatians I8:9). As many as are befitting, that pursue after such a diabolical and lawless
employment of Freemasonry, and all they that follow unto their infatuation and unto their error, let them be
excommuicated and accursed by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. After death, they shall be
unpardoned, indissoluble, and bloated. Groaning and trembling, as Cain, shall they be upon the earth
(Genesis 4:14). The earth shall cleave and swallow them up, as Dathan and Abiram (Numbers 16:31-32).
The wrath of God shall be upon their heads, and their portion together with Judas the betrayer. An angel of
the Lord will prosecute them with a flaming sword and, unto their life;s termination, they will not know of
progress. Let their works and toil be unblessed and let them become a cloud of dust, as of a summer
threshing-floor. And all they indeed that shall abide still unto their wickedness will have such a recompense.
But as many as shall go out from the midst of them and shall be separated, and having spat out their
abominable heresy, and shall go afar off from their accursed infatuation, such kind shall receive the wagers
of the zealot Phineas; rather let them be blesed and forgiven by the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
the Only unconfused and undivided Trinity, the One God in nature, and by us His servants."

 Archbishop Matthew of Athens and all Greece (President of the Holy Synod)
 Metropolitan Spyridon II of Trimythus
 Metropolitan Andrew of Patras
 Metropolitan Demetrius of Thessalonica
 Metropolitan Callistus of Corinth
 Archpriest Eugene Tombros (Secretary of the Holy Synod)

5. THE ACT OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX GREEK CATHOLIC

METROPOLIS OF AMERICA (1960)

In 1960, Metropolitan Leontius of the Russian Metropolis of America (founded by Metropolitan Platon), and
the members of his permanent Synod, decreed the following condemnation against Freemasonry:

Declaration Against Freemasonry - By the Russian American Metropolis

RUSSIAN ORTHODOX GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH OF AMERICA

HIS EMINENCE THE MOST REVEREND LEONTY ARCHBISHOP OF NEW YORK METROPOLITAN OF
THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX GREEK-CATHOLIC CHURCH OF AMERICA
59 EAST SECOND STREET NEW YORK 3, NEW YORK Telephone, Gramercy 7-7836

CIRCULAR LETTER

May 9, 1960 # 18649

TO ALL PASTORS AND CHURCH COMMITTEES OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX GREEK CATHOLIC
CHURCH OF AMERICA

The Great Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America, in session on
March 29, 1960 RESOLVED: to publicize again for general information, the resolution concerning Masonry
passed by the Great Council of Bishops on October 25, 1949 (see Russian Orthodox Messenger, p. 33 # 3,
1950) which reads as follows:

a) to caution members of the Russian Orthodox Church of America and especially the pastors, of the
incompatibility of membership in the saving Church of Christ and simultaneously membership in Masonic
Lodges, which are a mixture of pagan and other religions with certain secret "initiations" as a fixed ritual of
the order;

b) to explain to the faithful that our Church views Masonry in perfect accord with the teaching of the Greek
Orthodox Church and accepts her testament expressed by the Head of the Church of the Hellenes, the Most
Reverend Chrysostom, Archbishop of Athens, in session of October 12, 1933 in Athens, in the following two
statements:

FIRST: All the faithful children of the Church must stand apart from Freemasonry. With unshaken faith in
Our Lord Jesus Christ, possessing the truth revealed by Him and preached by His Apostles, partaking in the
Divine Sacraments through which we are sanctified, we must not fall from the grace of Christ by becoming
partakers of other mysteries. It is not lawful to belong at the same time to Christ and to search for
redemption and moral perfection outside Him.

SECOND: all who have become involved in the initiations of masonic mysteries must from this moment
sever all relations with masonic lodges and activities, being sure that they are thereby of a certainty
renewing their links with our one Lord and Saviour which were weakened by ignorance and a wrong sense
of values.

c) to reiterate the statement of the Eastern Churches to those who entered masonry not realizing that by it
they were passing into another religion comparable to the Gnostic sects of Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Persia
and Greece, that the Church awaits with great love their contrition for their ignorant departure from Christ,
and calls on all faithful to pray that the One Lord Jesus Christ 'the way, the truth and the life' may illumine
and return to the truth those who in ignorance have gone astray.

d) to caution all faithful, especially the youth, to take to heart the directions of our Episcopate concerning
Masonry, that the Grace of God be with them, their parents and relatives and with their organizations, now
abiding in the mercies from above for their loyalty to the Orthodox Church of their fathers.

This resolution is to be promulgated to all concerned and is to be published in the official organ of the
Metropolia and if possible, in circulars, for the guidance of all."

In informing all members of the Russian Orthodox Church of America of the above, the Great Council of
Bishops strongly recommends that all Reverend Rectors admonish their parishioners who are members of
the Masonic Lodges, and use their pastoral influence, especially during Penance, that they repent and leave
the masonic organizations. The parishioners who refuse to do so are to be deprived, as unrepentant sinners,
of Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, to whom is glory and honor forever. Amen.

The names of those deprived of Communion must be kept in the parish records as evidence for their
exclusion from membership in Parish and Diocesan councils and as delegates to the All-American Sobor.
 Archbishop Leontius (President of the Russian Orthodox Greek-Catholic Metropolis of America)
 Bishop Joseph Pishtey (Secretary of the Metropolis Council)
 Proto-presbyter Theophanes Buketoff (Member of the Metropolis Council) 

http://www.orthodoxfaith.com/ecumenism_exposed.html

The Attitude of the Holy Fathers Towards Heretics and

Pagans Compared to the Contemporary Hierarchs of
"World Orthodoxy"
1. Testimonies from the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Fathers on the Necessity of
Having No Communion with Heretics and Schismatics, the Enemies of Christ

 By Dr. Vladimir Moss  

"And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: This is the law of the Passover: no stranger shall eat of it. And
every slave or servant bought with money  him thou shalt circumcise, and then shall he eat of it. A sojourner
or hireling shall not eat of it. In one house shall it be eaten." Exodus 12.43-46.

St. Apraphat of Syria writes that the "one house" in which the Passover is to be eaten is "the
Church of Christ", and that just as the slave could not eat the Passover unless he was
circumcised, so the sinner "comes to Baptism, the true Circumcision, and is joined to the People
of God, and communicates in the Body and Blood of Christ". Demonstrations 12, 525.8, 525.12.

St. John Chrysostom writes: "Let no-one communicate who is not of the disciples. Let no Judas receive, lest
he suffer the fate of Judas I would give up my life rather than impart of the Lord's Blood to the unworthy; and
I will shed my own blood rather than give such awful Blood contrary to what is right." Homilies on Matthew,
83.6.

St. John the Almsgiver said: "We shall not escape sharing in that punishment which, in the world to come,
awaits heretics, if we defile Orthodoxy and the holy Faith by adulterous communion with heretics." The Life
of St. John the Almsgiver.

St. John of Damascus writes: "With all our strength let us beware lest we receive Communion from or give it
to heretics. 'Give not what is holy to the dogs,' says the Lord. 'Neither cast ye your pearls before swine', lest
we become partakers in their dishonour and condemnation." Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, IV, 13.

"Holy things to the holy!" The Divine Liturgy.

"And the Lord said to Joshua, Rise up: why hast thou fallen upon thy face? The people has
sinned, and transgressed the covenant which I made with them; they have stolen from the
accursed things (Greek: anathema), and put it into their store. And the children of Israel will not
be able to stand before their enemies, for they have become an accursed thing (anathema); I will
no longer be with you, unless ye remove the accursed thing (anathema) from yourselves." Joshua
7.10-11.

"Let any Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon that merely joins in prayer with heretics be suspended,
but if he has permitted them to perform any service as clergymen, let him be deposed." Apostolic
Canon 45.
"Let any clergyman or layman who enters a synagogue of Jews, or of heretics, to pray be both
deposed and excommunicated." Apostolic Canon 65.

"Concerning the necessity of not permitting heretics to come into the house of God, so long as
they persist in their heresy." Canon 6 of the Council of Laodicea.

"That one must not accept the blessings of heretics, which are rather misfortunes than blessings." Canon 32
of the Council of Laodicea.

"That one must not join in prayer with heretics or schismatics." Canon 33 of the Council of
Laodicea.

St. Maximus the Confessor said: "Even if the whole universe holds communion with the [heretical]
patriarch, I will not communicate with him. For I know from the writings of the holy Apostle Paul:
the Holy Spirit declares that even the angels would be anathema if they should begin to preach
another Gospel, introducing some new teaching." The Life of St. Maximus the Confessor.

"Chrysostomos loudly declares not only heretics, but also those who have communion with them,
to be enemies of God." St. Theodore the Studite, Epistle of Abbot Theophilus.

"Guard yourselves from soul-destroying heresy, communion with which is alienation from Christ."
St. Theodore the Studite, P.G. 99.1216.

"Some have suffered final shipwreck with regard to the faith. Others, though they have not
drowned in their thoughts, are nevertheless perishing through communion with heresy." St.
Theodore the Studite.

"The divine and sacred canons say: 'He who has communion with an excommunicate, let him be
excommunicated, as overthrowing the rule of the Church.' And again: 'He who receives a heretic
is subject to the same indictment' The great apostle and evangelist John says: 'If anyone comes
to you and does not bring this teaching with him, do not greet him and do not receive him into
your house; for he who greets him communicates with his evil deeds' (II John 10-11). If we are
forbidden merely to greet him on the way, and if inviting him into our house is prohibited, how can
it be otherwise not in a house, but in the temple of God, in the sanctuary at the mystical and
terrible Supper of the Son of God Whoever belches out the commemoration of him who has been
worthily cut off by the Holy Spirit for his arrogance towards God and the Divine things, becomes
for that reason an enemy of God and the Divine things." From an Epistle of the Martyred Fathers
of the Holy Mountain to Emperor Michael Palaeologus against the heretical Patriarch John
Beccus of Constantinople.

"All the teachers of the Church, and all the Councils, and all the Divine Scriptures advise us to
flee from the heterodox and separate from their communion." St. Mark of Ephesus.

"Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and
iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? What
agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God." II
Corinthians 6.14-16.

"Come out of her, My people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues."
Revelation 18.4.
2. Photographs of Orthodox and Heterodox Clergy Engaging In Ecumenistic Events

Pope Paul VI of the Roman Catholic Church - 33 Degree Freemason:

Left: Pope Paul VI abandons the papal tiara to the United Nations, no pope has worn it since; 
Center: Pope Paul VI begins using a new papal staff with a broken Masonic cross and a limp Christ; 
Right: Pope Paul VI with a Judeo-Masonic emblem, the Ephod of Caiaphas, hanging from his loins.

33 Degree Mason "Patriarch" Athenagoras with 33 Degree Mason Pope Paul VI:

Top Left: Pope and Patriarch holding hands; Top Right: Pope and Patriarch in joint prayer; 
Bottom Left: Pope and Patriarch in joint blessing; Bottom Right: Patriarch at a papal mass.

Ecumenistic "Patriarch" Demetrius with Pope John Paul II:

Left: Patriarch attending papal mass; Right: Patriarch's rep. with Pope, Dalai Lama, Jews & Pagans.

Pope John Paul II with "Patriarch" Bartholomew:

Pope John Paul II and Patriarch Bartholomew sign a join faith statement.

Pope John Paul II and "Patriarch" Bartholomew Embracing Islam:

Left: Pope John Paul II kissing the Quran; Right: Patriarch Bartholomew kissing an Imam.

Ecumenistic "Patriarch" Bartholomew Among World Faith Leaders:

 Patriarch amongst Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Bahai and Jewish leaders.

http://www.orthodoxfaith.com/ecumenism_councils.html

The Orthodox Councils Condemning Ecumenism

1. THE ACT OF THE TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF GREECE (1957)

In 1957, the Synod of Metropolitan Demetrius of Thessalonica, President of the Holy Synod of the True
Orthodox Church of Greece, assembled in Athens and made the following declaration.  [From Synoptic
Observation of the Festal Calendar Issue Under the Light of Orthodoxy, "Herald of the True Orthodox,"
Athens 1989, p. 26 (in Greek)]:

Declaration Against the New Calendarists, Modernists and Ecumenists

The official state schismatic [church] by its transgressions and apostasies, remaining in
schism, is becoming heretical. In the commentary of the First Canon of St. Basil the
Great (footnote 1) is declared: “A schism persisting wrongly becomes a schismato-
heresy, and a schismato-heresy becomes a complete heresy” (Divine Chrysostom).

We confess with all the strength of our hearts and with a tyrannical trumpet we declare
our Faith and confession as follows:

a)      We remain firmly unshaken in the Faith of our Fathers, in the injunctions of the
New Testament, the Symbol of the Faith, the sacred Canons decreed by the holy
seven Ecumenical and Local Councils, in the Teachings of the God-bearing
Fathers, in the Decisions of the Pan-Orthodox Councils and Patriarchs, and in the
Sacred Traditions.

b)      We exclude and reject every deviation, every addition or subtraction of even one
iota.
 c)      We are obedient only to decisions of Orthodox Councils.

d)      We denounce the “official” [church] as innovationist, as schismatic, as cacodox,

paving directly towards heresy.

e)      We have no communion with the cacodox “official” [church], not recognizing the
validity of its mysteries, not considering its acts and condemnations against us to
have any authority.

f)        We are indifferent to, and by no means fall by, the persecutions, the placing of
the spears, the imprisonments, the defrockments, the slanders and insults, the
banishments, with which the “official” [church] unmercifully treats us, thereby
becoming “God-fighting” according to St. Athanasius the Great; [the “official”
church] bears not a single power, nor has the capability to shake our faith and
confession in regards to the Patristic [traditions] and separate us from the Holy
Church, the Bride of Christ.

