True Orthodoxy
by Archbishop Averky of Blessed Memory
Few people today know that the Orthodox Church
is nothing less than that Church which has preserved untainted
the genuine teachings of Jesus Christ, the very teachings
delivered to every subsequent generation of believers. These
teachings came down the centuries. from the Holy Apostles,
explicated and carefully interpreted by their legitimate
successors (their disciples and the holy Fathers), traditioned
and conserved unaltered by our Eastern Church which is alone able
to prove her right to be called "the Orthodox Church."
The divine Founder of the Church, our Lord
Jesus Christ, said clearly, "I will build my Church and the
gates of Hell will not prevail against Her" (St. Matt xvi,
18). To the Church, He sent the Holy Spirit. The Spirit descended
upon the Apostles, the Spirit of Truth (St. John xv, 16f) Who
"manifests all things" to Her and guides Her (St. John
xvi, 13), protecting Her from error. Indeed, it was to declare
this Truth to men that the Lord came into the cosmos, according
to His own words (St. John xviii, 31). And Saint Paul confirms
this fact in his letter to his pupil, the bishop Timothy, saying
that, "the Church of the living God is the ground and pillar
of the Truth" (I Tim iii, 15).
Because She is "the ground and pillar of
the Truth," "the gates of Hell cannot prevail against
Her." It follows, then, that the true Christian
Church—palpably unique since Christ established but one
Church—has always existed on earth and will exist to the end
of time. She has received the promise of Christ, "I will be
with you even unto the end of the age." Can there be the
slightest doubt that the Lord refers here to the Church? Any
honest and sane judgment, any act of good conscience, anyone
familiar with the history of the Christian Church, the pure and
unaltered moral and theological teachings of the Christian
religion, must confess that there was but one true Church founded
by our Lord, Jesus Christ, and that She has preserved His Truth
holy and unchanged. History reveals, moreover, a traceable link
of grace from the holy Apostles to their successors and to the
holy Fathers. In contrast to what others have done, the Orthodox
Church has never introduced novelties into Her teachings in order
to "keep up with the times", to be
"progressive", "not to be left at the side of the
road," or to accommodate current exigencies and fashions
which are always suffused with evil. The Church never conforms to
the world.
Indeed not, for the Lord has said to his
disciples at the Last Supper, "You are not of this
world." We must hold to these words if we are to remain
faithful to true Christianity—the true Church of Christ has
always been, is and will always be a stranger to this world.
Separated from it, she is able to transmit the divine teachings
of the Lord unchanged, because that separation has kept Her
unchanged, that is, like the immutable God Himself. That which
the learned call "conservativism" is a principal and,
perhaps, most characteristic index of the true Church.
Since the TRUTH is given to us once and
for all, our task is to assimilate rather than to discover
it. We are commanded to confirm ourselves and others in the Truth
and thereby bring everyone to the true Faith, Orthodoxy.
Unfortunately, there have appeared in the very
bosom of the Church, even among the hierarchy, opinions expressed
by well-known individuals which are detrimental to Her. The
desire to "march with the times" makes them fear that
they will not be recognized as "cultured",
"liberal" and "progressive." These modern
apostates to Orthodoxy are "ashamed" to confess that
our Orthodox church is precisely the Church which was
founded by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church to which appertains
the great promise that "the gates of Hell will not prevail
against Her," and to which He confided the plenum of divine
Truth. By their deceit and false humility, by their blasphemy
against the Lord, these false shepherds and those with them have
been estranged from the true Church. They have given tacit
expression to the idea that "the gates of Hell" have
"prevailed" against the Church. In other words, these
apostates say that our holy Orthodox Church is equally "at
fault" for the "division of the churches" and
ought now to "repent" her sins and enter into union
with other "Christian churches" by means of certain
concessions to them, the result being a new, indivisible church
of Christ.
This is the ideology of the religious movement
which has become so fashionable in our times: "The
ecumenical movement" among whose number one may count
Orthodox, even our clergy. For a long time, we have heard that
they belong to this movement in order "to witness to the
peoples of other confessions the truth of holy Orthodoxy,"
but it is difficult for us to believe that this statement is
anything more than "throwing powder in our eyes." Their
frequent theological declarations in the international press can
lead us to no other conclusion than that they are traitors to the
holy Truth.
As a matter of historical fact, the
"ecumenical movement"—of which the WCC is the
supreme organ—is an organization. of purely Protestant
origin. Nearly all the Orthodox Churches have joined, the Russian
Orthodox Church Outside of Russia being the most notable
exception. Even those churches behind the "iron
curtain" have joined. For some time the Russian Patriarchate
resisted, flattering herself with the purity of her Orthodoxy and
quite naturally viewing this movement as hostile to Orthodoxy.
She has since become a member.
