Real Ecumenism is Orthodox Unity
In a message characteristic of what the Church has been saying through Her saints and elders for generations (1), Bishop Pitirim of Syktyvkar and Vorkuta, one of the most active and well-known bishops in Russia, issued the following statement on his official diocesan website on 19 May 2010:
‘Masonic ecumenism promotes a ‘religion’ of ‘ecumenists’, ‘of Christians’, of ecumenical syncretism, outwardly quite innocuous, yet with its own religious practices and aim: the formation of a federal world government or world superstate, a supreme court and international executive body, with a future ‘deified’ leader, to suppress any country, community or individual that resist it.’
‘Misguided Christian ecumenists are joining the outright enemies of the Church, such as freemasons, saying nice things, rather than accusing their interlocutors of paganism and ignorant heresy…All of them can be recognised by airy-fairy expressions not found in Holy Scripture or the Tradition, such as: ‘They are imprisoned in a ghetto’ (that is Orthodoxy), ‘society suffers from a lack of tolerance (relativism etc), ‘ecumenism is the spiritual foundation of tolerance’, they suffer from spiritual illiteracy’. For example, the ecumenist K.K. Ivanov (a doctor of philosophy who has infiltrated into the Church) said: ‘Get out of here with that point of view’, ‘diversity of confession is our treasure’, the most poisonous sorts (those who call themselves Orthodox) say there’s only one truth, ‘their faith is a dangerous addiction’, ‘to talk on only one level is a catastrophe, ‘Catholics and Protestants have achieved a success that we haven’t even dreamed of’, ‘what unites us is greater than what divides us’…‘the Church is different families’, ‘when we speak of our faith, we do not put Christ at the centre of it’.
As another example of ecumenism, Vladyka Pitirim cites statements of the highly controversial and very divisive academic, Fr George Mitrofanov: ‘There are fewer and fewer Christians…the choice is between godlessness and some sort of religiosity. When an Orthodox priest preaches against sectarianism, he betrays the memory of the recent persecution of all Christians in our country. I don’t understand the inferiority complex of Orthodox who think they’re achieving something when they denounce heterodox’.
In response to these remarks, Vladyka Pitirim said: ‘Are they saying that the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious had an inferiority complex? Until his dying day he never stopped denouncing pagans’.
‘In this way’, Vladyka sums up, ‘ecumenists preach human sincerity, but not the truth. The only ecumenism can be the unity of Orthodox, who for some reason are not praying together. And the unity of heathen and heretics who have repented (this includes all the myriad of denominations), according to the rites established by the Holy Fathers of the Church’.
For the original: link
Note:
1. For example, St John of Kronstadt, St Seraphim of Vyritsa, St Laurence of Chernigov, St Nicholas of Zhicha, St John of Shanghai, St Sebastian of Karaganda, St Justin of Cheliye, Elder Cleopas of Romania, Elder Philotheos (Zervakos), Elder Paisios the New, Elder Porphyrios (Bairaktaris), Elder Nikolai (Gurianov), Elder Zosimas (Sokur), Elder John (Krestiankin), Elder Arsenie (Boca).