 Metropolitan Demetrius of Thessalonica (President of the Holy Synod)

 Metropolitan Spyridon II of Trimythus
 Metropolitan Andrew of Patras
 Metropolitan Callistus of Corinth
 Metropolitan Bessarion of Tricca and Stagae
 Metropolitan John of Thebes and Lebadia
 Metropolitan Meletius of Attica and Megaris
 Metropolitan Matthew II of Bresthena
 Metropolitan Epiphanius of Citium
 Metropolitan Anthimus of Piraeus
 Metropolitan Theocletus of Salamis
 Metropolitan Agathangelus of Tinos
 Archpriest Eugene Tombros (Secretary of the Holy Synod)

2. THE ACT OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX GREEK CATHOLIC

METROPOLIS OF AMERICA (1969)

The following letter was given on March 11, 1969 to the faithful from the Metropolitan's Residence
(Metropolitan Ireney) on Syosset, Long Island, New York.

The present bishops of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA, formerly known as the Metropolia) and the
instructors at St. Vladimir's Seminary, Yonkers, New York, should be held accountable to follow that which
has been laid down by their Church in previous years. Read the recent statements and articles in Saint
Vladimir's Quarterly by these men and you will see, first hand, how they have deviated from the Orthodox
faith.

May the faithful laity awaken to their responsibilities and demand their bishops and teachers adhere to the
Orthodox faith. Ask your bishop or priest in the OCA why he no longer follows the guidelines once given by
the hierarchs? Let me ask again the question, "Who has changed their Orthodox faith, those who follow the
Julian calendar or the New Calendarists."

The Declaration Against Ecumenism - By the Russian American Metropolia

 RUSSIAN ORTHODOX GREEK CATHOLIC CHURCH OF AMERICA

The Most Reverend Metropolitan Ireney, Primate

59 East Second Street

New York, N.Y. 10003

Encyclical Letter
Of the Great Council of Bishops
Of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in America (The Metropolia)
To the American Flock

Dearly beloved in the Lord; Fathers, Brethren and Sisters:

The Great Council of Bishops of the Metropolia considers it its duty to answer certain doubts and questions
which have arisen concerning the so-called Ecumenical Movement.

In the last decades an awareness emerged in the entire Christian world that the divisions among Christians,
the dispersion of Christian forces before the unbelievers, the absence of unity among those who confess the
One, Lord Jesus Christ and worship One God, contradicts the prayer which our Lord himself used before his
passion, "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us:
that the world may believe that thou has sent me" (John 17:21).

The Holy Orthodox Church has always prayed, and continues to pray indefatigably for the union of all. She
accepts with joy every sincere movement towards that unity. She firmly believes that the Supreme Pastor
and Head of the Church, our Lord Jesus Christ, desires that all who believe in him become one body and
bear testimony to him through visible unity in faith, love and life. The Ecumenical Movement, inasmuch as it
is inspired by sincere sorrow for the existing divisions among Christians, and by an equally sincere search to
overcome those divisions, is, therefore, a good and positive manifestation. For this reason all the local
Orthodox Churches take part in the work and activities of the Ecumenical Movement.

As for the other aspects of that movement, joint Christian action to help the hungry, the persecuted and
refugees; judgment on political event, and efforts towards a more just society, the Orthodox Church, while
recognizing that such activities are both useful and necessary, considers that they are by nature quite
different from those endeavors which are directed towards achieving unity in faith. She also believes that all
such questions must be solved not according to the categories of this world and its calculations, but in the
spirit of Christ's truth which has no regard for persons.

The basic goal of the Ecumenical Movement, however, is the unity of all Christians in one, single body of
grace. And here the Orthodox Church firmly confesses that such a genuine unity is founded, above all, on
the unity of faith, on the unanimous acceptance of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition by all, as they are
wholly and integregally preserved by the Church. Real love for brothers separated from us consists,
therefore, not in silencing all that divides us, but in a courageous witness to the Truth, which alone can unite
us all, as well as in a common search for the ways to make that Truth evident to all. Only in this way has the
Orthodox Church always understood her participation in the Ecumenical Movement. We call ourselves and
all others to that Divine Truth, not because it is "ours", but because the Church is founded on it and has as
her mission to proclaim it to all men in order that all may be saved.

However, within the Ecumenical Movement there has always existed another understanding of unity, which
seems to become more popular today. It recognizes virtually no importance at all in agreement in faith and
doctrine, and is based on relativism, i.e., on the affirmation that the doctrinal or canonical teachings of the
Church, being "relative", are not obligatory for all. Unity is viewed as already existing, and nothing remains to
be done except to express it and strengthen it through ecumenical manifestations or services of all kinds.
Such an approach is totally incompatible with the Orthodox concept of ecumenism.

The difference between these two approaches is nowhere better manifested than in the attitudes toward
concelebration and participation in the sacraments among divided Christians. In the prayers and the
Sacraments of the Church, especially the Divine Eucharist, is expressed the full unity, in faith, in life and in
the common service to God and man, as given by God. Therefore, in the Orthodox teaching, every form of
concelebration, i.e,. joint participation in liturgical prayer and especially in the Sacraments, with those not
belonging to the Orthodox Church is inadmissible, for it would imply and express a unity which in reality
does not exist. Such a concelebration is a self-deception and the deception of others, for it leads both the
Orthodox and the non-Orthodox to the erroneous belief, creating the impression, that the Orthodox Church
acknowledges something which in fact she does not acknowledge.

In view of all this, common prayer with non-Orthodox at brotherly encounters must always be clearly
distinguished and formally separated from the liturgical life of the Church. The liturgy expresses the unity of
the Church and not a human consensus in particular areas of human concern. Orthodox priests attending
meetings, prayers or conferences together with non-Orthodox must never wear liturgical vestments, just as
ministers of other confessions must not be invited to fulfill liturgical functions at any Orthodox service:
marriage, funeral, Requiem service, Te Deum, etc. They should not be invited to stand in the sanctuary
during the services. In general, any source of possible misunderstanding and misinterpretations must be
avoided.

These rules are in no way expressions of antipathy towards the non-Orthodox. On the contrary, genuine
love is incompatible with hypocrisy, with self-deceit and the deception of others, with the replacement of
reality by fiction. No superficial sharing in externals and ceremonials can bring us closer to real unity for it
obscures and betrays the sacred essence of unity.

In the free and tolerant American society, all paths are open for us to confirm the truth. May freedom and
tolerance be not a pretext for indifference and irresponsibility, but a blessed condition for the achievement of
truth and genuine unity in this truth.

As your Archpastors, we consider it our duty to tell you that it is our task to combine Christ's love with the
Truth of Christ's Church. We call all of you to the genuine service of the holy task of reuniting all men in the
One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

"The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father and the communion of the Holy Spirit
be with all of you, "II Corinthians 13:13).

The Members of the Great Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America
(The Metropolia):

Humbly,

Signed by the following bishops:

 Archbishop Irenaeus of America and Canada (President)

 Archbishop John of Chicago and Minneapolis
 Archbishop John of San Francisco and Western America
 Archbishop Nicon of Brooklyn
 Archbishop Sylvester of Montreal and Canada
 Bishop Ambrose of Pittsburgh and West Virginia
 Bishop Cyprian of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania
 Bishop Theodosius of Sitka and Alaska
 Bishop Joasaph of Edmonton

3. THE ACT OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH ABROAD (1983)

In 1983 the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (also known as the Russian
Orthodox Church in Exile or the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia), presided over by Metropolitan
Philaret of New York, assembled and hurled the following anathema against Ecumenism.  [From The
Struggle Against Ecumenism, The Holy Orthodox Church in North America, Boston, Massachusetts, 1998,
p. 132-33]:

The Declaration Against Ecumenism - By the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad

To those who attack the Church of Christ by teaching that Christ's Church is divided into so-called branches
which differ in doctrine and way of life, or that the Church does not exist visibly, but will be formed in the
future when all branches or sects or denominations, and even religions will be united into one body; and who
do not distinguish the priesthood and mysteries of the Church from those of the heretics, but say that the
baptism and eucharist of heretics is effectual for salvation; therefore, to those who knowingly have
communion with these aforementioned heretics or who advocated, disseminate, or defend their new heresy
of Ecumenism under the pretext of brotherly love or the supposed unification of separated Christians:
Anathema! 

 Metropolitan Philaret of New York and Eastern America (President)

 Archbishop Seraphim of Chicago and Detroit
 Archbishop Athanasius of Buenos Aires and Argentina-Paraguay
 Archbishop Vitaly of Montreal and Canada
 Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles and Texas
 Archbishop Anthony of Geneva and Western Europe
 Archbishop Anthony of San Francisco and Western America
 Archbishop Seraphim of Caracas and Venezuela
 Archbishop Paul of Sydney and Australia-New Zealand
 Archbishop Laurus of Syracuse and Holy Trinity Monastery
 Bishop Constantine of Richmond and Britain
 Bishop Gregory of Washington and Florida
 Bishop Mark of Berlin and Germany
 Bishop Alypius of Cleveland

4. THE ACT OF THE TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH OF GREECE (1985)

In 1985, the Holy Synod of the True Orthodox Church of Greece, presided over by His Beatitude,
Archbishop Andrew of Athens and all Greece, hurled the following set of anathemas against the New
Calendarists, Modernists and Ecumenists.  [From "The Herald of the True Orthodox," 1985, p. 58-59 (in
Greek)]:

The Declaration Against Ecumenism - By the True Orthodox Church of Greece

To the heretical ecumenistic encyclical of 1920, this statutory charter of the schismato-heresy of new
calendarism and ecumenism, together with those who wrote it, and those who accept it, and those who
proceed according to its commands: Anathema!

To the Masonic and ecumenistic Congress of Constantinople of 1923, whereby the introduction of the
accursed innovation of the new Papal Calendar into Orthodoxy was decided for the common concelebration
of the feasts with the heretics, marking her commencement in the heresy of ecumenism or the so-called
Pan-Christian unity: Anathema!

To the resolution of the fifth hierarchy, whereby Chrysostom Papadopoulos decided upon the introduction of
new calendarism, as the first step of enforcing the obscure schemes of Freemasonry and ecumenism:
Anathema!
To the resolution in March of 1924, of the outrageous fighter against Orthodoxy, Chrysostom Papadopoulos,
whereby he forcefully imposed the innovation and schismato-heresy of new calendarism and ecumenism:
Anathema!

To those who outrageously fought against Orthodoxy: Meletius Metaxakis, Chrysostom Papadopoulos, Basil
II, Athenagoras, and all who are of like mind as them, who likewise intentionally served, and continue to
serve, the God-hated work of ecumenism until this very day: Anathema!

 Archbishop Andrew of Athens and all Greece (President)

 Metropolitan Epiphanius of Citium and all Cyprus
 Metropolitan Eumenius of Heraclium and all Crete
 Metropolitan Gregory of Messenia
 Metropolitan Matthew of Attica and Megaris
 Metropolitan Nicholas of Piraeus and Islands
 Bishop Lazarus of Bresthena
 Bishop Theodosius of Phthiotis
 Bishop Pachomius of Argolis
 Bishop Titus of Serbiae and Cozane
 Archimandrite Chrysostom Metropoulos (Head Secretary)
 Hieromonk Cerycus Kontogiannis (on behalf of the priests)
 Monk Theodulus Demetropoulos (on behalf of the monks)
 Professor Eleutherius Goutzides (on behalf of the laymen)

http://www.orthodoxfaith.com/ecumenism_philaret.html

The Three Sorrowful Epistles of Metropolitan Philaret

to the Hierarchs of World Orthodoxy
1. THE FIRST SORROWFUL EPISTLE (1965):

A Protest to Patriarch Athenagoras on the Lifting of the Anathemas of 1054

December 2/15, 1965

Your Holiness,

We have inherited a legacy from the Holy Fathers that everything in the Church should be done in a legal
way, unanimously, and conforming to ancient Traditions. If any of the bishops and even primates of one of
the autocephalous churches does something which is not in agreement with the teaching of the whole
Church, every member of the Church may protest against it. The 15th Canon of the First and Second
Council of Constantinople of the year 861 describes as "worthy to enjoy the honour which befits them
among Orthodox Christians" those bishops and clergymen who secede from communion even with their
patriarch if he publicly preaches heresy and openly teaches it in church. In that way we are all guardians of
the truth of the Church, which was always protected through the care that nothing of general importance for
the Church would be done without the consent of all.

Therefore our attitude toward various schisms outside of the local limits of particular autocephalous
churches was never determined otherwise than by the common consensus of these churches.

If in the beginning our separation from Rome was declared in Constantinople, then later on it became a
matter of concern to the whole Orthodox world. None of the autocephalous churches, and specifically not
the highly esteemed Church of Constantinople from which our Russian Church has received the treasure of
Orthodoxy, may change anything in this matter without the foregoing consent of everybody. Moreover we,
the bishops ruling at present, may not make decisions with reference to the West which would disagree with
the teaching of the Holy Fathers who lived before us, specifically the Saints Photios of Constantinople and
Mark of Ephesus.

