An Explanatory Note: Several years ago, two of our Bishops in Western Europe, during a meeting of the Holy Synod, asked that someone be assigned to write an apologetic note about the witness of the Holy Synod in Resistance, addressing in particular its anti-ecumenical stand as perceived in the religiously-pluralistic societies of the West. His Eminence, Metropolitan Cyprian of Oropos and Phyle [Fili], the President of the Holy Synod, assigned this task to Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna. The product of His Eminence’s efforts was the following compelling essay, which was, on account of the subsequent illness of the Metropolitan and the Holy Synod’s preoccupation with other matters, never submitted to the Bishops for approval. We asked Archbishop Chrysostomos, recently, if he would allow us, for the edification of our faithful in the West and in reply to various of our critics, to post it on the English version of the official website of the Holy Synod. His Eminence reluctantly agreed to allow this, with the caveat that it must appear with our affirmation that it is a personal statement and without any suggestion of its endorsement or approbation by the Holy Synod (though one cannot imagine anyone in the Synod objecting to any of His Eminence’s statements). We are thus pleased to present this excellent essay.
† Bishop Auxentios of Photiki Hieromonk Patapios Agiogregorites
WHAT THE HOLY SYNOD
IN RESISTANCE INTENDS BY ITS
RESISTANCE TO ECUMENISM &
PAPISM AND HOW IT VIEWS THESE OBJECTS OF ITS RESISTANCE
A Statement of Clarification by Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna
“...[S]peak forth the words of truth and soberness” (Acts 26:25)
I. Our resistance to ecumenism is not undertaken in a spirit of bigotry
To the secular scientist, nothing is more dangerous than committing what, in statistics, is called a Type I error. When a scientist commits such an error, he wrongly accepts as probable fact an incorrect or false hypothesis. As a consequence of this, other false hypotheses and theories, predicated on this error, may enter into the body of scientific knowledge. When this happens, the integrity of that body of knowledge is even further compromised. In this same way, the Church Fathers were careful to protect the consensio Patrum, or the common voice of the Fathers with regard to that body of truth believed by the Orthodox Church in all places, at all times, and by everyone,1 from false teachings and assumptions, or heresy (to use that word properly, and not as a mere denunciatory epithet), lest they distort the path towards salvation and human transformation (union with God by Grace, or theosis) which the unique Truth of Orthodox Christianity entails.
Hence, in rejecting the religious syncretism of the contemporary ecumenical movement, which posits that ultimate Truth derives not from a single extant criterion, but from the synthesis of many different relative truths (religious traditions) into a single standard of veracity that will emerge in the future, we imitate the scientist in his quest for a single body of Truth and a single criterion for establishing and preserving it. We Orthodox resisters hold that Christ established a single Church, that it is the repository of Christian Truth,2 and that its Traditions, the very criteria of Truth, contain, encompass, and perpetuate everything that the Lord gave us, that the Apostles preached, and which the Church Fathers have, through the ages, preserved.3 To admit into the body of theological knowledge anything drawn from another source, or derived from any other set of traditions, is to adulterate the truth and to cut ourselves off from that sui generis quality that belongs only and exclusively to the fullness of truth, and not to its derivatives: that is, Grace.
It is not out of bigotry towards other religions, then, but in fidelity to the theological and ecclesiological principles which lie at the heart of the Orthodox confession, that we reject the notion of multiple sources of truth, a diversity in traditions, and contemporary ecumenism. Like the secular scientist, we, as spiritual aspirants, wish to preserve an empirical, revealed Truth and to avoid its admixture with false hypotheses or groundless opinions. Moreover, we also consider it our sacred duty to resist any attempt to substitute such “demonic heresies”—to employ once again the vocabulary of the Church Fathers—for the Truth. In this resistance, we do not approach other religions (or the ecumenical movement, for that matter) as intrinsically evil or diabolical per se, but directly address, rather, the demonic consequences of extraneous and false teachings that impugn the existence of, or lead one away from, the Orthodox repository of truth.4
