Letter to Traditionalist Clergy Concerning Assisi 2002
Concerning the Recent Ecumenical Gathering in Assisi
Webmaster Note: The following is a letter sent by a
traditionalist Orthodox clergyman to fellow clergy and friends concerning the
January 24, 2002 gathering of various world religions in Assisi, Italy. Orthodox
clergyman active in the Ecumenical Movement unfortunately participated in this
event.
Dear Clergy and Friends:
May God bless you.
Needless to say, I am wholeheartedly opposed to fanaticism and
immoderate and fundamentalistic reactions to the ecumenical movement.
I have made this point often. At the same time, I am also opposed, of
course, to the simplistic fundamentalism of many ecumenists, who
reduce the question of theology and soteriology to the level of a
naive religious relativism that deviates from the Patristic witness
and the Hesychastic and Eucharistic spirit of Orthodoxy. This latter
fundamentalism is, in general, as pernicious as the former. But it is
especially harmful to the Faith and the soul, and immeasurably
pernicious, when it compromises not only the primacy of Orthodoxy, but
the indispensability of the very confession of Christ itself.
It is appalling, indeed, when we see Orthodox Patriarchs and
Hierarchs engaged in activities which attribute world peace to
religious syncretism and human cooperation, over and above Jesus
Christ, the Prince of Peace. One can likewise only hang his head with
shame when, in the name of Orthodoxy, our spiritual "leaders"
usurp the Providence of God, in which dwells the question of the
status of those who do not confess Christ, and engage in
activities that indirectly (and even, at times directly) elevate and
validate the spiritual pursuit of salvation outside Christianity and
Orthodoxy.
Those who are tempted by the official Orthodox world (which is
the creation, not of spiritual criteria, but the ecumenical movement
itself, and which compromises the unity of Orthodoxy) should think
long and carefully about the points raised below in excerpts from an
article sent to us by an Orthodox layman. It contains reactions to
reports by the Catholic News Agency about the recent display of raw
religious syncretism at a gathering of the world's leading ecumenists,
the Orthodox most prominent among them, sponsored by the Vatican in
Assisi, Italy, on January 24.
Were the issues at hand simply matters of diplomacy,
institutional cooperation, and human generosity, one might applaud
this attempt to bring religious leaders together in the name of peace.
But the issues, here, are those of the soul, of ontological truth, and
of human salvation and restoration. When we, who confess Christ, cease
acting in a Christocentric way and succumb to prayer and spiritual
practices which are centered, not on Christ, but on fantasies of human
virtue, the Sacrifice of Christ and the witness of the Apostles,
Fathers, Saints, and Martyrs are rendered insignificant, and cheap,
inefficacious emotion replaces the life-giving power of spiritual
prudence.
We should all reflect on the words below, which are unfortunately
not to be found in the journals of the "official" Orthodox,
who often only feign concern about religious relativism (and
especially when ecumenical excesses raise the ire of the more
circumspect Faithful and foster protest in the Church), but in the
writings and witness of us resisters. Moreover, we should chastise
ourselves, Orthodox ecumenists and traditionalists alike (since we are
responsible together for the state of the Body of Christ), that laymen
seem more vexed by the excesses of a political ecumenism which strikes
at the heart of the Christian confession than our "official"
Orthodox Patriarchs and Bishops, who, rather, endorse and participate
in these excesses.
Quo vadimus?
+ + +
On January 24th [2002], Buddhist chants and Christian
hymns resounded inside a huge plastic tent decorated with an olive
tree. Representatives of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism,
Buddhism, Shintoism, Jianism, Confucianism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism,
and followers of Tenrikyo and African tribal religions including
(Voodoo) joined their prayers so that, with one voice, they
could ask their respective deities to grant peace to the
world.
Crosses and other religious objects were removed
by Vatican officials so that non-Christian religious leaders would be
free to pray in the manner in which they are accustomed. One by one,
religious leaders holding small, glass oil lamps lined up at the
podium and read each of the 10 points of a communal commitment.
Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople was the first of 11 religious
leaders to speak. Chief Amadou Gasseto, who described himself as the
high priest of followers of Avelekete Vodoo in Benin, echoed the
patriarch's point about personal behavior and its decisive role in
creating peace or conflict.
After sharing their "testimonies for
peace," Pope John Paul and Patriarch Bartholomew led the
Christians from 17 Orthodox churches and 14 Anglican and Protestant
communities into the lower basilica for an ecumenical prayer service.
There were 3 Orthodox Patriarchs taking part. Not to be outdone by
Constantinople, the Russian Patriarch Alexy led a delegation from
Russia. It is noteworthy that the largest delegation to respond to the
Pope's invitation was made up of Orthodox clergy, who apparently no
longer believe that our Saviour is the only hope for the "peace
of the world."
This two-day meeting was consistent with the
voices we hear coming from many directions that tell us to
"discern and celebrate God's Spirit, not only in the people of
the churches, but also in people of other faiths and
ideologies." A few years ago this belief would have shocked
those who considered themselves "Orthodox
Christians...."
The gathering at Assisi was a triumphant
exhibition of the predominance of "Re-Imaging" theology. The
Re-Imaging movement proclaims that "Christianity" has to
acknowledge that our Saviour is not the only road to God. Its
pantheistic beliefs have led them it to believe that it is an error to
believe that only our Lord can lead us to God.
The first major public proclamation of the
theology of Re-Imagining was made in 1993 at a "Re-Imaging
Conference," which had as its main premise that Christianity
needed to be reformulated. This theology, which gave such offense in
1993, is now — just 9 years later — spoken of as being
perfectly acceptable. In fact, the Interim Associate Director of the
Women's Ministry Program Area, Jane Parker Huber, of the American
Presbyterian Church, was recently quoted as dismissing the reaction
that many people have to Re-Imagining as "too
bad."
At that first conference, Delores Williams, a
professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, told the group,
"I don't think we need a theory of atonement at all....Atonement
has to do so much with death.... I don't think we need folks hanging
on crosses, and blood dripping, and weird stuff.... We just need to
listen to the god within." Another speaker, Virginia Mollenkott,
who serves on the National Council of Churches Commission to prepare
an inclusive language lectionary, claimed that the death of Jesus was
the ultimate in child abuse. She said that "the commonly accepted
view of Christ's atonement pictures God as an abusive parent, and
Jesus as an obedient child.... This violent theology encourages the violence of our streets
and of our nation."
Assisi is nothing less than the triumphal
proclamation that the leaders of "world Christianity" have
also decided to abandon our Saviour and that Christianity needs to be
re-imaged, reshaped and reformulated so that our Lord is no longer our hope.
|