The Russian Synod almost stands alone in her
opposition to the "ecumenical movement." How can we
explain her isolation from the rest of "global
Orthodoxy"? We must understand the situation in terms of the
words that "this Must take place" (St. Luke xxi, 9),
that is, the "great apostasy" clearly predicted by the
Lord (Sol ii, 3-12). "it is permitted by God," as [St.]
Ignatius Brianchaninoff said almost a century ago. (Another
spiritual father, Theophan the Recluse, announced with grief that
the horrendous apostasy would begin within Russia.) [St.]
Ignatius wrote: "We are helpless to arrest this apostasy.
Impotent hands will have no power against it and nothing more
will be required than the attempt to withold it. The spirit of
the age will reveal the apostasy. Study it, if you wish to avoid
it, if you wish to escape this age and the temptation of its
spirits. One can suppose, too, that the institution of the
Church which has been tottering for so long will fall terribly
and suddenly. Indeed, no one is able to stop or prevent it.
The present means to sustain the institutional Church are
borrowed from the elements of the world, things inimical to the
Church, and the consequence will be only to accelerate its fall.
Nevertheless, the Lord protects the elect and their limited
number will be filled."
The Enemy of humanity makes every effort and
uses all means to confound it. Aid comes to him through the total
co-operation of all the secret and invisible heterodox,
especially those priests and bishops who betray their high
calling and oath, the true faith and the true Church.
Repudiation of and preservation from the
apostasy which has made such enormous progress demands that we
stand apart from the spirit of the age (which bears the seeds of
its own destruction). If we expect to withstand the world, it is
first necessary to understand it and keep sensitively in mind
that in this present age all that which carries the most holy and
dear name of Orthodoxy is not in fact Orthodox. Rather, it is
often "A fraudulent and usurped Orthodoxy" which we
must fear and eschew as if it were fire. Unlike this spurious
faith, true Orthodoxy was given and must be received without
novelty and nothing must be accepted as a teaching or practice of
the Church which is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the dogma
of the Universal Church. True Orthodoxy thinks only to serve god
and to save souls and is not preoccupied with the secular and
ephemeral welfare of men. True Orthodoxy is spiritual and
not physical or psychological or earthly. In order to protect
ourselves from "the spirit of the age" and preserve our
fidelity to the true Orthodoxy, we ought firstly and with all our
strength live blamelessly: A total and rigorous commitment to
Christ, without deviation from the commandments of God or the
laws of His holy Church. At the same time, we must have no common
prayer or spiritual liaison with the modern apostasy or with
anything which "soils" our holy Faith, even those
dissidents who call themselves "Orthodox." They will go
their way and we will go ours. We must be honorable and
tenacious, following the right way, never deviating in order to
please men or from fear that we might lose some personal
advantage.
The sure path to perdition is indifference and
the lack of principles which is euphemistically called
"the larger view." In opposition to this "larger
view" we put the "rigor of ideas" which, in
modernity, it is fashionable to label "narrow" and
"fanatical." To be sure, if one adopts the "modern
mentality," one must consider the holy martyrs—whose
blood is "the cement of the Church"—and the Church
Fathers—who struggled all their lives against
heretics—as nothing less than "narrow" and
"fanatical." In truth, there is little difference
between "the broad way" against which the Lord warned
and the modern "larger view." He condemned the
"broad way" as the way to "gehenna."
Of course, the idea of "gehenna"
holds no fear for those "liberals" and avant-garde
theologians. They may smugly "theologize" about it, but
in rashly and wantonly discussing "the new ways of Orthodox
theology" and acquiring a number of disciples, they give
evidence that they no longer believe in the existence of Hell.
This new breed of "Orthodox" are really no more than
modern "scholastics."
In other words, the way of these
"progressivists" is not our way. Their way is
deceptive, and it is unfortunate that it is not evident to
everyone. The "broader" or "larger view"
alienates us from the Lord and His true Church. It is the road
away from Orthodoxy. This view is sinister, maliciously invented
by the Devil in order to deny us salvation. For us, however, we
accept no innovations, but choose the ancient, proven way, the
way in which true Christians have chosen to serve God for 2,000
years.
We choose the way of fidelity to the true Faith
and not the "modern way." We choose faithfulness to the
true Church with all Her canons and dogmas which have been
received and confirmed by the local and universal Councils. We
choose the holy customs and traditions, the spiritual riches of
that faith transmitted complete and entire to us from the Holy
Apostles, the Holy Fathers of the Church, and the Christian
heritage of our venerable ancestors. This alone is the faith of
the true Orthodox, distinct from the counterfeit
"orthodoxy" invented by the Adversary. We receive only
the Apostolic Faith, the Faith of the Fathers, the Orthodox
Faith.
From Orthodox Christian Witness, wherein it appeared
translated from the French in La Foi Transmise (Nov. 1968), pp. 19-22.
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