The Church is the body of Christ and is made up of people who believe in Christ truly and correctly, the way He taught. The Orthodox Church is the “One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church” as the Symbol of Faith states. It declares “One” which means there are no other Churches. And this One Church is the Orthodox Church. The others which are presented as Churches are not churches but heresies. The Orthodox Church is the only one which has kept, until this day, everything that she received from the Apostles and their successors, the Holy Fathers. The Papal, the Protestant and other so-called Churches, have not kept unaltered all that they received since the establishment of the Christian Church. They have made changes following opinions and desires of people so that today they have been transformed to such an extent that one wonders what relationship some of their teachings and activities have to the teachings of Christ.
They have degraded the Divine teaching to the level of the sinful man with his smallness, with his foolish ambitions, with his interests, with his racial selfishness. In this way, these so-called churches have ended up as earthly institutions just like all the other institutions which aim at earthly achievements. This is often done in the most disgusting and satanic way to such an extent that instead of attracting to Christ the lost souls which thirst for salvation, they push them away and throw them into atheism and indifference for their soul. Thus, doing the same as the Pharisees, whom the Lord addressed enraged: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of Heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in”. (Matt. 23:14) These so-called Churches are in reality institutions of convenience formed in line with the weaknesses and the sinful desires of people. Guided by their practical mentality, they attempted to remove from the teachings of Christ whatever they considered to be unacceptable exaggerations e.g. lack of possessions; apathy; the complete dedication to God which is the monastic life; the withdrawal from the world, from the worldly, from social and from political activities; the spiritual; the neglect of the body etc. They considered all of these as inhumane, unachievable and beyond the capabilities of man. Therefore, they compromised Christianity with their weaknesses, forming a convenient Christianity, that is, a false teaching of Christ, modified in accordance to earthly systems. This convenient Christianity has no other relationship to Christ apart from His name. In other words, these Churches which modify everything in order to easily attract the people who cannot endure trials and spiritual struggles, in reality do not focus on the future life but focus on this present materialistic life. They do not say the words of Apostle Paul “For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come” (Heb. 13:14), but they say the opposite: “We have no city to come, but here we seek the continuing one”. For this reason, their worship has taken a secular character instead of the liturgical character of worship of the Orthodox Church. Their liturgy has taken a theatrical character; their ecclesiastical music and art have lost the liturgical and spiritual style and have ended up as secular forms of art served by secular people who have no connection to the religion and to the Church. In addition, these so-called churches which as we said, are unrecognisable distorted forms of the real Church of Christ, present themselves as genuine Churches of Christ and with demonic arrogance they want to control the matters of the Christian faith in the world. These false churches contest the leading role in conventions because they have established their headquarters in countries which have political power and technology enabling them to influence the world. Whereas the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, which is the Orthodox, the true and unchanged Church of Christ which has not changed direction, character and outward expression until today, this “One Church” which the heretics consider as heretic, sits hunched over, like a “poor neighbour”. This is so because this Church does not represent large nations with political power and technology. In other words, the Orthodox Church does not have on her, the coat of arms of Satan. Instead of being recognised as the unabolished foundation of Christianity, the respectable mother of the Christians from whom they have been taught the religion and received everything including faith, celebration and ecclesiastical art, they try to be her teacher and advisor. And instead of those, who have gone astray from the true path and are wandering in the desert of delusion, to return back to the true path, they have the arrogance to demand that the real Church leaves the true path which the Lord opened, and follow them. Oh luciferic impudence! The illegitimate ones consider the genuine children of the Church as illegitimate. They find every way to humble and step all over the genuine children of the Church. This is no imaginative story but real historical facts which cannot be changed by any Pontiff. Amongst other characteristics which confirm that the genuine Church is the Orthodox one is the following: The fact that this Church is persecuted, suffers, struggles, is humbled, and endures martyrdom from the roman swarms till today. This suffering of Orthodoxy is a more convincing title of Her authenticity than even Her birthright. This is based on what the Lord said: “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” And “But whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be the slave of all” (Mark 10:43-440. Apostle Peter says: “Beloved, rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s suffering” (1 Peter 4:13). And Apostle Paul says: “We know that as you are partakers of the sufferings, so also you will partake of the consolation” (II Cor. 1:7). In brief, the Lord never blessed the ones living in comfort and the ones in authority but the victimised, the poor and the persecuted. Poor and persecuted is the Orthodox Church, rich and authoritarian are some of the other socalled Churches. Therefore which one is the genuine, Church in Christ, according to the Gospel? Saint Isaac the Syrian writes the following: “Instead of good living, rest and life with no worries, God allows hardships, temptations and suffering to trouble the ones in whom the Holy Spirit resides, as a sign that the Holy Spirit resides in them.” And when Apostle Paul asked Christ to rid him of some torment which he suffered from, which he calls thorn, Christ told him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (II Cor.12:9). In other words, “I will not take away the suffering but I give you strength to face it. Because how else, would my strength be revealed?” In line with these words, Orthodoxy is blessed to be persecuted. However, wherever there is struggle for the faith, Christ is also present. Christ said “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force”. (Mat. 11:12). During this evil era of materialism and compromise, the Orthodox Church has lost her heroic character and the humble knowledge that she is the One, Catholic and Apostolic Church and talks about Union. Union, this eternal tune sung to the tortured Orthodoxy by those who hate Her, “Her false brothers”, who try to take advantage of Her agony. This Union is the union which the wolf tells the sheep. The unfortunate sheep grazes humble and naive, and the wolf says to it with a sweet voice: “My lamb, I love you dearly! Look how my saliva is dripping from love. Now, I will eat you and we’ll be united”! This is the union about which our dear brother in Christ is talking about. You who sweet talk with him and strip our Church from Her respectable and Greek character in order to facilitate this Union, indifferent to whether our Nation will be swallowed by the Latin and disappear. Alas! Do not show the wolves into the sheep yard with the sheep.Fotios Kontoglou
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