Ecumenism in the true sense, is having all of humanity embrace the truth of the gospel, having every person on this planet come to the Truth Himself, The Christ.
However, the type of ecumenism that accepts all Christians confessions as equal (Branch Theory), that is equally sharing bits and pieces of the truth and teaches love above truth, ignorance of dogma for the sake of peace, and disregard of differences which tend to divide, this type of ecumenism is the latest child of Free Masonry and the great-grandfather of the Antichrist, a true menace of the Church.
The Church is in imminent threat of being overcome by a storm of compromise and capitulation to heterodox doctrine and practice, and no sincere Orthodox Christian, layman or otherwise, can blamelessly remain idle while his path to salvation is washed away.
We call you to follow the Holy Fathers' direction and turn away from that dangerous and false ecumenism which fills our souls with self-importance and the soul-numbing and worldly subjectivity unfortunately so prevalent in post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism.
Let us heed the guidance of the Holy Fathers, who direct us to seek the union that Christ wishes: far from every worldly purpose and every compromise.
By remaining rooted and immovable in our Orthodoxy, we also give an opportunity to any of the heretics to awaken and to be incorporated into the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, so that they might find salvation.
Ecumenism is heresy! That is quite clear. Moreover, it is the heresy of heresies.
Of all the errors that so-called "Ecumenism" comprises, the most fundamental and profound is its error concerning the very nature of the Church itself. This is an ecclesiological heresy. It is contrary to the Nicean-Constantinopolitan confession of faith, for it asserts that there is no "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
(From the Monastery of Saint Shio of Mghvime: An Open Letter To The Patriach Of Georgia April 14/27, 1997)
The Orthodox Church teaches that she has no need to search for a "lost unity", because her historic consciousness dictates that she is the Una Sancta (=The One Holy Catholic And Apostolic Church) and that all Christian groups outside of the Orthodox Church can recover their unity only by entering into the bosom of that Church which preserved its identity with early Christianity.
(Statement of the Delegates of the Orthodox Church delivered at the N.A. Faith and Order study conference, Oberlin, Ohio, Sept. 1957).
As a member and Priest of the Orthodox Church, I believe that the Church in which I was baptized and brought up in is in very truth the Church, that is, the true Church and only true Church. I believe this for many reasons: by my personal conviction and by the inner testimony of the Spirit which breathes in the sacraments of the Church and by all that I could learn from Scripture and from the universal tradition of the Church. I am therefore compelled to regard all other Christian churches as deficient, and in many cases I can identify these deficiencies accurately enough. Therefore, for me, Christian reunion is simply universal conversion to Orthodoxy. I have no confessional loyalty, my loyalty belongs to Una Sancta. (Father Georges Florovsky: Ecumenism I: A Doctrinal Approach p. 134)
Contemporary ecumenism is built on supposition, on a human supposition, that the Church is not one, but many. The Church cannot be divided. From the Church it is possible only to fall away. In truth, the Church is an organism of the God-man, His Body, His Personality, and thus the Church is One, in all worlds. Contemporary ecumenism offers false christ, false messiahs and false prophets. Contemporary ecumenism is clearly secular, communistic and papal, because these share with ecumenism a high regard for the "social", temporal and worldly. For contemporary ecumenism the God-man does not occupy the center, from where we must look first of all for the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness. True unity is not possible through "dialogue", but only by repentance before the God-man and His Body, the Church. Without the God-man Christ, the so-called churches are the abode of Satan (Rev.B:9)
(Father Justin Popovich:The Hidden Conscience Of Orthodoxy: An Interview With Father Peter Milosevich).
However, the type of ecumenism that accepts all Christians confessions as equal (Branch Theory), that is equally sharing bits and pieces of the truth and teaches love above truth, ignorance of dogma for the sake of peace, and disregard of differences which tend to divide, this type of ecumenism is the latest child of Free Masonry and the great-grandfather of the Antichrist, a true menace of the Church.
The Church is in imminent threat of being overcome by a storm of compromise and capitulation to heterodox doctrine and practice, and no sincere Orthodox Christian, layman or otherwise, can blamelessly remain idle while his path to salvation is washed away.
We call you to follow the Holy Fathers' direction and turn away from that dangerous and false ecumenism which fills our souls with self-importance and the soul-numbing and worldly subjectivity unfortunately so prevalent in post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism.
Let us heed the guidance of the Holy Fathers, who direct us to seek the union that Christ wishes: far from every worldly purpose and every compromise.
By remaining rooted and immovable in our Orthodoxy, we also give an opportunity to any of the heretics to awaken and to be incorporated into the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, so that they might find salvation.
Ecumenism is heresy! That is quite clear. Moreover, it is the heresy of heresies.
Of all the errors that so-called "Ecumenism" comprises, the most fundamental and profound is its error concerning the very nature of the Church itself. This is an ecclesiological heresy. It is contrary to the Nicean-Constantinopolitan confession of faith, for it asserts that there is no "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.
(From the Monastery of Saint Shio of Mghvime: An Open Letter To The Patriach Of Georgia April 14/27, 1997)
The Orthodox Church teaches that she has no need to search for a "lost unity", because her historic consciousness dictates that she is the Una Sancta (=The One Holy Catholic And Apostolic Church) and that all Christian groups outside of the Orthodox Church can recover their unity only by entering into the bosom of that Church which preserved its identity with early Christianity.
(Statement of the Delegates of the Orthodox Church delivered at the N.A. Faith and Order study conference, Oberlin, Ohio, Sept. 1957).
As a member and Priest of the Orthodox Church, I believe that the Church in which I was baptized and brought up in is in very truth the Church, that is, the true Church and only true Church. I believe this for many reasons: by my personal conviction and by the inner testimony of the Spirit which breathes in the sacraments of the Church and by all that I could learn from Scripture and from the universal tradition of the Church. I am therefore compelled to regard all other Christian churches as deficient, and in many cases I can identify these deficiencies accurately enough. Therefore, for me, Christian reunion is simply universal conversion to Orthodoxy. I have no confessional loyalty, my loyalty belongs to Una Sancta. (Father Georges Florovsky: Ecumenism I: A Doctrinal Approach p. 134)
Contemporary ecumenism is built on supposition, on a human supposition, that the Church is not one, but many. The Church cannot be divided. From the Church it is possible only to fall away. In truth, the Church is an organism of the God-man, His Body, His Personality, and thus the Church is One, in all worlds. Contemporary ecumenism offers false christ, false messiahs and false prophets. Contemporary ecumenism is clearly secular, communistic and papal, because these share with ecumenism a high regard for the "social", temporal and worldly. For contemporary ecumenism the God-man does not occupy the center, from where we must look first of all for the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness. True unity is not possible through "dialogue", but only by repentance before the God-man and His Body, the Church. Without the God-man Christ, the so-called churches are the abode of Satan (Rev.B:9)
(Father Justin Popovich:The Hidden Conscience Of Orthodoxy: An Interview With Father Peter Milosevich).
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