CRISIS IN ORTHODOXY - UKRANIAN AUTOCEPHALOY

[Arsenios]

Well, the forces in the Orthodox Church are slowly gathering in rejection of the Ecumenical Patriarchate's CIA venture in the Ukraine.

The Arch-Bishop of Cypress will not commemorate the head of the newly formed schismatic Ukranian Church... The Moscow Patriarchate has already denounced it, and the Serbs as well, and now the Polish Orthodox Church has joined. The Antiochian Church has refused to recognize the new Church until there convenes a pan-Orthodox council, and has called for one to address the matter. The E-P has so far refused to call one... The Autocephalous Greek Church has refused as well to recognize this effort of the E-P...

http://orthochristian.com/118512.html

Fortunately, high speed resolution of such matters is NOT a feature of the Ancient Faith!

As the forces gather, repentance is proffered to those in grievous error...

Or as I learned to say: "Time wounds all heals..."

So we pray for the E-P...


Arsenios

 

[MoreCoffee]

Open letters are the canary in the mine...

We are conciliar...

No autocratic dictators over Christ's Body...

Christ Himself is the Head of His Body, the Church...


Arsenios

Christ is an "autocrat" and a "dictator".

 

[Arsenios]

It all started from here:

During his enthronement festivities, the new Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, announced his intentions of following the ecumenical direction set by his predecessors.

In a letter to the hieromonk, Polycarp, his beatitude, Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) wrote, "Was not primacy in the Church held until the ninth and even the eleventh centuries by the Roman popes? What then transpired? They, and all their flock, were cut off from the Church, and spent the remainder of their ruinous days as heretics. It is possible that Constantinople will suffer the same fate if it continues on the path of Meletios and Gregory VII."

According to recent reports this is now happening. Patriarch Bartholomew I is reported as saying, "[The Orthodox Church feels] the need for renovation...For instance, the prescription of a forty days fast before Easter and Christmas is scarcely feasible today outside of monasteries." He further claims, "Our aims are like John's [Pope John XXIII]: to update the Church and promote Christian unity... By the grace of God, all Orthodox Churches now favor ecumenism." (National Catholic Reporter, Jan. 21, 1977)

So the Latin Church has been fully on-board from 1977 in this operation...

May this not happen to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which brought forth from its bosom Sts. Cyril and Methodios, enlighteners of the Slavs, and numerous other saints. Constantinople was the mother of the Russian Church. Let us ponder the words of the Father of pastors and great High Priest, our Lord Jesus Christ, Who said, But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted (Matt. 23: 11,12).

And I join in this assessment above...

The world is amiably uniting, seeking to build a new "tower of Babel," create a "new world order" and establish "paradise" here on earth.

This is indeed the danger - Every slaughter of humanity on a world-scale has been to clean out the "old order" for the "new paradise on earth"...

And every one turns the lives of those under it into a nightmare of pain and death...

For all those whose love for the one, only, saving Orthodox Faith will not permit them to follow this "union,"
for them a difficult test awaits.
"The trial for the saints of God will become horrible...
Their small number will appear insignificant before all of humanity...,
general derision, hatred, slander, persecution, violent death will be their lot" (Bishop Ignaty Brianchaninov).
"If ye were of the world, the world would love its own:
but because ye are not of the world,
but I have chosen you out of the world,
therefore the world hateth you" (John 15:19).

The faithful children of the Church of Christ must now prepare themselves for difficult, psychological isolation.

Monk Gorazd
__________________________
From:

http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/quovadis.aspx


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Christ is an "autocrat" and a "dictator".

And He is not the Pope or any other human Head within His Body...

And in this fallen creation, He directs His Body, the Church...

When that Body does not receive His Direction...

But instead asserts its headship over Christ's Body...

It is pruned from the True Vine...

This is the danger for the Ecumenical Patriarch...

That he will be pruned as were Meletios and Gregory VII before him...


Arsenios

 

[MoreCoffee]

And He is not the Pope or any other human Head within His Body...

And in this fallen creation, He directs His Body, the Church...

When that Body does not receive His Direction...

But instead asserts its headship over Christ's Body...

It is pruned from the True Vine...

This is the danger for the Ecumenical Patriarch...

That he will be pruned as were Meletios and Gregory VII before him...


Arsenios

You're wrong. Christ is pope. Pope, meaning father, is exactly what the Lord is.

 

[Arsenios]

You're wrong.

We disagree...

Christ is pope.

I know you think so...

Pope, meaning father, is exactly what the Lord is.

Christ is the Head of His Body...

This body has no earthly Head but Christ...

"Behold I am with you always...
Even to the end of the Age...

At least He is the Head of our Communion...

The E/P, in this context of usurping authority, risks usurping from Christ...

He has unilaterally declared his personal authority as if he is boss or Head of the Church...

He is not...


Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Here is an Orthodox response in the Ukraine to the EP's actions legitimizing the schismatics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUUOAIAkpjs


Arsenios