By Archimandrite Sarantis Sarantos,
Parish priest of the church of the “Assumption of the Virgin”, Maroussi, Athens, Greece

“THE ONE TRUE CHURCH”

The heading above stands out at the Vatican website:  www.domusdei.org/2007/07/10/the -one-true-church

Pope Benedict XVI provokes with the four page article which is found at the website above. He considers the papal church to be the only true church, while the other churches, the orthodox and the protestant, to be lacking. He repeats his positions and beliefs which he had published back in 2000 – in his capacity as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - in a 16 page text entitled “Dominus Jesus”. The non – papal churches are lacking, because they do not acknowledge his authority as Pope as well as his primacy. They do not acknowledge him as the first successor of St. Peter the Apostle, from whom (the pope) every ecclesiastical institution is emanating and whose recognition legalizes any other bishop's prelacy and pastoral work. Yet, the Vatican supports that the ecumenical dialogue remains one of its priorities, but it is important – as in any kind of dialogue- that the participants are clear as far as their identity is concerned.

What is the meaning of the phrase “in any kind of dialogue, the participants have to be clear as far as their identity is concerned”?

Pope’s reply to Bartholomeos

We humbly think that everything which is published in the aforementioned Vatican website, the phrase above being its utmost wording, is actually Pope Benedict’ s reply to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos' invitation asking him to meet at Ravena, in autumn 2007, and inaugurate together the new period of the ecumenical dialogue between the papists and the orthodox.

Meetings of Benedict- Bartholomeos and Christodoulos- Benedict

This reply comes after the two previous meetings (a) Pope Benedict’s XVI with the Ecumenical Patriarch, at Phanar and (b) Pope Benedict’s XVI with Archbishop Christodoulos, at the Vatican.

During both meetings, the profoundness and good will of the orthodox leaders for a sincere dialogue of love, that was certainly aiming at unity in God, was obvious. The Pope was addressed by the orthodox leaders in a noble, polite, and Christian like behavior for what appeared to be, demonstrating, at least on the surface, a genuine intention for an intercommunion approach based on the one and only Truth (if not on naivety). The common announcements echoed the good intentions of the two parts – “churches” for the intercommunion in Christ.

Joint Declarations

a) The joint Declaration between Pope Benedict XVI and the Patriarch Bartholomeos of November 30th 2006 at Phanar, written by a Phanariot, seems to be beyond reproach, at least from the communication perspective and is aiming towards establishing excellent human relations.  Should anyone read carefully the aforementioned “joint” declaration, it would become immediately evident that the whole text - along with the selected quotations from the Bible, emanated from a baptized and myrrh bearing author, full of human kindness and dignified Christian love; such characteristics truly identifying the profile of his All – Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos.  However, not only this “joint” declaration is addressed to the equivalent of a wall having been whitewashed, to wide shut ears and to solidified demoniac intolerance, it also happens to be solely outside of the spirit of the confessors of our faith, the holy Apostles and their successors. It is completely out of context and foreign to the mentality of the holy Fathers and of the seven Ecumenical Councils, who do not want to pray jointly with heretics, or to be on terms of intimacy with them.

The holy Fathers are well aware of the deviations of the papists in all theological aspects and therefore within all the forming morals of faithful Orthodox Christians. The Vatican is lacking in dogmatic teaching and the adulterates the quality of the faithfuls' morals.  The papal pan- heretic mischief contaminates the whole body of the faithful, the body of the Church and modifies it into a solely worldly organization of endo-secular selfish activities.

The papists' erroneous beliefs which the Orthodox cannot overlook are: The primacy and infallibility of the Pope, Baptism conducted by sprinkling (in contrast to full immersion in water), the Filioque, the usage of unleavened bread in the Holy Communion (Eucharist), the sanctification of the Holly Gifts by means of saying the Lord’ s prayer only and without the invocation (epiclesis) of the Holly Spirit, the purgatorial fire, the remission of sins due to the superabundant works of merit of the saints, the Immaculate Conception of Theotokos (Mother of God) and primarily the denial of the uncreated acts of the Holy Spirit and the acceptance of redemption via the created Grace, i.e. through the evolution of the human race alone, etc. All these, along with the papal Inquisition, constitute the fundamental causes which impelled the Europeans to atheism; in fact for some generations now the main motto of atheist Europeans has been: “God is dead”.

b) The “joint” declaration of Pope Benedict XVI and the Archbishop Christodoulos essentially governed by a common agony for the contemporary world, aiming mainly at the re-evangelism of Europe, based on the given historical precondition that its roots are in fact Christian. However, the Vatican pan heretic cunning has managed to elicit His Beatitude's (Grace) signature to an almost denial of the orthodox faith, since His Beatitude admitted acceptance of the Second Vatican Council.

