Earlier this month, news broke that the Ecumenical Patriarch had sent a letter to the Archbishop of Athens asking to “…depose and excommunicate leading hierarchs and clergy of the Church for their opposition to the ‘Council’ of Crete and its innovative organization and decisions.” The “council” they are referring to is the Holy and Great Synod. This letter has caused great uproar across the globe. But have you actually read the letter?
We’d like to thank George Demacopoulos and the team at the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham for taking the initiative in acquiring a proper translation., Orthodox Christian Network
Lost in Translation
The Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham recently commissioned a careful and thorough translation of Prot. No. 1153 to understand the true purpose and intent.
This is what they found:
1. Contrary to what many have falsely suggested, the Ecumenical
Patriarch is not transgressing the independence of the Church of Greece;
he is following proper protocol by asking Greece to address a problem
of its clergy.
2. The Ecumenical Patriarch is not requesting excommunication; he is recommending admonishment.
3. The Ecumenical Patriarch is not criticizing opposition to the
council; he acknowledges that reception and critical appraisal is vital
in any conciliar decree and document.
4. Rather, the Patriarch is critical of scandal and division aroused
by a small group of clerics who are deliberately trying to sow
resistance to the Council among the faithful in other autocephalous
churches.
5. There is a genuine irony at play by those who accuse the Holy and
Great Synod of heresy on the basis of ecumenism. By declaring the synod
heretical, these rogue clerics are cutting themselves off from the
communion of their own Church of Greece, which participated in the
Council.
The text reads:
Prot. No. 1153
Your Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens and All Greece, our
dearly beloved and precious brother and concelebrant, President of the
Sacred Synod of the Church of Greece, we embrace Your venerable
Beatitude fraternally in the Lord and greet You with great joy.
It is universally accepted that our Holy Orthodox Church – the One,
Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church – determines and decides about its
doctrine and polity through Sacred Councils: local and broader, Greater
or Holy and Great, as well as Ecumenical; moreover, Conciliar decisions
taken through the invocation of and in the Holy Spirit comprise a single
voice, as St. John Chrysostom also declares when he writes that “there
must always be one voice in the Church.” (Commentary on 1 Corinthians 36
PG61.3315)
Inasmuch as this ecclesiological and canonical principle of
deliberating and deciding in conciliar manner constitutes the
cornerstone of the life as well as the saving mission and witness of our
Orthodox Church in the world, we are communicating with Your dearly
beloved and illustrious Beatitude and the Most Holy Church of Greece in
our responsibility as Ecumenical Patriarch and President of the Holy and
Great Council that convened in Crete, but also as guardian of doctrine
and canonical order in the Eastern Church, in order to bring to Your
attention the following matter of serious concern both to us personally
and to the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Mother Church.
Information from diverse sources arrives on a daily basis at the
Ecumenical Patriarchate and to us personally that Protopresbyter
Theodoros Zissis together with like-minded clergy and laity – by means
of the internet and other general media, as well as by roaming through
various sister Orthodox Churches – summon brother Primates and
shepherds, and especially the pious Orthodox people, to rebellion and
misgiving with regard to the decisions of the Holy and Great Council of
our Orthodox Church that successfully took place in Crete, where Your
contribution and that of the Delegation of the Most Holy Church of
Greece proved constructive and instrumental for its marked success.
As if the sacrilegious work of this significant number of clergy and
laity within the jurisdiction of the Most Holy Church of Greece,
corrupting consciences and creating scandals, was in itself
insufficient, the information that we receive – which has not to date
been disproved by anyone – indicates that a delegation led by the
aforementioned clergyman has already visited the Most Holy Orthodox
Churches of Bulgaria and Georgia, as well as the ecclesiastical Eparchy
of Moldavia, creating turmoil among the faithful there and regrettably
being received by brother Primates and Hierarchs of these Churches.
Moreover, again according to the same sources, this group consistently
presented itself, while in Georgia, as conveying the conscience of the
plenitude of the Church of Greece.
