THE VISIT OF HIS HOLINESS POPE BENEDICT XVI to Constantinople for the New Calendar festival of St Andrew was accompanied by an unprecedented level of liturgical concelebration, including the chanting of the following innovative troparion:-
“The most exalted vessel of Orthodoxy (?) is being glorified
now receiving from the West the venerable Shepherd and Primate (!).
And receiving the good omens (!) visibly jubilates
supplicating Christ devoutly (!):
Guard Your world (!) with Your power,
keeping all in harmony, being extremely good as You are.”
Naturally the event has provoked protests from those Orthodox more sensitive to the Apostolic and Patristic teachings, and we reproduce two of these protests in this Announcement and in the Open Letter beginning on page 5. For those of you, who are not Orthodox, or who are new to Orthodoxy, some of the expressions may seem unduly harsh. Calling the Roman Catholics “Papists” for instance, has certain very negative connotations in English, which derive from our own particular historical perceptions. However, we hope that the careful reader will discern that in fact this is the only term which succinctly and correctly defines the Roman Catholic confession. The words “heresy” and “heretic” carry the most unpleasant connotations in English, because of our unhappy history of persecuting and burning heretics, whereas in truth “heresy” means only a continuing in error, and a “heretic” is one that does this. These and that other similar seemingly brusque expressions in the protests below are, in fact, speaking with the love which is characteristic of evangelical truth.
THE RECENT VISIT of Pope Benedict XVI to the OEcumenical Patriarchate on the occasion of the feast-day of Saint Andrew (30th November 2006) and thereafter the visit by His Beatitude the Archbishop of Athens Christodoulos (14th December 2006) gave rise to a multitude of impressions, evaluations and reactions. We shall bypass those things that the secular Press had evaluated as positive or negative, to focus on those things that pertain to our salvation, for the sake of which we abandoned the world to live in the barrenness of the Holy Mountain.
As Monks of the Holy Mountain, we respect the OEcumenical Patriarchate, under whose jurisdiction we fall. We honour and venerate the Most Holy OEcumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and we rejoice in all that he has achieved and so diligently laboured for, in his love of God, for the Church. We particularly commemorate the stolid and untiring defence of the OEcumenical Patriarchate, amid the many unfavourable conditions that exist, as well as the impoverished local Orthodox Churches and the care that is taken to project the message of the Orthodox Church throughout the world. Furthermore, we the Monks of the Holy Mountain honour the Most Holy Church of Greece, from which most of us originate, and we respect His Beatitude the Primate.
However, the events that took place during the recent visits of the Pope to Fanarion and of His Beatitude the Archbishop to the Vatican brought immense sorrow to our hearts.
We desire and we struggle all of our life to safeguard the trust of the Holy Fathers, which was bequeathed to us by the holy Founders of our sacred Monasteries and the blessed reposed fathers before us. We strive to the best of our ability to live the sacrament of the Church and the unblemished Orthodox Faith, according to what we are daily taught by the divine Services, the sacred readings, and the teachings in general of the Holy Fathers which are set out in their writings and in the decisions of the OEcumenical Synods. We guard our dogmatic awareness “like the pupil of our eye,” and we reinforce it, by applying ourselves to Godpleasing labours and the meticulous study of the achievements of the holy Confessor Fathers when they confronted the miscellaneous heresies, and especially of our father among the saints, Gregory Palamas, the Holy Martyrs of the Holy Mountain and the Holy Martyr Kosmas the First, whose sacred relics we venerate with every honour and whose sacred memory we incessantly celebrate. We are afraid to remain silent, whenever issues arise that pertain to the trust that our Fathers left us. Our responsibility, towards the most venerable fathers and brothers of the overall brotherhood of the Holy Mountain and towards the pious faithful of the Church who regard Athonite Monasticism as their non-negotiable guardian of sacred Tradition, weighs heavily upon our conscience.
The visits of the Pope at Fanarion and the Archbishop’s visit at the Vatican may have secured certain benefits of a secular nature, however, during those visits, various other events took place which were not according to the customs of Orthodox Ecclesiology, or commitments were made that would neither benefit the Orthodox Church, nor any other heterodox Christians.