Pope demands subjugation of the “lacking” Orthodox to his authority

Pope’s recent publication, dated July 10th, 2007 seems to ignore the recent good - almost submissive - intentions of the orthodox leaders and practically demands full submission to the Pope's primacy.

Common logic easily suggests that the dialogue which the Vatican wishes to make with the Orthodox is in fact an unfair dialogue; this is due to the obvious contrast between the unambiguous (non-negotiable) belief of pope's primacy versus the synodic and democratic orthodox dialectic attitude, two magnitudes of unequal size and totally opposite in context.

Any given well-disposed and objective reader of the papal decisions of the Second Vatican Council, concerning openings of love and dialogue towards the Orthodox Church, may easily comprehend the papal propaganda which simply aims to the unconditional submission of the orthodox to the papal despotism. This also happens to be the impression of P. Trembelas, who comments on the Council one year after its conclusion back in 1966, as well as that of Archimandrite Spyridon Bilalis who has reported on its results extensively.

Pope Benedict XVI fires unmanly the ill Christodoulos as well as Bartholomeos who is under threat.

We should also take into consideration the intentional timing of the papal statements of July the 10th, 2007 whilst:

a)                  His Beatitude (Grace) Archbishop of Athens Mr.Christodoulos, “a friend of Pope” had just arrived from Vatican and had being seriously ill (NB – today it is known that this illness resulted inevitably into his departure from this world).

b)                 Patriarch Bartholomeos “a friend of Pontiff’s” too, is threatened to be murdered by Turkish organizations.

Was this timing, purely coincidental? If we presume that it was, surely some corrective action could have been taken trough additional lines at the papal websites or at least some plausible publications could have been written somewhere else, demonstrating even the slightest tendency for friendship towards the aforementioned orthodox leaders.

Surely “Friend” Pontiff, if he honestly wanted to continue the dialogue with them, could express his sympathy to his occasional “brothers” Christodoulos and Bartholomeos and not throw arrows at them during this sensitive period of their lives.

Sincerely speaking, if our criticism is beyond Christian modesty and love, may God forgive us. Our intention, is rather to protect us from misleading, heretic behavior, heretic mentality and - the known throughout the years - ungodly papal “theology”.

The Pope has not met orthodox leaders with a leading and unshakeable mind

For sure the Pope has reached the state of the present papal provocation simply because he has not been confronted with a stead fast and firm orthodox ground. So far, and more especially since Patriarch Athinagoras’ period, he has been used to receiving from the orthodox, a flexible compliance to his demands, which is neatly “packaged” by the orthodox with the ornaments of reconciliation and unionism. Very often, the orthodox who participate in such ecumenical dialogues claim that they succeed in becoming witnesses of Orthodoxy, towards the enlightenment and the return of the heretic papists to the Orthodox Church.

Historical facts, however, prove the contrary. The orthodox representatives simply sit there in order to address the unfair demands that have already been underlined from the papists, Pope's primacy being always on top of the agenda.

The joint dialogue between the papists and the orthodox, influenced by the papal decisions of the Second Vatican Council, has succeeded thus far in emphasizing on what unites the Orthodox Church with the papists. The papists, aiming at their equalization with the One, True, Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church of Christ (or rather the subjugation of the Orthodox to the Papists), have managed to drag our orthodox representatives towards their beliefs, summarized below:

The spoils of Papacy

·              They have achieved the revocation of anathema, without having revoked the most serious doctrinal differences between them.

·              As a result of agreements taken behind closed doors, both sides decided to revoke the anathema on 7-12-1965. To be more precise “only the Phanar participated in this secret agreement – not the entire Orthodoxy” (father I. Romanidis). After the revocation of excommunication the Vatican, implementing its decision to acknowledge the sacraments of the Orthodox, encourages the papists to partake in the Sacraments of the Orthodox Church, while many orthodox take the Holy Communion in papal churches with the tolerance of the orthodox bishops residing outside of Greece.

·              On June 23rd 1993, at Balamand, Lebanon, the Seventh Plenary Session of the “Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches” signed a shameful text in which, among other things, it is declared that: “what Christ had commended to His Church – profession of apostolic faith, participation in the same sacraments, and, above all, unique priesthood/apostolic succession of the bishops - cannot be considered to be the exclusive property of one and one Church alone. Within this framework, it is apparent that any form of re-baptism is in fact unnecessary and obsolete”. Hence, in the Seventh Session between the Papists and the Orthodox, on the 23rdof June ,1993 in Balamand, both parts proclaimed joint priesthood, apostolic succession, equally valid baptism, and joint Holy Eucharist. This constitutes the equalization of the Orthodox sacraments with the ones of the heretic Papists.