In the light of these principles, although being the youngest of the primates, as the head of the free
autonomous part of the Church of Russia, we regard it our duty to state our categorical protest against the
action of Your Holiness with reference to your simultaneous solemn declaration with the Pope of Rome in
regard to the removal of the sentence of excommunication made by Patriarch Michael Cerularius in 1054.

We heard many expressions of perplexity when Your Holiness in the face of the whole world performed
something quite new and uncommon to your predecessors as well as inconsistent with the 10th Canon of
the Holy Apostles at your meeting with the Pope of Rome, Paul VI, in Jerusalem. We have heard that after
that, many monasteries on the Holy Mount of Athos have refused to mention your name at religious
services. Let us say frankly, the confusion was great. But now Your Holiness is going even further when,
only by your own decision with the bishops of your Synod, you cancel the decision of Patriarch Michael
Cerularius accepted by the whole Orthodox East. In that way Your Holiness is acting contrary to the attitude
accepted by the whole of our Church in regard to Roman Catholicism. It is not a question of this or that
evaluation of the behaviour of Cardinal Humbert. It is not a matter of a personal controversy between the
Pope and the Patriarch which could be easily remedied by their mutual Christian forgiveness; no, the
essence of the problem is in the deviation from Orthodoxy which took root in the Roman Church during the
centuries, beginning with the doctrine of the infallibility of the Pope which was definitively formulated at the
First Vatican Council. The declaration of Your Holiness and the Pope with good reason recognises your
gesture of "mutual pardon" as insufficient to end both old and more recent differences. But more than that,
your gesture puts a sign of equality between error and truth. For centuries all the Orthodox Church believed
with good reason that it has violated no doctrine of the Holy Ecumenical Councils; whereas the Church of
Rome has introduced a number of innovations in its dogmatic teaching. The more such innovations were
introduced, the deeper was to become the separation between the East and the West. The doctrinal
deviations of Rome in the eleventh century did not yet contain the errors that were added later. Therefore,
the cancellation of the mutual excommunication of 1054 could have been of meaning at that time; but now it
is only an evidence of indifference in regard to the most important errors, namely new doctrines foreign to
the ancient Church, of which some, having been exposed by St. Mark of Ephesus, were the reason why the
Church rejected the Union of Florence.

We declare firmly and categorically:

No union of the Roman Church with us is possible until it renounces its new doctrines, and no communion in
prayer can be restored with it without a decision of all churches, which, however, can hardly be possible
before the liberation of the Church of Russia which at present has to live in catacombs. The hierarchy which
is now under Patriarch Alexis cannot express the true voice of the Russian Church because it is under full
control of the godless government. Primates of some other churches in countries dominated by communists
also are not free.

Whereas the Vatican is not only a religious center but also a state, and whereas relations with it have also a
political nature, as is evident from the visit of the Pope to the United Nations, one must reckon with the
possibility of an influence in some sense of the godless authorities in the matter of the Church of Rome.
History testifies to the fact that negotiations with the heterodox under pressure of political factors never
brought the Church anything but confusion and schisms. Therefore we find it necessary to make a statement
that our Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia as well as, certainly, the Russian Church which is at
present in the catacombs, will not consent to any "dialogues" with other confessions and beforehand rejects
any compromise with them, finding union with them possible only if they accept the Orthodox Faith as it is
maintained until now in the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. While this has not happened, the
excommunication proclaimed by the Patriarch Michael Cerularius is still valid, and the canceling of it by Your
Holiness is an act both illegal and void.

Certainly we are not opposed to benevolent relations with representatives of other confessions as long as
the truth of Orthodoxy is not betrayed. Therefore our Church in due time accepted the invitation to send its
observers to the Second Vatican Council, as well as it used to send observers to the Assemblies of the
World Council of Churches, in order to have firsthand information in regard to the work of these assemblies
without any participation in their deliberations.
We appreciate the kind reception of our observers, and we are studying with interest their reports showing
that many changes are being introduced into the Roman Church. We will thank God if these changes will
serve the cause of bringing it closer to Orthodoxy. However, if Rome has much to change in order to return
to the "expression of the Faith of the Apostles," the Orthodox Church, which has maintained that Faith
impeccable up to now, has nothing to change.

The Tradition of the Church and the example of the Holy Fathers teach us that the Church holds no dialogue
with those who have separated themselves from Orthodoxy. Rather than that, the Church addresses to them
a monologue inviting them to return to its fold through rejection of any dissenting doctrines.

A true dialogue implies an exchange of views with a possibility of persuading the participants to attain an
agreement. As one can perceive from the Encyclical "Ecclesiam Suam," Pope Paul VI understands the
dialogue as a plan for our union with Rome with the help of some formula which would, however, leave
unaltered its doctrines, and particularly its dogmatic doctrine about the position of the Pope in the Church.
However, any compromise with error is foreign to the history of the Orthodox Church and to the essence of
the Church. It could not bring a harmony in the confessions of the Faith, but only an illusory outward unity
similar to the conciliation of dissident Protestant communities in the ecumenical movement.

May such treason against Orthodoxy not enter between us.

We sincerely ask Your Holiness to put an end to the confusion, because the way you have chosen to follow,
even if it would bring you to a union with the Roman Catholics, would provoke a schism in the Orthodox
world. Surely even many of your spiritual children will prefer faithfulness to Orthodoxy instead of the idea of
a compromising union with the heterodox without their full harmony with us in the truth.

Asking for your prayers, I am your Holiness' humble servant,

 Metropolitan Philaret

President of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian

Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

2. THE SECOND SORROWFUL EPISTLE (1972):

The Second Sorrowful Epistle of Metropolitan Philaret of New York Primate of the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad

PRESIDENT
OF THE SYNOD OF BISHOPS
OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
OUTSIDE OF RUSSIA

75 EAST 93rd STREET, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10028

Telephone: LEhigh 4-1601

A SECOND SORROWFUL EPISTLE

TO THEIR HOLINESSES AND THEIR BEATITUDES

THE PRIMATES OF THE HOLY ORTHODOX CHURCHES
THE MOST REVEREND METROPOLITANS, ARCHBISHOPS, AND BISHOPS:

The People of the Lord residing in his Diocese are entrusted to the Bishop, and he will be required to give
account of their souls according to the 39th Apostolic Canon. The 34th Apostolic Canon orders that a Bishop
may do "those things only which concern his own Diocese and the territories belonging to it."
There are, however, occasions when events are of such a nature that their influence extends beyond the
limits of one Diocese, or indeed those of one or more of the local Churches. Events of such a general, global
nature can not be ignored by any Orthodox Bishop, who, as a successor of the Apostles, is charged with the
protection of his flock from various temptations. The lightening-like speed with which ideas may be spread in
our times make such care all the more imperative now.

In particular, our flock, belonging to the free part of the Church of Russia, is spread out all over the world.
What has just been stated, therefore, is most pertinent to it.

As a result of this, our Bishops, when meeting in their Councils, cannot confine their discussions to the
narrow limits of pastoral and administrative problems arising in their respective Dioceses, but must in
addition turn their attention to matters of a general importance to the whole Orthodox World, since the
affliction of one Church is as "an affliction unto them all, eliciting the compassion of them all" (Phil. 4:14-16;
Heb. 10:30). And if the Apostle St. Paul was weak with those who were weak and burning with those who
were offended, how then can we Bishops of God remain indifferent to the growth of errors which threaten
the salvation of the souls of many of our brothers in Christ?

It is in the spirit of such a feeling that we have already once addressed all the Bishops of the Holy Orthodox
Church with a Sorrowful Epistle. We rejoiced to learn that, in harmony with our appeal, several Metropolitans
of the Church of Greece have recently made reports to their Synod calling to its attention the necessity of
considering ecumenism a heresy and the advisability of reconsidering the matter of participation in the World
Council of Churches. Such healthy reactions against the spreading of ecumenism allow us to hope that the
Church of Christ will be spared this new storm which threatens her.

Yet, two years have passed since our Sorrowful Epistle was issued, and, alas! although in the Church of
Greece we have seen the new statements regarding ecumenism as un-Orthodox, no Orthodox Church has
announced its withdrawal from the World Council of Churches.

In the Sorrowful Epistle, we depicted in vivid colors to what extent the organic membership of the Orthodox
Church in that Council, based as it is upon purely Protestant principles, is contrary to the very basis of
Orthodoxy. In this Epistle, having been authorized by our Council of Bishops, we would further develop and
extend our warning, showing that the participants in the ecumenical movement are involved in a profound
heresy against the very foundation of the Church.

The essence of that movement has been given a clear definition by the statement of the Roman Catholic
theologian Ives M. J. Congar. He writes that "this is a movement which prompts the Christian Churches to
wish the restoration of the lost unity, and to that end to have a deep understanding of itself and
understanding of each other." He continues, "It is composed of all the feelings, ideas, actions or institutions,
meetings or conferences, ceremonies, manifestations and publications which are directed to prepare the
reunion in new unity not only of (separate) Christians, but also of the actually existing Churches." Actually,
he continues, "the word ecumenism, which is of Protestant origin, means now a concrete reality: the totality
of all the aforementioned upon the basis of a certain attitude and a certain amount of very definite conviction
(although not always very clear and certain). It is not a desire or an attempt to unite those who are regarded
as separated into one Church which would be regarded as the only true one. It begins at just that point
where it is recognized that, at the present state, none of the Christian confessions possesses the fullness of
Christianity, but even if one of them is authentic, still, as a confession, it does not contain the whole truth.
There are Christian values outside of it belonging not only to Christians who are separated from it in creed,
but also to other Churches and other confessions as such" (Chretiens Desunis, Ed. Unam Sanctam, Paris,
1937, pp. XI-XII). This definition of the ecumenical movement made by a Roman Catholic theologian 35
years ago continues to be quite as exact even now, with the difference that during the intervening years this
movement has continued to develop further with a newer and more dangerous scope.

In our first Sorrowful Epistle, we wrote in detail on how incompatible with our Ecclesiology was the
participation of Orthodox in the World Council of Churches, and presented precisely the nature of the
violation against Orthodoxy committed in the participation of our Churches in that council. We demonstrated
that the basic principles of that council are incompatible with the Orthodox doctrine of the Church. We,
therefore, protested against the acceptance of that resolution at the Geneva Pan-Orthodox Conference
whereby the Orthodox Church was proclaimed an organic member of the World Council of Churches.
Alas! These last few years are richly laden with evidence that, in their dialogues with the heterodox, some
Orthodox representatives have adopted a purely Protestant ecclesiology which brings in its wake a
Protestant approach to questions of the life of the Church, and from which springs forth the now-popular
modernism.

Modernism consists in that bringing-down, that re-aligning of the life of the Church according to the
principles of current life and human weaknesses. We saw it in the Renovation Movement and in the Living
Church in Russia in the twenties. At the first meeting of the founders of the Living Church on May 29, 1922,
its aims were determined as a "revision and change of all facets of Church life which are required by the
demands of current life" (The New Church, Prof. B. V. Titlinov, Petrograd-Moscow, 1923, p. 11). The Living
Church was an attempt at a reformation adjusted to the requirements of the conditions of a communist state.
Modernism places that compliance with the weaknesses of human nature above the moral and even
doctrinal requirements of the Church. In that measure that the world is abandoning Christian principles,
modernism debases the level of religious life more and more. Within the Western confessions we see that
there has come about an abolition of fasting, a radical shortening and vulgarization of religious services,
and, finally, full spiritual devastation, even to the point of exhibiting an indulgent and permissive attitude
toward unnatural vices of which St. Paul said it was shameful even to speak.

It was just modernism which was the basis of the Pan-Orthodox Conference of sad memory in
Constantinople in 1923, evidently not without some influence of the renovation experiment in Russia.
Subsequent to that conference, some Churches, while not adopting all the reforms which were there
introduced, adopted the Western calendar, and even, in some cases, the Western Paschalia. This, then,
was the first step onto the path of modernism of the Orthodox Church, whereby Her way of life was changed
in order to bring it closer to the way of life of heretical communities. In this respect, therefore, the adoption of
the Western Calendar was a violation of a principle consistent in the Holy Canons, whereby there is a
tendency to spiritually isolate the Faithful from those who teach contrary to the Orthodox Church, and not to
encourage closeness with such in our prayer-life (Titus 3:10; 10th, 45th, and 65th Apostolic Canons; 32nd,
33rd, and 37th Canons of Laodicea, etc.). The unhappy fruit of that reform was the violation of the unity of
the life in prayer of Orthodox Christians in various countries. While some of them were celebrating
Christmas together with heretics, others still fasted. Sometimes such a division occurred in the same local
Church, and sometimes Easter [Pascha] was celebrated according to the Western Paschal reckoning. For
the sake, therefore, of being nearer to the heretics, that principle, set forth by the First Ecumenical Council
that all Orthodox Christians should simultaneously, with one mouth and one heart, rejoice and glorify the
Resurrection of Christ all over the world, is violated.

This tendency to introduce reforms, regardless of previous general decisions and practice of the whole
Church in violation of the Second Canon of the VI Ecumenical Council, creates only confusion. His Holiness,
the Patriarch of Serbia, Gabriel, of blessed memory, expressed this feeling eloquently at the Church
Conference held in Moscow in 1948.