Surely both Your Beatitude and the Sacred Synod of the Most Holy
Church of Greece agree that the information deliberately and
sacrilegiously speculated and circulated by these clergy and laity are,
in the words of Basil the Great, “toxic drugs for the soul . . . while
the rabid minds” of those disseminating them “are filled with utter
fantasy as they shriek from their passion.” (Letter 210, To the notables
of Neocaesarea PG32.777A) After all, “dividing the Church and being
disposed to dissension, creating discord and constantly rejecting
councils, is unforgivable and worthy of condemnation, calling for stern
punishment.” (St. John Chrysostom, Against Jews 3 PG48.872)
Unfortunately, this familiar group, which has established a front
against the canonical Church and the decisions of the Holy and Great
Council convened in Crete, is also supported by positions of brother
Hierarchs in the Most Holy Church of Greece with their writings and
indiscriminate comments on every possible subject both before and after
the Great Council. These include, for example, the Most Reverend
Metropolitans Amvrosios of Kalavryta-Aigialieia and Seraphim of Piraeus.
Those who act in this manner surely forget that “matters deliberated
and decreed synodally are more important and valid than matters deduced
individually.” (John of Citrus, Responses to Archbishop Constantine
Cabasilas of Dyrrahion, in Rallis-Potlis, Syntagma of the Holy and
Sacred Canons, volume 5, p. 403)
Wherefore, we entreat Your Beatitude and Your Sacred Synod of the
Church of Greece – which participated in the Holy and Great Council of
Crete, sharing in the decisions and signing all its Synodal documents –
to apply the decision of this Council regarding the binding nature of
its documents for all the Orthodox faithful, clergy and lay (cf.
Organizational and Operational Procedures of the Holy and Great Council
of the Orthodox Church, Article 13, paragraph 2), assuming appropriate
measures and proceeding to necessary recommendations to the said
clergymen and their followers so that they might cease from their
anti-ecclesiastical and uncanonical actions and not scandalize the souls
“for whom Christ died” or create problems in the unified Orthodox
Church.
Everyone is well aware that “nothing so provokes God as division in
the Church” (St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on Ephesians 11 PG62.85),
which is unfortunately what occurs through the conduct of such people.
Thus, we have no doubt that Your Beatitude and the Sacred Synod of the
Most Holy Church of Greece will do whatever is required, in accordance
with canonical precision, in order to proceed with the necessary
ecclesiastical recommendations and admonitions to these clergymen and
laymen so that they might not give cause for “scandals,” while warning
them in case of non-compliance of the imposition of consequences
foreseen by the holy and sacred canons for remedying the wounds
generated by their conduct in the body of the Church.
Furthermore, we also fervently entreat Your Beatitude to diligently
draw the attention of our brother Hierarchs of the Most Holy Church of
Greece – namely, the above-mentioned Metropolitans of
Kalavryta-Aigialeia and Seraphim of Piraeus – who are causing turmoil
among God’s people with their statements and encyclicals, expressly
noting that, should they not awaken and come to their senses, the
Ecumenical Patriarchate will address the problem that has emerged by
severing ecclesiastical and sacramental communion with them, inasmuch as
they are provoking the common responsibility and obligation of all
Orthodox Shepherds to safeguard the unity, peace and unified witness of
the Orthodox Church.
We responsibly denounce the above with painful soul and agonizing
heart before this impious matter, which exceeds the right to free
expression of constructive opinion, assumes larger and irreconcilable
dimensions, entrusting it to the prudence of Your Beatitude and the
venerable Hierarchy of the Church of Greece, as we remain with profound
love in the Lord and distinct honor.
At the Ecumenical Patriarchate, on November 18th, 2016
Your venerable Beatitude’s
beloved brother in Christ
+Bartholomew of Constantinople
beloved brother in Christ
+Bartholomew of Constantinople
We’d like to thank George Demacopoulos and the team at the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham for taking the initiative in acquiring a proper translation.