·              During the occasional visits of the Orthodox leaders to the Pope, he has been addressed by them as “His Beatitude Bishop of Rome” without second thoughts – despite the fact that the Pope has absolutely nothing to do with the first Most Reverent Bishops of Rome. How is it possible that the pan-heretic Pontiff arrogates himself to this holy title, that of the Episcope of Rome? Moreover, how is it possible that we (the Orthodox) accept this act?

·              Although the problem of Unia had not been resolved yet, the 8th Convention of Baltimore in 2000, announced the reopening of the Dialogue between the Papists and the Orthodox demanding the participation of Uniat delegates in this dialogue. Despite the fact that the Orthodox had clearly concluded and stated in the Panorthodox Council III, that “Unia and dialogue are irreconcilable”, during the Balimore convention (which come afterwards in time) they spontaneously committed to inadmissible concessions towards Vatican volition for Unia.

The Papal interference in the works of the joint committee of the dialogue has been scandalous, and resulted inevitably in the wreck of the dialogue in Baltimore. Moreover, Pope Benedict XVI, in his letter to the Ukrainian Uniat Archbishop Luborniz Huzar, praised the struggles of the Uniat in this country. The Pope himself is in cooperation with the Uniat Bishop of Gratianoupolis, who works in Greece, in favor of Unia. It is also a known fact that, in Athens, apart from the formally appointed Latin Bishop of Athens and Pope's Nountsio, the aforementioned Uniat bishop develops parallel papal activity.

 

The Holy Canons regarding the stance towards Heretics

Surely, none has the authority to overstep or get round the bounds of the Holy Cannons which are inspired from the Holy Spirit:

Regarding the sacraments:  “We order the dethronement of bishops or presbyters who accept baptism or sacrifice of heretics. What harmony does Christ have with Beliar? or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?” (46th Canon of the Apostles).

Regarding common prayer:

9th Question by Timotheos of Alexandria:  Does the priest have to pray when followers of Arius or other heretics are present? Or does it not hurt him to say the prayers of consecration (“anaphora”) during the Holy offering? (NB: part of the celebration of the Orthodox Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom).

Reply: (according to the ancient text): During anaphora, the Deacon says prior to the “kiss” among brethren (an act during the Divine Liturgy): “those of you, who are not in communion with the (Orthodox) Church, are asked to depart now„. They should not be present, unless they repent and leave the heresy.

Interpretation: .. he replies that during the celebration of the Divine Liturgy the Deacon says to those who are Catechumen to get out of the church, by saying “those who are Catechumen, “proelthete” (it is a greek word meaning get out, to depart). If those who are Catechumen are not forgiven to stand during the Eucharist, then even more so those who are heretic; unless they promise to repent and leave the heresy. Even in this case they should not be permitted to be inside the church during the “offering” but to stand outside along with the Catechumen. If they do not commit to this (to get out of the heresy), they are not allowed to be excused to stand among the Catechumens but rather to be turned away and leave completely the church according to Balsamon. (NB the term “church” in this paragraph is implied to be the actual “place/building” at which the Liturgy is physically been celebrated).

Canon 6th at Laodikia : Regarding the denial of entering the church to those heretics that still insist to be in the heresy.

 

We humbly believe that it is our right as orthodox shepherds and as orthodox believers not to take into consideration what was concluded and stated in Balamand, because they represent cheap fabrications of the New Age, having nothing to do with the whole apostolic and holy fathers’ faith, experience, and pastorate. We are not obliged to owe obedience to actual disobedience.

It would not be irrelevant to mention an additional parameter on the relations between the Orthodox and Vatican, which is also intended to subordinate Orthodoxy to the Papal “infallibility”, via Divine Worship. It is about the so-called “Liturgical Reformation” or “Renewal”.

 

Papal liturgical Reformation following the Vatican Council II

On 07-07-2007, near to the date that the Pope issued the article “The One, True Church”, the contemporary views of Vatican (i.e. of Pope Benedict XVI) on worship were issued at the website of Pope Benedict XVI named “Domus Dei Motu Proprio Benedict XVI”. Naturally, the reformatory secularizing mentality, which governs all the keystones and the resultants of the papal worship, continues. We would not have expected anything less from the Vatican State, regarding subjects of worship. How can a secular state poses and develop a true worship of the true God?