"In the last decades," he said, "various tendencies have appeared in the Orthodox Church which evoke
reasonable apprehension for the purity of Her doctrines and for Her dogmatical and canonical Unity.

"The convening by the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Pan-Orthodox Conference and the Conference at
Vatopedi, which had as their principal aim the preparing of the Prosynod, violated the unity and cooperation
of the Orthodox Churches. On the one hand, the absence of the Church of Russia at these meetings, and,
on the other, the hasty and unilateral actions of some of the local Churches and the hasty actions of their
representatives have introduced chaos and anomalies into the life of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

"The unilateral introduction of the Gregorian Calendar by some of the local Churches while the Old Calendar
was kept yet by others, shook the unity of the Church and incited serious dissension within those of them
who so lightly introduced the New Calendar" (Acts of the Conferences of the Heads and Representatives of
the Autocephalic Orthodox Churches, Moscow, 1949, Vol. II, pp. 447-448).

Recently, Prof. Theodorou, one of the representatives of the Church of Greece at the Conference in
Chambesy in 1968, noted that the calendar reform in Greece was hasty and noted further that the Church
there suffers even now from the schism it caused (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1969, No. 1, p. 51).
It could not escape the sensitive consciences of many sons of the Church that within the calendar reform,
the foundation is already laid for a revision of the entire order of Orthodox Church life which has been
blessed by the Tradition of many centuries and confirmed by the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils.
Already at that Pan-Orthodox Conference of 1923 at Constantinople, the questions of the second marriage
of clergy as well as other matters were raised. And recently, the Greek Archbishop of North and South
America, Iakovos, made a statement in favor of a married episcopate (The Hellenic Chronicle, December
23, 1971).

The strength of Orthodoxy has always lain in Her maintaining the principles of Church Tradition. Despite
this, there are those who are attempting to include in the agenda of a future Great Council not a discussion
of the best ways to safeguard those principles, but, on the contrary, ways to bring about a radical revision of
the entire way of life in the Church, beginning with the abolition of fasts, second marriages of the clergy, etc.,
so that Her way of life would be closer to that of the heretical communities.

In our first Sorrowful Epistle we have shown in detail the extent to which the principles of the World Council
of Churches are contrary to the doctrines of the Orthodox Church, and we protested against the decision
taken in Geneva at the Pan-Orthodox Conference declaring the Orthodox Church to be an organic member
of that council. Then we reminded all that, "the poison of heresy is not too dangerous when it is preached
outside the Church. Many times more perilous is that poison which is gradually introduced into the organism
in larger and larger doses by those who, in virtue of their position, should not be poisoners but spiritual
physicians."

Alas! Of late we see the symptoms of such a great development of ecumenism with the participation of the
Orthodox, that it has become a serious threat, leading to the utter annihilation of the Orthodox Church by
dissolving Her in an ocean of heretical communities.

The problem of unity is not discussed now on the level at which it used to be considered by the Holy
Fathers. For them unity with the heretics required them to accept the whole of Orthodox doctrine and their
return to the fold of the Orthodox Church. Under the prism of the ecumenical movement, however, it is
understood that both sides are equally right and wrong; this is applicable to both Roman Catholics and
Protestants. Patriarch Athenagoras clearly expressed this in his speech greeting Cardinal Willebrands in
Constantinople on November 30, 1969. The Patriarch expressed the wish that the Cardinal's activities would
"mark a new epoch of progress not only in regard to the two of our Churches, but also of all Christians." The
Patriarch gave the definition of the new approach to the problem of unity by saying that, "None of us is
calling the other to himself, but, like Peter and Andrew, we both direct ourselves to Jesus, the only and
mutual Lord, Who unites us into oneness" (Tomos Agapis, Rome-lstanbul, Document No. 274, pp. 588-589).

The recent exchange of letters between Paul Vl, the Pope of Rome, and the Patriarch Athenagoras further
elaborates and develops this unorthodox idea to our great vexation. Encouraged by various statements of
the Primate of the Church of Constantinople, the Pope wrote to him on February 8, 1971: ''We remind the
believers assembled in the Basilica of St. Peter on the Week of Unity that between our Church and the
venerable Orthodox Churches there is an already existing, nearly complete communion, though not fully
complete, resulting from our common participation in the mystery of Christ and His Church" (Tomos Agapis,
pp.614-615).

A doctrine, new for Roman Catholicism but of long-standing acceptance for Protestanism, is contained in
these words. According to it, the separations existing between Christians on earth is actually illusory—they
do not reach the heavens. So it is that the words of our Savior regarding the chastisement of those who
disobey the Church (Matt. 18:18) are set at naught and regarded as without validity. Such a doctrine is novel
not only for us Orthodox, but for the Roman Catholics as well, whose thought on this matter, so different
from that of the present, was expressed in 1928 in Pope Pius IX,s Encyclical Mortaliun Animos. Though the
Roman Catholics are of those "without" (I Cor. 5:13), and we are not directly concerned with changing trends
in their views, their advance nearer to Protestant ecclesiology interests us only insofar as it coincides with
the simultaneous acceptance of similar attitudes by Constantinople. Ecumenists of Orthodox background
and ecumenists of Protestant-Roman Catholic background arrive at a unanimity of opinion in the same
heresy.

Patriarch Athenagoras answered the above quoted letter of the Pope on March 21, 1971, in a similar spirit.
When quoting his words, we will italicize the most important phrases. While the Pope, who is not interested
in dogmatical harmony, invites the Patriarch "to do all that is possible to speed that much desired day when,
at the conclusion of a common concelebration, we will be made worthy to communicate together of the
same Cup of the Lord" (ibid.); the Patriarch answered in the same spirit addressing the Pope as ''elder
brother" and saying that," . . . following the holy desire of the Lord Who would that His Church be One,
visible to the entire world, so that the entire world would fit in Her, we constantly and unremittingly surrender
ourselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit unto the firm continuation and completion of the now-begun and
developing holy work begun with You in our common Holy desire, to make visible and manifest unto the
world the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ" (ibid., pp. 618-619).

Further on the Patriarch writes: "Truly, even though the Church of both east and west have been estranged
from each other for offenses known but to the Lord, they are not virtually separated from the communion in
the mystery of the God-man Jesus and His Divine-human Church" (ibid., pp. 620).

The Patriarch bitterly mentions that "we were estranged from reciprocal love and the blessed gift of
confession in oneness of mind of the faith of Christ was taken from us." He says that, "we were deprived of
the blessing of going up together to the one altar .... and of the full and together communion of the same
eucharistic honorable Body and Blood, even though we did not cease to recognize each in the other the
validity of apostolic priesthood and the validity of the mystery of the Divine Eucharist" (ibid.). It is at this point
in time, however, that the Patriarch notes that, "we are called positively to proceed to the final union in
concelebration and communion of the honorable Blood of Christ from the same holy cup" (ibid., pp. 620-
623).

In this letter many un-Orthodox ideas are expressed, which, if taken to their logical end, lead us to the most
disastrous conclusions. It follows from the quoted words that the ecumenists led by Patriarch Athenagoras
do not believe in the Church as She was founded by the Savior. Contrary to His word (Matt. 16:18), that
Church no longer exists for them, and the Pope and Patriarch together would "make visible and manifest" a
new church which would encompass the whole of mankind. Is it not dreadful to hear these words "make
visible and manifest" from the mouth of an Orthodox Patriarch? Is it not a renunciation of the existing Church
of Christ? Is it possible to render a new church visible without first renouncing that very Church which was
created by the Lord? But for those who belong to Her and who believe in Her, there is no need to make
visible and manifest any new Church. Yet even the "old" Church of the Holy Apostles and Fathers is
presented by the Pope and the Patriarch in a distorted manner so as to create the illusion in the mind of the
reader that She is somehow connected with the new church that they wish to create. To that end they
attempt to present the separation between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism as if it never existed.

In their common prayer in the Basilica of St. Peter, Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul Vl stated that they
find themselves already united "in the proclamation of the same Gospel, in the same baptism, in the same
sacraments and the charismas" (ibid., p.660).

But even if the Pope and Patriarch have declared to be null and void the Anathemas which have existed for
nine centuries, does this mean that the reasons for pronouncing them, which are known to all, have ceased
to exist? Does this mean that the errors of the Latins which one was required to renounce upon entering the
Church no longer exist?

The Roman Catholic Church with which Patriarch Athenagoras would establish liturgical communion, and
with which, through the actions of Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad and others, the Moscow Patriarchate
has already entered into communion, is not even that same church with which the Orthodox Church led by
St. Mark of Ephesus refused to enter into a union. That church is even further away from Orthodoxy now,
having introduced even more new doctrines and having accepted more and more the principles of
reformation, ecumenism and modernism.

In a number of decisions of the Orthodox Church the Roman Catholics were regarded as heretics. Though
from time to time they were accepted into the Church in a manner such as that applied to Arians, it is to be
noted that for many centuries and even in our time the Greek Churches accepted them by Baptism. If after
the centuries following 1054 the Latins were accepted into the Greek and Russian Churches by two rites,
that of Baptism or of Chrismation, it was because although everyone recognized them to be heretics, a
general rule for the entire Church was not yet established in regard to the means of their acceptance. For
instance, when in the beginning of the XII century the Serbian Prince and father of Stephan Nemania was
forced into having his son baptized by the Latins upon his subsequent return later to Rasa he baptized him
in the Orthodox Church (Short Outline of the Orthodox Churches, Bulgarian, Serbian and Rumanian, E. E.
Golubinsky, Moscow, 1871, p. 551). In another monumental work, The History of the Russian Church (Vols.
I/II, Moscow, 1904, pp. 806-807), Professor Golubinsky, in describing the stand taken by the Russian
Church in regard to the Latins, advances many facts indicating that in applying various ways in receiving the
Latins into the fold of the Orthodox Church, at some times baptizing them and at others chrismating them,
both the Greeks and Russian Churches assumed that they were heretics.

Therefore, the statement that during those centuries "we did not cease to recognize each in the other the
validity of apostolic priesthood and the validity of the mystery of the Divine Eucharist" is absolutely
inconsistent with historical fact. The separation between us and Rome existed and exists; further, it is not
illusory but actual. The separation appears illusory to those who give no weight to the words of the Savior
spoken to His Holy Apostles and through them, to their successors: "Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye
shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in
heaven" (Matt. 18:18).

The Savior says, "Verily I say unto you," and the Patriarch contradicts Him and declares His words to be
untrue. It must be concluded from the Patriarch's words that, although the Latins were regarded as heretics
by the whole Orthodox Church, although they could not receive Holy Communion, even though they were
accepted into the Church over many centuries by Baptism—and we know of no decision in the East
reversing this stand—still, they continued to be members of the Corpus Christi and were not separated from
the Sacraments of the Church. In such a statement there is no logic. It evidences a loss of contact with the
actual history of the Church. It presents us with an example of application in practice of the Protestant
doctrine according to which excommunication from the Church because of dogmatical error does not bar the
one excommunicated from membership in Her. In other words, it means that "communion in the mystery of
the God-man Jesus" does not necessarily depend upon membership in the Orthodox Church.

In an attempt to find some justification for their ecumenical theory, they are trying to convince us that
membership in the Church without full dogmatic agreement with Her was permitted in the past. In his official
statement at the Phanar, made when his letter to the Pope was published, Patriarch Athenagoras tried to
convince us that notwithstanding the facts mentioned earlier, the Eastern Church did not rupture its
communion with Rome, even when dogmatical dissent was obvious.

One can indeed find some solitary instances of communion. In some places even after 1054, some Eastern
hierarchs may not have hastened to brand as heresy various wrong doctrines that appeared in the Church of
Rome.

But a long ailment before death is still a disease, and the death it causes remains a death, however long it
took for it to come to pass. In the case of Rome that process was already evident at the time of St. Photios,
but only later, in 1054, did it become a final separation.

The exchange of letters between the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope of Rome have made it
necessary for us to dwell to no little extent upon the relationship of the Orthodox Church toward the Latins.
But Patriarch Athenagoras goes yet beyond equating Papism with Orthodoxy. We speak here of his
statement to Roge Schutz, a pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of Switzerland. "I wish to make you
an avowal," he said. "You are a priest. I could receive from your hands the Body and Blood of Christ." On
the next day he added, "I could make my confession to you" (Le Monde, May 21, 1970).

Ecumenists of Orthodox background are willing to undermine even the authority of the Ecumenical Councils
in order to achieve communion with heretics. This happened during the dialogue with the Monophysites. At
the meeting with them in Geneva, a clear Orthodox position was held actually only by one or two of the
participants, while the rest manifested the typical ecumenistic tendency to accomplish intercommunion at
any cost, even without the attainment of a full dogmatic agreement between the Orthodox and
Monophysites. Rev. Dr. John Romanides, the representative of the Church of Greece, was fully justified in
stating the following of the Orthodox members at the conference: "We have all along been the object of an
ecumenical technique which aims at the accomplishment of intercommunion or communion or union without
an agreement on Chalcedon and the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Ecumenical Councils (Minutes of the
Conference in Geneva, The Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Vol. XVI, p. 30). As a result of such
tactics, one of the resolutions of this conference is actually an agreement to investigate the possibility of
drawing up a formula of Concord which would not be a dogmatical statement on the level of a confession of
faith, but would rather serve as a basis upon which the Orthodox and the Monophysites could proceed
toward union in a common Eucharist (ibid., p. 6).
Despite the categorical statements on the part of the Monophysites that on no account would they accept
Chalcedon and the rest of the Ecumenical Councils, the Orthodox delegation signed a resolution recognizing
it as unnecessary that the Anathemas be lifted, or that the Orthodox accept Dioscorus and Severus as
saints, or that the Monophysites acknowledge Pope Leo to be a saint. The restoration of communion,
however, would bear with it the implication that the Anathemas on both sides would cease to be in effect
(ibid., p. 6).

