1. The Orthodox ecumenists of Geneva, true to form and expressing their fundamentalistic ethos, maintain that "the resisters have recently taken refuge" in the Russian Church Abroad "evidently as a bulwark of salvation, in order to invest themselves with some ‘inter-Orthodox’ standing and to demonstrate to their followers that they have worldwide significance" ( 6).

a. Such a serious statement or accusation, expressed as it is by Father George Tsetsis, should surely be founded, not on what is "evident" (!), but on indisputably objective criteria; what is "evident," then, is this statement’s lack of credibility and, to be sure, its slanderous nature is, for the following reasons, clear.

First: The Old Calendarists in resistance have no need of any "bulwark," quite simply because they are not at risk, as long as their ecclesiological edifice rests on the unshakable foundations of the Patristic and Synodal Tradition of Orthodoxy (its principal canonical expression being the Thirty-first Apostolic Canon and the Fifteenth Canon of the First-Second Synod).

Second: The "little flock" of the anti-ecumenist Greek Old Calendarist resisters does not regard "inter-Orthodox standing" as a necessary element in its ecclesiological makeup, for—whatever the case—it has had such standing, by virtue of communion with the Romanian and Bulgarian anti-ecumenists. Those in resistance rest their case on the words of the Holy Fathers, who have pointed out emphatically, indeed in a time of heretical confusion parallel with that of today, the following:

Third: The Old Calendarist anti-ecumenists have no need to "prove" that "they—have worldwide significance," given that—by the Grace of God—they have been in existence, and have been active, for many decades now on an international level; besides, is it not precisely for this reason that they constitute a "pastoral problem" for Orthodox ecumenists. [3]

b. In consequence of this, always having as our unerring guide the words of the Fathers,

We should emphasize that the resisters certainly have not "taken refuge" in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, very simply because—as we previously noted—there was no reason to "take refuge"; the sole thing which they sought, and at which they aimed, was to enter into liturgical communion with their Russian brothers, for four basic reasons.

First: They received their Hierarchy from the Russian Church Abroad (1960, 1962).

Second: After 1969, the Russian Church Abroad, under Metropolitan Philaret (+1985), opened full communion with the Greek Old Calendarist anti-ecumenists, which, though temporarily broken off, has now been resumed.

Third: The resisters have been in communion for years with the Romanian anti-ecumenists; since the Romanians established communion with the Russians in 1992, it was natural for the Greeks in resistance to be in communion with the Russians as well.

Fourth, and most important: The need among anti-ecumenists everywhere for liturgical communion derives from the ecclesiological nature of their identity as Orthodox.

In a famous epistle, St. Theodore the Studite deals ad hoc with this question, insofar as he faced the same criticisms at the time of Iconoclastic confusion. The Saint exhorts: "We should seek after and concern ourselves about with whom we ought to be in communion."

—He then states: an "irreproachable" clergyman is considered to be one who 1) "is not a heretic," 2) who confesses that "he preserves both the Faith and the Canons inviolate," and 3) who rejects "those who have deviated on both counts [of heresy and simony—tr.]";

—And he finally concludes: "There is no reason for us to keep away from him [viz., the irreproachable clergyman]; for such a one is uncondemned, according to the aforementioned Saints [i.e., Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostomos], and through them, according to all [i.e., the Saints]." [5]

On the basis of this universal Patristic "guidance" ("according to all the Saints"), we are not in communion with the Orthodox ecumenists, and we certainly are in communion (and are not "taking refuge"!) with the Russian anti-ecumenists of the Diaspora, very simply because they constitute an "irreproachable" and "uncondemned" Church, and our common participation in "the Holy, Spotless, and Life-Giving Communion of the Catholic Church" [6] gives joy to the heavenly world, upbuilds the Church, and strengthens the Orthodox resistance. [7]

c. It is evident that the Orthodox ecumenists are displeased by the consolidation of Old Calendarist anti-ecumenists everywhere—by Divine Grace—into a flock—albeit small—, and they do not hide this disquietude of theirs.

We do not know whether the ecumenists are imitating the cuttlefish, as St. Gregory the Theologian says (see note 4); whatever the case, their satisfaction in the "unions" of the different branches of Protestantism cannot be concealed by "the ink (of insults) which goes before them." Father Tsetsis, himself, is familiar with these "unions," and he points them out and enumerates them in his account of the ecumenical movement, [8] though he surely recognizes that they are not "unions" in the Truth and in Orthodoxy, but, on the contrary, "unions" for the purpose of heightening and consolidating the falsehood of heresy, and are consequently an occasion for tears.

Endnotes

1. St. Gregory the Theologian, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xxxvi, col. 233abc (Oration 33: "Against the Arians and On Himself," 15).

The whole of this marvelous paragraph is apropos. This famous oration of the Saint constitutes an apologia concerning personal attacks against him and was delivered around the beginning of 380, in Constantinople, when the Arians were still generally in control and the Orthodox flock was truly small and deprived of churches. Parallel times....

2. St. Theodore the Studite, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xcix, col. 1049b (Epistle i.39: "To Abbot Theophilos").

3. See Great Protopresbyter George Tsetsis, "Ecumenism as a Pastoral Problem" [in Greek], Ekklesia, No. 17 (November 15, 1996), pp. 800 ff.

4. St. Gregory the Theologian, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xxxvi, cols. 472d-473a (Oration 42: "Farewell Speech to the Assembly of 150 Bishops," 13).

St. Gregory goes on the say that those who attack "the speaker" and not "the issue at hand" do this, "at times, striving by their invective to hide the weakness of their reasoning; as cuttlefish are said to cast forth ink before them, in order to escape from their pursuers, or themselves to hunt others when unperceived."

5. St. Theodore the Studite, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xcix, col. 1105abc (Epistle i.53: "To Stephen the Reader and those with him").

6. St. Maximos the Confessor, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xci, col. 464d (Epistle 12: "To John the Chamberlain").

7. It should be noted that the Orthodox ecumenists emphasize in particular that mutual "estrangement" among Orthodox Churches is contrary to their ecclesiological nature: "Self–sufficient isolation, however, constitutes a heresy. Communion between Orthodox Churches belongs to the very essence of the Church." (See Episkepsis, No. 176 [October 15, 1977], p. 6 [in Greek]: "Perspectives and Problems of the Great Synod of the Orthodox Church." An interview with Metropolitan Damaskinos of Tranoupolis [now of Switzerland], in the Catholic periodical of Zurich, Orientierung [August 31, 1977, issue]).

8. See Great Protopresbyter George Tsetsis, "The Bilateral Theological Dialogues Between Heterodox Churches in Relation to the Bilateral Theological Dialogues of the Orthodox Church" [in Greek], Orthodoxia (April-August 1995), pp. 246-247, 254.

9. St. Maximos the Confessor, Patrologia Graeca, Vol. xci, cols. 464a, 465cd (Epistle 12: "To John the Chamberlain").

From Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Movement, by Archimandrite Cyprian (Etna: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1998), pp. 69-74.

Her Stand against Ecumenism and Her Relations with Anti-Ecumenists

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