Within an almost sixteen page set of instructions to bishops and clergymen regarding the way they should officiate worship, the papal traditionalism of the past is amalgamated along with modernization which is being imposed by the Pope. Papal infallibility attempts to harmonize tradition, along with modernization, at worship. Autonomous humanistic structural elements, mixed with mental criteria, set the mark for today's papal worship of God. Very honestly, I confess that I could not comprehend the individual components of the papal instructions, as well as how those may possibly construct a worship of the true God once combined together. It may be so because I belong to the “lacking orthodox Church” and thus fail to understand the dynamics, the terms and prerequisites for the construction of the structure of the papal worship.

Our liturgical Reformation is directly and indirectly influenced by the papal one

Regretfully, however, I understood something else: that our liturgical renewal or regeneration is also influenced by the papal liturgical reformation of the Second Vatican Council, which apparently influences the whole Motu Proprio of Benedict XVI. Once more, alas, I conclude that it is not possible to have established in our Orthodox Church, a Synodic Committee of Liturgical Regeneration. Such a committee not only resembles closely the liturgical reformation of the Vatican II, is also - directly or indirectly- influenced by the movements of the secular state of Vatican corrupting the worshipping life in Christ.

A masterpiece of work “Concerning the causes of the Schism”
by Saint Nectarios

It is possible that not even one of the orthodox delegates participating in the dialogues has ever bothered to study this outstanding piece of work. Recently, in 2006, it was republished by the publishing house “Nectarios Panagopoulos”.

Our contemporary Saint spent 17 years of his life in order to collect ample historic, hagiographic, and theological matter, so as to prove indisputably the papal fallacy in its whole width, length and depth. The so benevolent, non-fanatical, most calm and responsible shepherd felt that it was his inexorable pastoral duty to inform the Christian congregation of the big fallacy that the papal pan-heresies leaded and still leads to.  St. Nectarios begins his study from the second century A.C. in order to prove with incontestable hagiographic and historic documents, that the fallacy started since the root of Papacy, since the time when certain bishops of Rome, influenced by the behavior of the leaders of reigning Rome, which was full of lust for glory, wanted to safeguard proportionately their dominating will on the whole Church of Christ.

Apostle Peter had never been Rome’s Bishop and had never been a primacy upon the other Saint Apostles. The whole papal primacy is based on the myth, the arbitrary and unproved supposition, that the Pope is Apostle Peter’ s successor, to whom, according to the papists' dominating, secular conception, the whole Church should be subjected and obey.

Within the three hundred pages of the first volume and the two hundred pages of the second volume, St. Nectarios examines exhaustively all the parameters, which constituted the causes of the schism and its implications on the Church of Christ and by extension to the whole world.

An enlightened mind, without vain thoughts, a pure soul without signs of passion, possessing the fine distinction of a multi-talented individual, a living Saint, gifted with very rich ascetic and pastoral experience. St. Nectarios perceives the degree of the pan-heratical papal danger and wishes - through this piece of work - to protect his flock from other fallacies as well, which are - in any case- contained in papacy.  Since he was so closely involved in analyzing the devious intentions and the erroneous positions of the Vatican, he was surely able to construct orthodox foundations, orthodox education and an aversion to the pan-heresy of Papacy.

Equal in holiness and pastoral work, F. Justine Popovitch

It should be noted that, at about the same period, another orthodox spiritual father, a Serbian university professor and priest, Father Justine Popovitch feels exactly the same pastoral duty (with that if St. Nektarios), to analyze in depth the evil and alienation that the papal pan-heresy brought in the minds and the hearts of the European society and civilization. The inspired by God, Father Justine Popovitch, believed, as St.Nectarios did, that when the orthodox faith is taught, it cures man radically from the satanic arrogance of the superhuman which renders him subhuman or inhuman and restores him to the excellent position of the “Christ-made” man, for the sake of whom our Lord Jesus Christ spilled His immaculate blood. The history of those times that wanted to palce the autonomous, self-reliant, self-defined man in place of Jesus Christ, has been written with plenty of human blood.

St. Nectarios' unique, anti-heretic and antipapal work.

As mentioned earlier, St. Nectarios has left us a unique anti-heretic work which - more than any ever before - is a most useful and most necessary textbook of orthodox pastorate and apologetic for any orthodox patriarch, for any orthodox bishop, for any orthodox priest, for any orthodox monk, for any orthodox believer man, or woman, young or old. The apathy (lack of passions) in Christ and the confession in Christ render the work proper for all times ecumenical in character, a work of faith, prayer, and of warm love to the Triune God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. A work of unique honor to the Virgin Mary, to the Saints, and to the One, True, Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ.