At yet another conference in Addis Abbaba, the un-Orthodox statements of representatives of the Orthodox
Churches were buttressed by Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad and Rev. V. Borovoy, resulting in a
resolution that the mutual Anathemas simply be dropped. "Should there be a formal declaration or ceremony
in which the Anathemas are lifted? Many of us felt that it is much simpler to drop these Anathemas in a quiet
way as some Churches have begun to do" (ibid., p. 211).

Here again we see in practice the Protestant concept of ecclesiology whereby the excommunication of one
for dogmatical error does not prevent heretics from belonging to the Church. Rev. Vitaly Borovoy clearly
expresses this attitude in his paper "The Recognition of Saints and the Problem of Anathemas" presented at
the conference at Addis Abbaba, clearly asserting that both Monophysites and Roman Catholics are full-
fledged members of the Body of Christ. He claims that Orthodox, Roman Catholics and Monophysites have
"one Holy Writ, one Apostolic Tradition and sacred origin, the same sacraments, and in essence, a single
piety and a single way of salvation" (ibid., p. 246). With such attitudes, is it any surprise that compromise
reigns supreme in the relationship between the Orthodox promoters of ecumenism and the Roman
Catholics, Protestants and Anti-Chalcedonians?

Outdoing even Patriarch Athenagoras, Metropolitan Nikodim, the representative of the Moscow Patriarchate
gave communion to Roman Catholic clergymen in the Cathedral of St. Peter on December 14, 1970. He
served the Divine Liturgy there, while in violation of Canons, a choir of the students of the Pontifical College
sang and Latin clergymen accepted communion from his hands (Diakonia No. 1, 1971).

Yet, behind these practical manifestations of the so-called ecumenical movement, other broader aims are
discernible which lead to the utter abolition of the Orthodox Church.

Both the World Council of Churches and the dialogues between various Christian confessions, and even
with other religions (such as, for instance, Islam and Judaism) are links in a chain which in the manner of
thinking of ecumenists must grow to include all of mankind. This tendency is already evident at the
Assembly of the World Council of Churches at Uppsala in 1967.

According to ecumenists, all this could be accomplished by a special Council, which in their eye would be
truly "ecumenical" since they do not recognize the historical Ecumenical Councils as being truly so. The
formula is given in the Roman Catholic ecumenical Journal Irenicon, and is as follows:

1. The accomplishment of gestures of reconciliation for which the lifting of the Anathemas of 1054 between
Rome and Constantinople can serve as an example.

2. Communion in the Eucharist; in other words a positive solution to the problem of intercommunion.

3. Acceptance of a clear understanding that we all belong to a universal (Christian) entity which should give
place to diversity.

4. That Council should be a token of the unity of men in Christ (Irenicon, No. 3, 1971, pp. 322-323).

The same article states that the Roman Catholic Secretariat for Union is working to achieve the same result
as Cardinal Willibrands said at Evian. And the Assembly on Faith and Constitution has chosen as its main
theme "The Unity of the Church and the Unity of Mankind." According to a new definition, everything relates
to ecumenism "which is connected with the renewal and reunion of the Church as a ferment of the growth of
the Kingdom of God in the world of men who are seeking their unity" (Service d'information, No. 9, February,
1970, pp. 10-11). At the conference of the Central Committee in Addis Abbaba, Metropolitan George Khodre
made a report which actually tends to connect the Church in some way with all religions. He would see the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit even in non-Christian religions so that, according to him, when we communicate
of the Body of Christ we are united to all whom our Lord embraces in His love toward mankind (Irenikon,
1971, No. 2, pp. 191-202).

This is where the Orthodox Church is being drawn. Outwardly this movement is manifested by unending
"dialogues"; Orthodox representatives are engaged in dialogues with Roman Catholics and Anglicans; they
in turn are in dialogue with each other, with Lutherans, other Protestants, and even with Jews, Moslems and
Buddhists.

Just recently, the Exarch of Patriarch Athenagoras in North and South America, Archbishop Iakovos, took
part in a dialogue with Jews. He noted that as far as he knew, at no other time in history has such "a
theological dialogue with Jews taken place under the sponsorship of the Greek Church." Besides matters of
a national character, "the group also agreed to examine liturgy, with Greek Orthodox scholars undertaking to
review their liturgical texts in terms of improving references to Jews and Judaism where they are found to be
negative or hostile" (Religious News Service, January 27, 1972, pp. 24-25). So it is that Patriarch
Athenagoras and other ecumenists do not limit their plans for unia to Roman Catholics and Protestants; their
plans are more ambitious.

We have already quoted the words of Patriarch Athenagoras that the Lord desires that "His Church be one,
visible to the entire world so that the entire world would fit within Her." A Greek theologian and former Dean
of the Theological Faculty in Athens writes in much the same vein. In evolving the ecumenical idea of the
Church, his thought arrives at the same far-reaching conclusions. He asserts that the enemies of
ecumenism are thwarting the will of God. According to him, God embraces all men in our planet as members
of His one Church yesterday, today and tomorrow as the fullness of that Church (Bulletin Typos Bonne
Presse, Athens, March-April 1971).

Although it is obvious to anyone with an elementary grasp of Orthodox Church doctrine that such a
conception of the Church differs greatly from that of the Holy Fathers, we find it necessary to underscore the
depth of the contradiction.

When and where did the Lord promise that the whole world could be united in the Church? Such an
expectation is nothing more than a chiliastic hope with no foundation in the Holy Gospels. All men are called
unto salvation; but by no means do all of them respond. Christ spoke of Christians as those given Him from
the world (John 17:6). He did not pray for the whole world but for those men given Him from the World. And
the apostle St. John teaches that the Church and the world are in opposition to each other, and he exhorts
the Christians, saying, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world,
the love of the Father is not in him" (I John 1:16). Concerning the sons of the Church, the Savior said, "They
are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John 17:16). In the persons of the Apostles the Savior
warned the Church that in the world She would have tribulation (John 16:33), explaining to His Disciples: "If
you were from the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I have
chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you" (John 15:19). In Holy Scriptures, therefore, we
see that a clear distinction is made between the sons of the Church and the rest of mankind. Addressing
himself to the faithful in Christ and distinguishing them from unbelievers, St. Peter writes, "But ye are a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a peculiar people" (I Peter 2:9).

We are in no manner assured in Scripture of the triumph of truth on earth before the end of the world. There
is no promise that the world will be transfigured into a church uniting all of mankind as fervent ecumenists
believe, but rather there is the warning that religion will be lacking in the last days and Christians will suffer
great sorrow and hatred on the part of all nations for the sake of our Savior's Name (Matt. 24:9-12). While all
of mankind sinned in the first Adam, in the second Adam—Christ—only that part of humanity is united in Him
which is "born again" (John 3:3 and 7). And although in the material world God "maketh His sun to rise on
the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matt. 4:45), He does not accept
the unjust into His Kingdom. Rather, He addresses them with these menacing words: "Not everyone who
saith unto me Lord, Lord shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father
which is in Heaven" (Matt. 7:21). Doubtlessly our Savior is addressing the heretics when He says: "Many
who say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out
devils, and in they name done many wonderful works? And them I will profess unto them, I never knew you:
depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (Matt. 7:22-23).

So it is that our Lord tells the heretics, "I never knew you"; yet Patriarch Athenagoras tries to convince us
that "they were not separated from the communion in the mystery of the God-man Jesus and His Divine-
human Church." It is the belief in the renewal of the whole of mankind within the new and universal church
that lends to ecumenism the nature a of chiliastic heresy, which becomes more and more evident in the
ecumenistic attempts to unite everyone, disregarding truth and error, and in their tendency to create not only
a new church, but a new world. The propagators of this heresy do not wish to believe that the earth and all
that is on it shall burn, the heavens shall pass away, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat (II Peter
3:1-12). They forget that it is after this that a new Heaven and a new Earth on which truth will abide will
come to be through the creative word of God—not the efforts of human organizations. Therefore the efforts
of Orthodox Christians should not be directed to the building of organizations, but toward becoming
inhabitants of the new Creation after the Final Judgment through living a pious life in the one true Church. In
the meantime, activities aimed at building the Kingdom of God on earth through a fraudulent union of various
confessions without regard for the Truth, which is kept only within the Tradition of the Holy Orthodox Church,
will only lead us away from the Kingdom of God and into the kingdom of the Antichrist.

It must be understood that the circumstance which prompted our Savior to wonder if at His Second Coming
He would find the Faith yet upon the earth is brought about not only by the direct propagation of atheism, but
also by the spread of ecumenism.

The history of the Church witnesses that Christianity was not spread by compromises and dialogues
between Christians and unbelievers, but through witnessing the truth and rejecting every lie and every error.
It might be noted that generally no religion has ever been spread by those who doubted its full truth. The
new, all-encompassing "church" which is being erected by the ecumenists is of the nature of that Church of
Laodicea exposed in the Book of Revelation: she is lukewarm, neither hot nor cold toward the Truth, and it is
to this new "church" that the words addressed by the Angel to the Laodicean Church of old might now be
applied: "So that because thou are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth"
(Rev. 3:16). Therefore because they have not received "the love that they might be saved," instead of a
religious revival this "church" exhibits that of which the Apostle warned: "And for this cause God shall send
them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believe not the truth,
but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (II Thes. 2:10-12).

It is, therefore, upon the grounds stated above that the Most Reverend Members of our Council of Bishops
unanimously agreed to recognize ecumenism as a dangerous heresy. Having observed its spread, they
asked us to share our observation with our Brother Bishops throughout the world.

We ask them first of all to pray that the Lord spare His Holy Church the storm which would be caused by this
new heresy, opening the spiritual eyes of all unto understanding of truth in the face of error.

May our Lord help each of us to preserve the Truth in the purity in which it was entrusted to us undefiled,
and to nurture our flocks in its fidelity and piety.

 Metropolitan Philaret

3. THE THIRD SORROWFUL EPISTLE (1975):

The Third Sorrowful Epistle of Metropolitan Philaret of New York Primate of the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad

"The Thyateira Confession"

by Metropolitan Philaret
Chief Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

An Appeal to the Primates of the Holy Churches of God, and their Eminences the Orthodox Hierarchs
Instructing us to preserve firmly in everything the Orthodox Faith which has been commanded us, the Holy
Apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians: But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any
gospel other than that which we preached unto you, let him be anathema (Gal. 1:8). His disciple Timothy he
taught to remain in that in which he had been instructed by him and in that which had been entrusted to him,
knowing by whom he had been instructed (II Tim. 3:14). This is a pointer which every Hierarch of the
Orthodox Church must follow and to which he is obligated by the oath given by him at his consecration. The
Apostle writes that a Hierarch should be one holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he
may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convict the gainsayers (Titus 1:9).

At the present time of universal wavering, disturbance of minds and corruption, it is especially demanded of
us that we should confess the true teaching of the Church no matter what might be the person of those who
listen and despite the unbelief which surrounds us. If for the sake of adaptation to the errors of this age we
shall be silent about the truth or give a corrupt teaching in the name of pleasing this world, then we would
actually be giving to those who seek the truth a stone in place of bread. The higher is the standing of one
who acts in this way, the greater the scandal that is produced by him, and the more serious can be the
consequences.

For this reason a great sorrow has been evoked in us by the reading of the so-called "Thyateira
Confession," which was recently published in Europe with the special blessing and approval of the Holy
Synod and the Patriarch of the Church of Constantinople.*

We know that the author of this book, His Eminence Metropolitan Athenagoras of Thyateira, previously has
shown himself to be a defender of Orthodox truth, and therefore all the less could we have expected from
him such a confession, which is far removed from Orthodoxy. However, if this had been only a personal
expression of his, we would not have written about it. We are moved to do this, rather, because on his work
there rests the seal of approval of the whole Church of Constantinople in the person of Patriarch Demetrius
and his Synod. In a special Patriarchal Protocol addressed to Metropolitan Athenagoras it is stated that his
work was examined by a special Synodical Committee. After approval of it by this Committee, the Patriarch,
in accordance with the decree of the Synod, gave his blessing for the publication of "this excellent work," as
he writes. Therefore, the responsibility for this work is transferred from Metropolitan Athenagoras now to the
whole hierarchy of Constantinople.

Our previous "Sorrowful Epistles" have already expressed the grief which takes possession of us when, from
the throne of Sts. Proclus, John Chrysostom, Tarasius, Photius, and many other Holy Fathers we hear a
teaching which without doubt they would have condemned and given over to anathema.

It is painful to write this. How we would have wished to hear from the throne of the Church of
Constantinople, which gave birth to our Russian Church, a message of the Church’s righteousness and of
confession of the truth in the spirit of her great hierarchs! With what joy we would have accepted such a
message and transmitted it for the instruction of our pious flock! But on the contrary, a great grief is evoked
in us by the necessity to warn our flock that from this one-time fount of Orthodox confession there now
comes forth a message of corruption that causes scandal.