St. Nectarios wrote this book as if he knew- and of course he knew well – that the most important pulpit of the New Age, television, would be installed within our own houses, through which doctrines, principles, morals, knowledge, judgment, logic, will, imagination, education, relations, conceptions, behaviors using a well directed pan-hereretic propaganda will eradicate and leave the man giddy, in order to lean therefore towards drugs, immorality, the accursed sodomy (homosexuality), and to the ultimate and inevitable breaking up of the then corrupted human individual.

Our wonder–working St. Nectarios together with, the inspired by God, father Justine Popovitch, had foreseen of course that in our lattermost days “the abomination of desolation” will come insidiously to be established, “standing in holy place”, (Da. 9, 26-27 and Mat. 24, 15) in our family houses, in our churches, in our monasteries, in our divine worship, in the form of loving intercommunion with papal representatives and, alas !, even through the “kind” donation of “holy relics of saints”, from the papal community to our orthodox piety.

St. Nectarios had foreseen the present hail of the New Age, which expands by means of the pan-heretic Papacy

Together with His non – sleepy pedagogic interest for the prospective clergymen of the Rizarios School, along with the persistent personal and immediate setting of the holy convent of the “Holy Trinity” in the island of Aegina, along with the endless confessions and speeches–sermons to innumerable believers in the center of Athens, along with the “vigil sermons” of long personal prayers, he was writing and kept on writing this anti-heretic work for it to remain “a possession forever” and to mark thoroughly the truth in Christ out, in contrast with the chaotic antichrist papal darkness.

Conclusions and Queries

In conclusion, the article entitled “The One True Church” written by the Pontiff himself or by a papist like himself, conveys the ignorance and lack of the Divine Grace's breath within this strict, non-deified and ungraceful machinery of the Vatican government. Without any room for flexibility, not even that of earthly humanistic sentimentalism, lacking even the slightest flavor of sweetness for social courtesy, which may move a few naive believers. Plain, barren, inflexible words are said, words that support the unbridgeable distances and implicate hopes, or rather certainty for the subjection of the “lacking” orthodox to the monarchic, papal domination. This is the papacy that is organized with the tactics and expediencies of a constitutional state and out of the individualistic, utilitarian interest.

Is there still more room for even more latitudes after all the concessions on behalf of the orthodox representatives towards the papal demands? If the leaders of our Church see any room left for that, on what grounds do they think that it exists? Certainly there is not any, based on the confession-and on the martyrdom that followed it-of the millions of Saint Martyrs, the spiritual sons and daughters of the Apostles and of their saint Successors to this day. Of course, there always are very flexible latitudes for concessions made by the directorate of the New Age, which tries to mix up the illuminating Orthodox Church of Christ with Papacy, Protestantism, Judaism and Islam under the Supreme Religion Authority, Pope’s authority.

The question, and justifiably our query is: will the representative orthodox participants, who will take part in the official opening of the dialogue between the “true” papists and the “lacking” orthodox, go to Ravenna strictly only for a pleasure trip? Will they go to there simply to enjoy the tasteful food, the luxurious hotels, the beautiful excursions to the really beautiful sights of Italy? Will they go there, perhaps, in order to extend their papal acquaintances for their own benefit? Or will they go in order to put us deeper in the pontifical secular darkness and in the Great Chinese Wall of the Vatican's globalizing exclusion of the uncreated Triune Grace, which only our One, True, Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church pours forth ?

 

 

 

Present article is countersigned by:

Protopresbyter Athanasios Minas, ex-parish priest of church of St. Eleftherios Areos in Athens

Protopresbyter John Photopoulos parish priest of the church of St. Parascevi in the city of St. Parascevi, Attiki

Protopresbyter Anastasios Traiforos, parish priest of the church of St. Athanasios in Marcopoulo Oropos

Protopresbyter Antonios Bousdekis, parish priest of the church of St. Nicolaos in Nikea

Presbyter Nicolaos Pourdanides, parish priest of the church of Archangels Michael and Gabriel in Acharnes

Presbyter Efstathios Athanasopoulos, parish priest of the church of St. Anna in Kifissia.

Presbyter Vasileios Kokolakis, parish priest of the church of Holy Cross in Cholargos

Presbyter Petros Pantazis, parish priest of the church of Holy Transfiguration in Halandri

Presbyter George Diamantopoulos, parish priest of the church of St. Andrew in Lavrio

Presbyter Vaseilios Mouzelis, priest of the chapel of General Hospital in Chalkis.