If one turns to the "Thyateira Confession" itself, alas, there are so many internal contradictions and un-
Orthodox thoughts there that in order to enumerate them we would have to write a whole book. We presume
that there is no need to do this. It is sufficient for us to point out the chief thing, that upon which is built and
from whence proceeds the whole of the un-Orthodox thought which is contained in this confession.

Metropolitan Athenagoras in one place (p. 60) writes, with full justification, that Orthodox Christians believe
that their Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church and transmits the fullness of Catholic truth.
He likewise acknowledges that the other confessions have not preserved this fullness. But later he as it were
forgets that if any teaching departs in any respect from the truth, by this very fact it is false. Belonging to a
religious communion which confesses such a teaching, people by this are already separated from the one
true Church. Metropolitan Athenagoras is ready to acknowledge this with regard to such ancient heretics as
the Arians, but when speaking about his contemporaries he does not wish to take their heresy into
consideration. And with regard to them he calls us to be guided not by ancient tradition and canons, but by
the "new understanding which prevails today among Christians" (p. 12) and by "the signs of our time" (p.
11).
Is this in accordance with the teaching of the Holy Fathers? Let us recall that the first Canon of the Seventh
Ecumenical Council gives us a completely different criterion for the direction of our church thought and
church life. "For those who have received the priestly dignity," it is stated there, "the canons and decrees
which have been set down serve for witness and guidance." And further: "The Divine canons we accept with
pleasure and hold entirely and unwaveringly the decrees of these canons which have been set forth by the
all-praised Apostles, the holy trumpets of the Spirit, and by the Six Holy Ecumenical Councils, and by those
who have gathered in various places for the publication of such commandments, and by our Holy Fathers.
For all of these, being enlightened by one and the same Spirit, have decreed what is profitable."

In defiance of this principle, in the "Thyateira Confession" emphasis is made the whole time on the "new
understanding." "Christian people," it says there, "now visit churches and pray with other Christians of
various traditions with whom they were forbidden in the past to associate, for they were called heretics" (p.
12 ).

But who was it that previously forbade these prayers? Was it not the Sacred Scripture, not the Holy Fathers,
not the Ecumenical Councils? And is the matter really one of those who were only called heretics and were
not such in actual fact? The first Canon of Basil the Great gives a clear definition of the naming of heretics:
"They (that is, the Holy Fathers) have called heretics those who have completely broken away and have
become aliens in faith itself." Does this really not refer to those Western confessions that have fallen away
from the Orthodox Church?

The Holy Apostle Paul instructs us: A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject (Tit.
3:10), while the "Thyateira Confession" calls us to a religious coming together and communion in prayer with
them.

The 45th Canon of the Holy Apostles commands: "Let a bishop, presbyter, or deacon who has only prayed
with heretics be suspended." The 64th Canon of the Apostles and the 33rd Canon of the Council of Laodicea
speak of the same thing. The 32nd Canon of the latter prohibits receiving a blessing from heretics. The
"Thyateira Confession," on the contrary, calls to prayer together with them and goes so far that it even
allows Orthodox Christians both to receive communion from them and to give it to them.

Metropolitan Athenagoras himself gives the information that in the Anglican Confession a large part of the
bishops and believers do not acknowledge either the grace of the hierarchy, nor the sanctity of the
Ecumenical Councils, nor the transformation of the Gifts at the Liturgy, nor other Mysteries, nor the
veneration of holy relics. The author of the "Confession" himself points to those articles of the "Anglican
Confession" in which this is expressed. And yet, disdaining all this, he allows Orthodox Christians to receive
communion from Anglicans and Catholics and finds it possible to give them communion in the Orthodox
Church.

Upon what is such a practice based? On the teaching of the Holy Fathers? On the canons? No. The only
basis for this is the fact that such a lawless thing has already been done and that there exists a "friendship"
which has been manifested by the Anglicans for the Orthodox.

However, no matter what position might be occupied by one who allows an act forbidden by the canons, and
no matter what kind of friendship might be the cause which has inspired this—this cannot be a justification
for a practice condemned by the canons. What answer will be given to the Heavenly Judge by the hierarchs
who advise their spiritual children to receive, in place of true communion, that which often the very ones who
give it do not acknowledge as the Body and Blood of Christ?

Such a lawless thing proceeds from the completely heretical, Protestant, or—to express oneself in
contemporary language—ecumenical teaching of the "Thyateira Confession" regarding the Holy Church. It
sees no boundaries in the Church. "The Holy Spirit," we read there, "is active both within the Church and
outside the Church. For this reason its limits are ever extended and its bounds are nowhere. The Church
has a door but no walls" (p. 77). But if the Spirit of God acts alike both within the Church and outside it, why
then was it necessary for the Savior to come to earth and found it?

The care for the preservation and confession of the authentic truth, a care which has been handed down to
us by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Apostles and Holy Fathers, turns out to be superfluous in this
conception. Although the "Confession" does say on page 60 that the Orthodox Church can "rightly claim at
this moment of history to be the One Church that Christ the Son of God founded upon earth," it does not see
any necessity for the inviolate preservation of her faith, allowing thereby the co-existence of truth and error.

Despite the words of the Apostle, that Christ has presented her to Himself as a glorious Church, not having
spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing (Eph 5:27), the "Thyateira Confession" presents the Church as uniting in
herself both truth and that which it itself acknowledges as apostasy from it, that is, heresy, although the latter
expression is not used here. The refutation of such a teaching was clearly expressed in the renowned
Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs on the Orthodox Faith: "We undoubtingly confess, as firm truth. that the
Catholic Church cannot error go astray, and utter falsehood in place of truth: for the Holy Spirit, always
active through the Fathers and teachers of the Church who faithfully serve her, preserves her from every
error" (Sect. 12).

Submitting to the new dogma of pleasing the times, the author of the "Thyateira Confession" clearly forgets
the instruction of the Savior that if your brother neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a
heathen and a publican (Matt. 18:17), and the same instruction of the Apostle: A heretic, after the first and
second admonition, reject (Tit. 3:10).

Therefore, with great sorrow we must acknowledge that in the so-called "Thyateira Confession" there has
resounded from Constantinople not the voice of Orthodox truth, but rather the voice of the ever more
widespread error of ecumenism.

But what will be done now by those whom the Holy Spirit hath made overseers, to shepherd the Church of
God, which He hath purchased with His own blood (Acts 20:28)? Will this false teaching, officially
proclaimed in the name of the whole Church of Constantinople, remain without protests by the Hierarchs of
God? Will there be further, in the expression of St. Gregory the Theologian, the betrayal of truth by silence?

Being the youngest of those who preside over the Churches, we had wished to hear the voices of our elders
before speaking out ourselves. But up to now this voice has not been heard. If they have not yet become
acquainted with the content of the "Thyateira Confession," we entreat them to read it attentively and not to
leave it without condemnation.

It is frightful that there might be referred to us the words of the Lord to the Church of Laodicea: I know thy
work, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm,
and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of My mouth (Apoc. 3:15-16).

We now warn our flock and call out to our fellow brethren, to their faith in the Church, to their awareness of
our common responsibility for our flock before the Heavenly Chief Shepherd. We entreat them not to disdain
our announcement, lest a manifest mutilation of Orthodox teaching remain without accusation and
condemnation. Its broad distribution has moved us to inform the whole Church of our grief. We would wish to
hope that our cry will be heard.

President of the Synod of Bishops

of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia

 Metropolitan Philaret

December 6/19, 1975

Day of St. Nicholas, Wonderworker of Myra in Lycia

* "The Thyateira Confession, or The Faith and Prayer of Orthodox Christians," by His Eminence
Athenagoras Kokkinakis, Archbishop of Thyateira and Great Britain. Published with the Blessing and
Authorization of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, The Faith Press, 1975.

 http://www.orthodoxfaith.com/ecumenism_vitaly.html
 Ecumenism:
A Report to the Synod of Bishops of the Russian
Orthodox Church Abroad
By Archbishop (now Metropolitan) Vitaly
 [From Orthodox Life (Jordanville, N.Y.), July-August, 1969]  

THE ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT, which we now see in its definitive form with the "World Council of
Churches" as its chief headquarters, as it were, with its elaborate network of organizations, has passed by
stages through a gradual development.

In the first half of the last century its first predecessors appeared: in 1844 in London a certain George
Williams founded the so-called YMCA, which as its golden jubilee in 1894 had succeeded in spreading
throughout the entire world, and in 1952 counted as many as 10,000 branches with four million members.
The founder of this society was himself awarded the Order of Chivalry by Queen Victoria.

Eleven years after the foundation of the YMCA, two women's societies were organized in England—in the
south of England a certain Miss Emma Robarts founded a circle with the purpose of meeting for prayer, and
in London Lady Kinnerd founded a society for young ladies with the purpose of practical philanthropy. In
1894 these two societies were merged into one and began to be called by the name already known to all, of
YWCA: Young Women s Christian Association.

Although neither the YMCA nor the YWCA had any kind of dogma of its own, still, by their diffuse, hazy,
already semi-Christian ideology they created whole cadres of people with a world-view of a purely
humanitarian character, with a faith in the organic goodness of human nature in the spirit of Jean-Jacques
Rousseau and Tolstoy, a world-view in which there was no room, naturally, for any idea either of original sin
or of the salvation to be found exclusively in the Church of Christ. To achieve such results a special tactic
was employed, acting in two directions: on the one hand, special attention was directed to the development
of the body, and under the appearance of preserving health and observing hygiene, there was imperceptibly
established a cult of the flesh. On the other hand the soul was educated within the strict framework of
emotionality, of sensuousness, with a light-minded attitude toward sin, with playful irony toward the truth of
Christian dogmas, encouraging the contemporary view of philanthropy as the distribution of earthly goods
not in the name of Christ. Toward pious, church-oriented Christians in these two organizations there was
developed a condescendingly-patronizing attitude, as toward good but stupid and unreasonable children. In
such a fashion, several generations were raised in pseudo-Christianity.

In 1910, at the World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh (Scotland), for the first time the word ecumenism
was employed in its contemporary sense; at the same time a new society was founded with the title,
Universal Christian Council for Life and Work, which met in 1925 in Stockholm and in 1937 in Oxford, for the
study of mutual relations among the various Christian churches.

Parallel to this movement, there was organized yet another new society under the name of World
Conference on Faith and Order, which met twice, in 1927 in Lausanne, and in 1937 in Edinburgh, and sec
as its aim to bring to light all obstacles to the union of the churches in the sphere of doctrine.

Finally, in 1937, at the two subsequent conferences in Oxford and Edinburgh, it was decided to unite these
two movements into one organization—the "World Council of Churches." The Second World War, however,
prevented this organization from undertaking the realization of its aims, but after the war, in 1948, the first
Assembly of the World Council of Churches was convoked in Amsterdam, and three Assemblies have
followed it: Evanston in 1954, New Delhi in 1961, and Uppsala (Sweden) in 1968.

This brief description of the historical origin of the ecumenical movement would not be complete if we did not
mention also the world organization of Boy Scouts, founded also in England in 1908 by Lord Baden Powell.
This organization solely for youth, now known to all by its activity, set as its aim to educate youth in an
interconfessional, cosmopolitan spirit, with an ideal of human goodness. These three organizations are to
the present day the three pillars upon which the whole ecumenical movement rests, and from which it
constantly fills up the cadres of its confederates, workers, and simply the mass of people who sympathize
with it.

LET US CONSIDER now what psychological, social, political, and spiritual causes favored the appearance
and development of ecumenism. As the cornerstone of this Tower of Babylon in-the-making, it is essential to
place the complete spiritual decomposition of the Protestant heresy. But if we say together with Tertullian
that "the human soul is by nature Christian," which at that time, in the mouth of this Western teacher of the
Church, meant indisputably "by nature Orthodox, —then we can affirm that every heresy by its nature is
offensive to the human soul, and sooner or later the human soul must get this heresy out of its system, cast
it out of itself. Thus we are witnessing the disgorging of the Protestant heresy; but since in the spiritual world
just as in nature there is no vacuum, so the place of this heresy is taken over by ecumenism.

Together with this phenomenon, one should mention the murder of the Imperial Family, the annihilation of
the Russian Orthodox Empire which restrained the evil that now without hindrance is poured out over the
whole terrestrial globe. Never during the presence in Europe of the Orthodox Russian State could
ecumenism have developed with such a rapid pace, seizing already in its nets all Local Orthodox Churches.

A third cause—the most ominous, in our opinion—is the consolidation throughout the world of masonry,
which strives to become a secret world government and which in every way aids, inspires, and finances
ecumenism.

In the journal Le Temple, published in Paris, the official organ of Scottish-Rite Masonry, in the article "The
Union of the Churches" (no. 3, Sept.-Oct., 1946), masonry itself gives the following acknowledgement of its
success:

"We are asked why we enter into disputes of a religious nature, to what extent questions of the union of the
churches, ecumenical congresses, etc., can present any interest for masonry. In the bosom of our
workshops all doctrines are studied in order that no kind of apriorism may enter into our conclusions.
Descartes, Leibnitz, the determinism of Jean Rostand, etc. —everything in which there is some portion of
truth interests us. And it is desired that we have no interest in the problem of the evolution of Christian
thought! Even if we attempted to forget that masonry has a religious origin, all the same the very fact of the
existence of religions would call forth in us a constant endeavor to bind in unity all mortals, in that unity of
which we always dream. The problem raised by the plan of the union of the churches that confess Christ
closely interests masonry and is akin to masonry, since it contains in itself the idea of universalism. And let
us be permitted to add that if this union, at least as concerns the non-Roman confessions, stands on the
right path, for this it is obliged to our Order."

Here is an acknowledgement that reveals to us what it is that is the heart of the entire ecumenical
movement.

As A PSYCHOLOGICAL cause that prepared the ground for the successful dissemination of ecumenism,
there is likewise the whole rather prolonged epoch of the reign of the English Queen Victoria.

This epoch, with its own special ethics that held the human personality artificially in a spiritual encasement,
not healing the passions but driving them into the depths, greatly wearied the Protestant world. This cult of
external form made of Protestantism a spiritual compressor of the passions and it, after the death of the
Queen—unquestionably a powerful personality—burst and destroyed not only the form-casing of the
Protestant world-view, but also what remained of its meager dogmatism.

Thus the YMCA, YWCA, and Scoutism, founded and organized by masonry, prepared whole generations of
people with a special de-Christianized world-view, thanks to which there could arise also the World Council
of Churches, which in fact honors itself as the True Church and in its four world Assemblies, pseudo-
Ecumenical Councils, has expressed its credo as well.

These four world Assemblies were: Amsterdam, 1948; Evanston, 1954; New Delhi (India), 1961; and
Uppsala (Sweden), 1968. Each Assembly has published its acts, from which one may, not without a little
effort, bring to light the main points of this pseudo-Christianity. One should, in the first place, note
immediately that each conference proceeded under the direction of some principal idea. Thus the
Amsterdam Assembly chose as its theme "Human Disorder and God's Design." The Evanston Assembly
was conducted under the watchword "Christ, the only hope of the world." The conference in New Delhi
proclaimed as its motto "Jesus Christ—the Light of the World." All these ideas are lacking a concrete basis
in theology; they have in themselves nothing doctrinal, nothing dogmatic. They may be interpreted by every
Christian religion, each in its own way; there is opened a wide field for wordy debate, an immense
opportunity to think without ever thinking anything out, without reaching anything, without coming to any
conclusion. Above everything there reigns a fear of dogma. All these ideas are in fact slogans, and if one
calls to mind that none of the Assemblies has had its permanent president, but that a secretary is in charge
of everything, these Assemblies resemble rather the sessions of a League of Nations or a U.N. for spiritual
questions: the same cosmopolitanism, the same vagueness of principles, the same Babylon. Of all four
Assemblies, the most successful from the point of view of ecumenism was the one in New Delhi, where the
atmosphere of Hindu mysticism in this Mid-Eastern country with its yogis and the particular Hindu lyricism, a
cloudy mystique, brought many participants of the conference into ecstasy.

The Assembly in Uppsala took as its motto the words of the Saviour: "Behold, I make all things new."

However, in studying the acts of these Assemblies, one may see in them a consistent plan and a definite
aim. The richest ideologically was indisputably the first Assembly in Amsterdam. At it every effort was
applied to destroy the doctrine of the one, true, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, historically living and
militant on the earth and triumphant in heaven. The five most prominent theologians of the Protestant world
presented each his own lecture. In their midst was also the Orthodox Russian theologian, Fr. Georges
Florovsky.

The first speaker, Gustave Aulen, entitled his lecture "The Church in the Light of the New Testament." To all
appearances, and according to his description of the characteristics of the Church, it would appear at first
that all his judgments are completely Orthodox; but one is immediately sobered by his indication that all
Christians are members of this Church which he so well describes. The Church is, as it were, a synthesis of
all churches.

Prof. Clarence Craig translates the word catholic—or, in Church Slavonic, sobornaya—by the word integral.
Thus one may say with the ecumenists: I believe in One, holy, integral, apostolic Church, that is to say, the
Church of the World Council of Churches. Continuing his arguments, the professor says further: "The
Church united the Apostle Paul and the holy Apostle and Evangelist Matthew. For the former Christ was the
end of the Law; for the Apostle Matthew, Christ was the founder of a new law. The Church equally agreed
with the moralism of the Apostle James and the mysticism of the Apostle John the Divine. If in the first
century there was room in her for such divergences, then there must be a place today also in the Church for
a great variety of expressions. This diversity belongs to the nature of the Church's organism." Prof. Craig
deliberately calls these various gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Apostles "divergences," whereas it was precisely
divergences that the holy Apostles never had.

Prof. John Gregg adds nothing new, but he does even more sharply abolish the boundaries of the Church of
Christ, calling that in which he includes all Christians of all persuasions "the Great Church."

The well-known pro-Communist professor of dogmatic theology at the University of Basel, Karl Barth, who in
the same year of 1948 at one of his lectures affirmed that "the only hope for Christians to survive in the
present age is to find ways of amalgamating with the most vital current of today—world Communism," very
realistically criticizes the contemporary (of course, Protestant) world, but unfortunately he applies his
criticism as if it were to the whole of Christianity, being completely ignorant of Holy Orthodoxy and its grace-
giving life. "The Bible," he says, "dogmatics, catechesis, church discipline, liturgy, preaching and sacrament
have become museum exhibits. "He sees the only salvation in the reviving of the Church in the ecumenical
movement. Fr. G. Florovsky pays his dues to ecumenism by affirming, like the other professors, that the
Church has not yet defined itself, has not yet worked out its theological-school definition, has not somehow
come to know itself.

By this these professors wish to say that for the definition of the Church no formula has been found; but Fr.
Florovsky should have said in all honesty that for no single dogma is there a formula. There is the teaching
of the Holy Church on every dogma, including the dogma of the Church itself, but there is no formula, as this
exists in the exact sciences of mathematics, chemistry, and physics.
Having established the fact of the absence of such a formula, ecumenists think that they have now a legal
right to create their own conception of the Church, and they have formulated it as a synthesis of all existing
churches. This is how an Orthodox priest has served the idea of ecumenism, and this priest has sinned
cunningly by a dishonest conception.

THE SECOND ASSEMBLY, in Evanston, was the most colorless from the viewpoint of ecumenism. Its aim
was, after the destruction of the dogma of the true, or as they call us, historical Church, to unite all churches
that come to them. The reports at the Evanston Assembly are uninteresting, without content; they rather
repeat in other forms the same ideas that were expressed at Amsterdam. The teachings of all Christian
churches were analyzed and from each there was brought to light that which makes it a part of this universal
ecumenical "Great Church."

One should note, however, one very interesting fact that occurred at this Assembly. For the first time
Communism was subjected to criticism from the Christian viewpoint; but even this, to all appearances a
positive phenomenon, was rather a fine bit of politics on the part of the directors of the Assembly, who
skillfully threw this bone to the Moscow Communists. The maneuver was fully successful, and at the next
Assembly of the W.C.C. the Communists compelled the unfortunate Moscow Patriarchate to take part, in
order through the mouths of their hierarchs, if not to defend Communism, then in any case to give no
opportunity to all the Christians gathered there to raise the question of their persecution of Christianity.

If we recall how the Moscow Patriarchate replied to the invitation to take part in the first ecumenical
Assembly, we shall be convinced that its participation in the New Delhi Assembly comprises a slave-like
obedience to the Communist Party.

At the Moscow Council of 1948 Archpriest G. Razumovsky was commissioned to reply to the invitation. Here
is the text of this reply:

"The Russian Orthodox Church has not taken part and does not take part in a single ecumenical meeting or
conference... We are hesitant in determining the causes why representatives of the Church of
Constantinople in the ecumenical field of activity, where meetings have been accompanied by joint prayer,
have not refused to participate in it. Or has the Patriarchate of Constantinople forgotten its honor as first
among Sees in the defense of the canons of the Orthodox Church and not maintained its authority?..."

Quoting then citations from ecumenical reports to the effect that ecumenism is an actual Ecumenical
Pentecost, Fr. G. Razamovsky continues:

"The Russian Orthodox Church has always taught and teaches that Pentecost, i.e., the Descent of the Holy
Spirit, has already occurred, and that Christians should await now not a new manifestation of the Holy Spirit,
but the glorious Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The belittling of the significance of the unique Sacrifice of
Jesus Christ and the foretelling of a future "third hour" in which will be revealed the awaited Kingdom of the
Holy Spirit, are characteristic of the teaching of masons and sectarians, and the newly-revealed prophecy of
the awaited Ecumenical Pentecost is but an old echo of the false preaching of these seducers."

The resolution concludes with the words:

"We inform the World Council of Churches, in reply to the invitations received by all of us to take part in the
Amsterdam Assembly in the capacity of members of it, that all Local Orthodox Churches participating in the
present Meeting are compelled to refuse to participate in the Ecumenical Movement in its present form." The
resolution was signed by the heads of the Russian, Georgian, Serbian, Rumanian, Bulgarian, Polish,
Albanian and Czechoslovakian Churches and by representatives of the Churches of Antioch and Alexandria.

After such a devastating resolution by the Moscow Patriarchate with regard to the World Council of
Churches, one may understand the enthusiasm that seized all participants of the New Delhi Assembly when
they accepted, as full members of ecumenism, the Moscow Patriarchate and with it the Rumanian,
Bulgarian, and Polish Churches. In 1968 there entered into the W.C.C. Likewise the last of all the Local
Churches-the Serbian Church. Thus all Local Orthodox Churches, except for our Russian Orthodox Church
Outside of Russia [and other Churches in Resistance—PMB], are now members of the ecumenical
movement. As far as Orthodoxy is concerned, the World Council of Churches has completed the cycle of its
activity. The whole Communist Block, headed by the Moscow Patriarchate, is already represented there. All
the untruths of the world have been gathered together. There was created at the New Delhi Assembly for
the first time in the history of mankind a single common front of all heresies and untruths. In the World
Council of Churches, as in a kind of conjurers trick, have been joined and united all blasphemies, errors, and
oppositions to Truth of the whole spiritual history of the human race from Cain and Ham to Judas the
betrayer, Karl Marx, the corrupter Freud, and all the lesser and greater blasphemers contemporary to us
today. Such is the dismal apotheosis of this Assembly.

If it were possible somehow to represent artistically this sinister triumph, it would have to be performed to the
strains of Saint-Saens' Danse macabre.

FINALLY, THE LAST Assembly at Uppsala chose for its motto the words of the Saviour: "Behold, I make all
things new"... words that gave the Holy Fathers an inexhaustible source of theological ideas. In the mouths
of the participants of the Uppsala Assembly, however, this Gospel dictum was almost exclusively applied to
every kind of social, charitable, public, class, and sometimes industrial questions.

It should be noted that at this Assembly there were 140 delegates from all Local Orthodox Churches, not
counting their advisors, translators, and secretaries. The Moscow delegation numbered 35 delegates of
episcopal and priestly rank, headed by Metropolitan Nikodim. The Church of Greece this time sent to the
Assembly only two lay representatives, and they left the Assembly before the end of all the sessions. Their
conduct was officially explained by the fact that in Uppsala several demonstrations were put on by the
Swedish youth protesting against the present Greek military government. But as a matter of fact the Church
of Greece is all the time forced to take a backward look at the constantly growing movement of Old
Calendarists; and if one adds to this the fact that the majority of the Orthodox delegates, apart from certain
complete apostates from Orthodoxy, always feel themselves awkward, uncomfortable, hampered at the
sessions of all ecumenical gatherings, then one may boldly say that these two representatives of the Church
of Greece were happy to leave this Assembly under such a plausible pretext.

It would not be superfluous to underline here with what caution the chief leadership of the ecumenical
movement treats in general the Orthodox delegates. Having noted almost from the first Assembly how the
Orthodox delegates feel themselves not at home, are unable to give themselves over entirely to ecumenism
and always somewhere in the depths of their conscience are tormented because of their enforced
participation in ecumenism, the leadership of this movement, having finally gathered in Uppsala all the
representatives of the Local Orthodox Churches, commenced with regard to them a very subtle politics of
training, taming, and gradually attracting this do yet extinguished Orthodox conscience, in order to melt it in
its ecumenical furnace. Despite the fact that on this occasion at Uppsala there was gathered the greatest
number of Orthodox delegates, at all the general meetings not a single address was made by any of them.
All delegates having been assigned to various committees, the Orthodox delegates were in fact being
trained to ecumenism by the fact that they were obliged to sign all decisions and resolutions without saying a
word, being silent also with regard to their consciences, which probably in such circumstances did not cause
their masters much suffering. This politics one may call the politics of lulling the conscience.

At the very opening of the Assembly at Uppsala, there was read on behalf of all those gathered an
ecumenical prayer, which went as follows: "O God, Father, You can make all things new. We entrust
ourselves to You: help us to live for others, for Your love is stretched out upon all men; to seek the Truth,
which we have not known..." How did Orthodox people feel listening to these last words?! It would have
been curious to look then at the faces of the Orthodox hierarchs, who with all the Protestants, sectarians,
and Catholics—who also were represented this time—declared in the hearing of all that they also have not
known the Truth. Every priest of ours from the most out-of-the-way village knows the Truth by experience,
standing at the altar of God and praying to God in spirit and in truth. Even the Journal of the Moscow
Patriarchate, which is fully subjected to the censorship of the Communist Party, in citing in its account of this
Assembly the words of the prayer did not, nonetheless, dare to translate the English word "Truth" as istina,
but translated it by pravda "rightness." However, everyone well understood that in the present case the text
of the prayer without any kind of ambiguity whatever spoke of Truth.

Perhaps the Orthodox hierarchs had recourse during the opening of the Assembly to the old Jesuit practice
of reservatio mentalis; but in such a case, if all these delegates do not repent of the sin of participating in
prayer with heretics, they may be considered as being on a completely false path of apostasy from the Truth
of Orthodoxy.
HAVING BROUGHT to light the essence of all four ecumenical Assemblies, let us proceed now to an
examination of their inspirer, i.e ecumenism, so as to see in essence the contours of this phenomenon.

Ecumenism is the heresy of heresies, because until now every separate heresy in the history of the Church
has striven itself to stand in the place of the true Church, while the ecumenical movement, having united all
heresies, invites them all together to honor themselves as the one true Church. Here ancient Arianism,
Monophysitism, Monothelitism, Iconoclasm, Pelagianism, and simply every possible superstition of the
contemporary sects under completely different names, have united and charge to assault the Church. This
phenomenon is undoubtedly of an apocalyptic character. The devil has fought in turn, almost in sequence,
with Christ's Truth set forth in the Nicaean Symbol of Faith, and has come now to the final and most vitally
important paragraph of the Creed: "I believe in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church." We say the most
important, because all the truths set forth in the Creed are brought into life in the final paragraph, are
realized in the Church of Christ, Which gives us not only the true Orthodox Teaching, but also grace-
bestowing power to realize these truths, to live by them, only in the Church and through the Church. The
Church, as Archhishop Hilarion says in his work, There Is No Christianity Without the Church, is not a dream
of the Church, but life in Christ.

Ecumenism, striving to destroy the boundaries of the Church of Christ, itself has no boundaries whatever.
Already there is talk not only of uniting with all Christians and even with Jews, but that everyone living on the
earth is a member of the Church. The same Karl Barth prophesies the "imminent ruin of the Corpus
Christianum" and says that "we have come to the epoch of the end of time, when there unfolds the last
phase of the history of the relation between God and man, and it will be crowned, not with a Last Judgment
as the Orthodox Church teaches, but with a complete reconciliation, which will occur between God and all
creation."

If we look at the inner life of all the Protestant churches and at what ecumenism is introducing into them, we
shall immediately see two currents of thought and life. The overwhelming majority of Protestant groups,
having discarded their heretical doctrine and, not feeling in themselves any further stimulus so as to find
anew in their religion their centrifugal force, give themselves over to ecumenism. They are completely
indifferent to their one-time world-view, which was nurtured with blood and suffering, and they represent
from within themselves an immense mass of people who are indifferent to Christ. A second contrary
manifestation is sometimes to be noted, but it is always very small in numbers or even purely personal—this
is the rare individuals in the Protestant world who from a simple feeling of self-preservation do not wish yet
simply to melt into the impersonal and bloodless mass and convert into a corpse what used to be Western
Christianity. To these latter the wise men of ecumenism employ a refined tactic of fishermen, letting out a
line to some freedom-loving community, in order later to draw it in to the fatal ecumenical shore.

To us Orthodox these Christians are nearer, even if they are in error, but still burning in their false faith, still
preserving some signs of life.

Theologically ecumenism does not bear up under any kind of criticism, because it runs away from any kind
of dogmatics of its own. It is spread not in the depths, but along the surface, along the layers of heresies
which have outlived themselves; but it is supported by some secret resilient power which itself stands in the
shadows. Behind it is likewise a vast material might with a clever politics of finance, skillfully giving help or
by its gifts inclining to its side of the scale someone who is wavering or has not lost his sensitivity of
conscience.

In its external structure the World Council of Churches is very like the League of Nations or the present
organization of the United Nations with its Secretary General. Without wishing at all to indicate the times and
seasons, which are all in God's Right Hand, we may only suppose that Antichrist will preside over both
organizations, but in spirit the closer, more kin to him will be the World Council of Churches.

CONCLUSION AND RESOLUTIONS

ECUMENISM is now at the very doors of our Church. All local Orthodox Churches have become its
members, the last being the Serbian Church which was accepted in 1968. If until today ecumenism has not
been dangerous for us, now the situation has changed somewhat, first of all because we have remained the
only Church in the whole world that has not entered the W.C.C., and in all probability special steps will be
undertaken for us, a special tactic will be employed. We must be ready for this. Second, unquestionably a
strong attack will be made on the mass of our believers, among whom there are not a few souls, some of
whom will yield being seduced by the thought of union, fearing their isolation, and others being tempted by
advantages, a better situation, in a word by the golden calf.

If, as we indicated above, the ecumenical movement was prepared by a special world-view of pseudo-
Christianity with total indifference to its truth in the bosom of the YMCA, YWCA, Scoutism, and other similar
organizations, then the same role of spiritual enfeeblement has been played in our Orthodox world by the
scholastic teaching of the schools—a cold, soulless, only speculative examination of the holy truths of
Christian teaching, in which there is a complete absence of any inclination of the moral side of each dogma.
And the moral teaching of the dogmas is that which captivates, interests, enlivens and shocks the soul
equally of seminarian, believing layman, learned man and simple folk. Without this moral side of each
dogma the whole science of theology loses the very ground under it and becomes like one of the secular
disciplines and even less interesting than they, because, for example, physics and chemistry have to do with
thing; concrete and tangible, while the poor seminarian does not see for himself personally the spiritual
reality in every dogma without its moral side.

As a result of such an instruction in this most important theological science there could come out of the
seminaries Stalin, Mikayan, and in all probability not a few members of the Cheka [Soviet Secret Police].
The poor instructor of dogmatic theology did nor even suspect that he was preparing a future monster.
Indeed, was he personally to blame when such was the system and such it remains to this day? Today,
however, in our Holy Trinity Seminary [in Jordanville, N.Y.], dogmatic theology becomes spirited, becomes
the power of the whole grace-giving atmosphere of the monastery, its labor of prayer and fasting.

If ecumenism will begin to fill its ranks with our Orthodox Christians, who will be indifferent to the truths of
our teaching, for this indifference we alone shall be to blame.

The Holy Fathers deliberately placed the Nicaeo-Constantinopolitan Symbol of Faith in the Divine Liturgy
and other daily services as a prayer, in order to bind the entire Orthodox teaching of faith, expressed with
such perfect, ideal brevity, in a real tie with our soul, to make the Creed life and not an abstract teaching.
The Holy Fathers by this teach us that with the Lord God there can be communion only in prayer, that
concerning the Lord God one must not reason with our intellect alone, but must contemplate with all the
powers of our soul—mind, heart and will, in prayer and faith. The Symbol of Faith is not our declaration of
our doctrine, not our memorandum of the faith, but a labor of prayer on the part of all the powers of our soul.

It is time for us, in all our textbooks of dogmatic theology, to add to the essential, characteristic marks of
Orthodox Christian dogmatics (theologicalness, Divine-revealedness, and Church-orientedness)
prayerfulness, so as to bind all dogmas immediately to our soul. When the Holy Fathers teach us their
doctrine, they do this from the fullness of their life, which is penetrated with prayer. All their dicta were
acquired by them, if one may say so, in prayer and contemplation, and not from the intellectual syllogisms of
the analytical mind. In the merely speculative study of dogma which was practiced in our seminaries and
academies is hidden a subtle pride interwoven with a subtle vein of blasphemy. I recall how one of the
disciples of Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), after an inspired talk of the great Abba concerning the
dogma of the Holy Trinity, exclaimed: "Vladika, after your explanation of the dogma one wants to weep from
emotion."

With the intellect alone one may arrive at blasphemy, and examining holy truths by it alone may find oneself
at one table with the Protestants in their dialogue with God.

The prayer-imbued power of our faith in dogmatic truth is a genuine source for us of moral power which
comes out from each dogma. This is true to such an extent that if we prayerfully believe in the omnipotence
of God, we are clothed, according to God's mercy to our entreaty, in the power of God in the measure
accessible to us. If we prayerfully believe in the omniscience of God, we receive, according to God's mercy
to our entreaty and to the degree of our purification, knowledge, wisdom, and judgment. Thus from each
dogmatic truth we prayerfully receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. In other words, upon a correct labor of faith
and prayer depends a correct life, life in Christ, life in the Church.

We likewise prayerfully believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, and at the same time
lightmindedly affirm here that in other churches too there are the holy sacraments of the Eucharist and
Baptism. Where, then, is our faith in the One, that is, only, exclusive Church, the exclusive, only preserver of
all sacraments?! But here I wish to offer the following resolution.

We must ourselves discard, definitively have done with a certain deeply-penetrating—to our good fortune,
only in our minds—scholastic ecumenism. I say scholastic and mental only, because to any sound-thinking
Orthodox person the idea could not occur to receive communion in a Protestant or Catholic church, and this
because with all his being, organically, he knows with an inner intelligible knowledge that there is no holy
Communion anywhere but in the Church of Christ.

The matter is not at all so well with our thinkers, however, the intellectual class. Here there is such
incoordination, such a diversity and variety of errors, that one may boldly say that there are no two persons
who think alike. Here one may meet, side by side with emotional ladies who beside an icon of St. Seraphim
of Sarov keep an image of the Catholic saint Teresa, those who practice yoga as, in their opinion, a
Christian asceticism. Some think that in all Christian religions all sacraments are valid; others make certain
reservations according to which one can supposedly recognize the sacrament of Baptism but not the
sacrament of the Eucharist. But there is no possibility even to enumerate all these errors; it is a regular
witches' brew of opinions. The most tragic thing is that these errors, thanks to our old scholastic conception,
are shared even by some of the clergy. Completely forgotten is the patristic dictum that "the communion of
heretics is the food of devils. " And if there is no holy Communion, there cannot in general be any sacrament
whatever, because God the Holy Spirit descends in all sacraments for the sake of the Incarnation of the Son
of God, His Godmanhood. And the holy sacrament of sacraments, the Eucharist, is the sacrament of
Godmanhood.

In the present instance we should have accepted the point of view of the highest principles of the
uncompromising Orthodox world-view. There is God, there is His One, only Holy, Apostolic Church, and
there is the whole human race, all called to God through His holy Church. All other religions, so-called
Christian, monotheistic or pagan, all without the slightest exception, whether it be Catholicism,
Protestantism, Islam or Buddhism—all are obstacles placed by the devil as his traps between the Church of
Christ and the whole human race. Only in personal relationships with those of different faiths, for the sake of
church economy, for the sake simply of knowledge and criticism, we can view certain of them as more
capable of becoming Orthodox, and others as farther away, but in principle they all without exception belong
to falsehood, having nothing in common with truth.

Here it would be opportune to recall the vision of St. Macarius of Egypt: the devil was going to tempt the
brethren and was all hung round with certain vessels. The great elder asked him: "Where are you going?"
Satan replied: "I am going to visit the brethren." "But why do you have these vessels?" the elder asked
again. The devil replied: "I am carrying food for the brethren." The elder asked: "And all these have food in
them?" "Yes, " replied satan; "if one of them doesn't please someone, I'll give another; and if not this one, I'll
give yet a different one."

Thus all these religions are they that have accepted food from the devil: here is the subtle seductiveness of
Francis of Assisi in one vessel, and beside it nirvana in another, and there Mohammed, Luther, Calvin,
Henry VIII, with food corresponding to their tastes.

How can we fight successfully with ecumenism if we are ourselves divided in our ideas and do not have a
pure and clear Orthodox worldview and do not sense the holy exclusiveness, the uniqueness of the holy
Orthodox Church? In directing our youth, such a dividedness works especially ruinously on young souls.

One should consider that all our lack of success in work with youth may be ascribed fifty per cent to this
sinful indeterminateness in our ideas with regard to the truth. Proper to youth are heroism, sincerity, an
impulse toward truth, and for it there will always be unacceptable any idea of fragments of truth scattered
throughout all religions.

Finally, as a last resolution we may indicate that it is indispensable that in all cathedral churches of our
Church on the Sunday of Orthodoxy the rite of the Triumph of Orthodoxy be celebrated. This always deeply
touches all the faithful and inspires in them a real sense of the holiness and unshakableness of the Orthodox
Church. During this service the faces of all present are moved by a kind of trembling joy at the mystical
forefeeling of the final triumph of the Church of Christ over evil. I shall allow myself to call this rite the
mystery of spiritual renewal, the mystery of affirmation in truth.
In concluding my review, I wish to note that my description of the ecumenical movement in such unattractive
colors is due to the fact that I have attempted always to view this whole diabolic question that urgently burns
like a sting, in its essence, from the point of view of the principles of uncompromising Orthodoxy. However,
the representatives of ecumenism, however harmful may have been their ideas, remain nonetheless weak
and limited people, and it may be that satan most of all even hates these his most obedient slaves, because
in their limited human nature the unlimited pride of satan is painfully reminded of the limitedness of his
diabolic all-destroying malice.

Not wishing my report even in the smallest degree to harm the work of love, I consider that in principle we
must be completely uncompromising with ecumenism, this most contemporary evil, but in personal
encounters, which are always unavoidable, we should ever be true disciples of the Son of God, the God of
love.