Initial Sorrowful Observations Regarding the Holy and Great Synod
From the Office of Heresies and Cults of the Holy Metropolis of Piraeus
By
way of the mass media we have followed with great sorrow and pain of
soul the Holy and Great Synod from its inception at the Divine Liturgy
on the Sunday of Pentecost. In what follows we offer some initial and
concise observations on the Synod for the benefit of the people of God.
(1)
We observe with sorrow the presence and joint prayer of heretical
Papists, Protestants, and Monophysites at Matins and the Divine Liturgy
of this great Feast of the Lord in the Church of St. Menas in Heraklion.
As everyone is aware, this is prohibited by the Sacred Canons. The
Orthodox Primates and other participating Orthodox Hierarchs trampled on
the Canons of the Apostles and the Synods, wishing from the outset to
send a message to the whole world, showing what great respect they have
for the decisions of the Oecumenical Synods and, by extension, for the
very institution of the Synod, about which they make bombastic
declarations.
(2) The presence, at the
commencement of the proceedings, of officially invited delegations of
heretical Papists, Protestants, and Monophysites was an unprecedented
innovation and one foreign to our Synodal Tradition. In fact,
Oecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew addressed these delegates as
“representatives of Sister Churches” before the Holy and Great Synod
made any decision regarding the ecclesiality or non-ecclesiality of the
heretical communities in question. Thus, Patriarch Bartholomew, through a
fait accompli, sent another message to the members of the Synod:
that he had no intention of calling the heterodox heretics. Instead, he
called them Sister Churches. Never in the history of the Oecumenical or
local Synods during the Byzantine period were “observers” present at
such Synods, and as dignitaries, to boot, whose heretical doctrines were
condemned by previous Oecumenical Synods. Heretics were, of course,
invited, but as persons subject to trial, in order to defend themselves,
and not as guests of honor. It was only at the First and Second Vatican
Councils that the phenomenon of “observers” made its appearance. The
Holy and Great Synod is evidently copying Roman Catholic models.
(3)
The Holy and Great Synod began its proceedings in violation of its
“Organization and Working Procedure,” which was signed at the Synaxis
of the Primates in January 2016. The document in question prescribes
that the Synod be “convened by His Most Divine All-Holiness, the
Oecumenical Patriarch, with the consent of Their Beatitudes, the
Primates of all of the universally recognized local Autocephalous
Orthodox Churches” (Article I). Four Autocephalous Churches—those of
Russia, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Antioch—justifiably disagreed with the
convocation of the Synod and asked for its postponement, thus, the
condition “with the consent of Their Beatitudes, the Primates” was been
fulfilled. Consequently, there was no justification, on the basis of the
aforementioned “Organization and Working Procedure,” for either the
Oecumenical Patriarch or all of the remaining local Churches together to
convene a Synod, if they wished to be consistent with the “Organization
and Working Procedure” that they signed.
(4)
The Synod inaugurated its work without first ratifying the Synodal
Decrees (Ὅροι) and Canons of all of the previous Oecumenical Synods, so
that the present Holy and Great Synod might be truly an organic
continuation of the preceding Synods. It should be noted that such
reference to previous Oecumenical Synods was a standing procedure upheld
by the Holy Fathers of the Synods in question. Through
this procedure the Holy Fathers wished to proclaim that they accepted
all of the doctrines put forth by the preceding Oecumenical Synods and
that they were proposing to continue the work of these Synods. A
characteristic example of this is the recognition by the Eighth
Oecumenical Synod of 879-880, under St. Photios, of the Synod of 787 as
the Seventh Oecumenical Synod.
(5)
The Synod inaugurated its work on the basis of an “Organization and
Working Procedure” that was not unanimously accepted by all of the
Primates at their Synaxis of January 2016, since the Church of
Antioch did not sign it. It also commenced its work on the basis of the
six unanimously accepted documents of the Fifth Pre-Synodal
Consultation, which basis proved to be insecure and unstable. This is
because the six pre-synodal documents were unanimously approved by the
representatives at the Fifth Pre-Synodal Consultation and by the Synaxis of
the Primates (January 2016), but not by all the Hierarchies of the
local Autocephalous Churches. When these Churches, and especially those
of Bulgaria, Georgia, and Greece, studied the aforementioned documents,
they found in them gaps, obscurities, and cacodox formulations, for
which they suggested emendations and corrections. For these Churches
which proposed the corrections and changes in question it is
self-evident that the pre-synodal documents are no longer in force.
The
fact that the Primates signed the six documents of the Fifth
Pre-Synodal Consultation does not mean that the Hierarchies of the local
Churches are bound by their signatures to accept these texts as they
stand. The personal opinion of a Primate on any particular issue is not
binding on the Hierarchs in the Synod to which he belongs and does not
obligate them to fall in line with his opinion. Were that so, the
synodal institution would be annulled and every Primate would be
transformed into a Pope. It is not the Primate, but the Synod of Bishops
that is the supreme administrative organ in the local Orthodox
Churches. In view of all that we have said, it is clear that the
following assertion by the Oecumenical Patriarch in his opening address
is completely erroneous: “We proceed, then, with our work on the basis
of documents unanimously approved by our Churches, which each Church has
already endorsed.” By “documents unanimously approved” the Oecumenical
Patriarch evidently means the documents of the Fifth Pre-Synodal
Consultation, which were signed at the Synaxis of the Primates
(January 2016), but which have no validity for certain of the Churches
after the corrections and changes dictated by their Synods.
(6)
The four Churches that did not participate in the Synod were denigrated
before an international audience. Their absence was represented both by
the Oecumenical Patriarch and by other Primates in their opening
addresses as wholly unjustified and reprehensible. To a greater or
lesser extent these Churches were portrayed as being responsible, by
virtue of their absence, for creating schisms and divisions. However,
the Churches in question did not take part, not because they were
“piqued,” but because they discovered weaknesses in the pre-synodal
documents after examining them in synod. They naturally requested that
the Synod be postponed, in order to study the documents in greater
depth, make necessary corrections, and thus produce new documents which
would be unanimously approved by all of the local Churches. Since their
proposal for the postponement of the Synod was not accepted, these
Churches understandably did not participate in the Synod.
(7)
Most distressing among all of these observations is the
acknowledgement, in essence, by way of an obscure and cryptic new
formulation in the document “Relations of the Orthodox Church to the
Rest of the Christian World,” of the ecclesiality of the heterodox. The
Synod unanimously accepted the formulation, “The Orthodox Church accepts
the historical name of other non-Orthodox Christian Churches and
Confessions,” instead of the formulation, “The Orthodox Church
acknowledges the historical existence of other Christian Churches and
Confessions.” That is to say, the word “existence” is replaced by the
word “name,” and to the phrase “Christian Churches and Confessions” is
added the adjective “non-Orthodox.” Archbishop Hieronymos of Athens
proposed this change in the formulation after many hours of discussions
and deliberations, during which many conflicting views were expressed.
Archbishop
Hieronymos states that, by virtue of this new formulation, “we have
reached a synodal decision that, for the first time in history, defines
the historical scope of relations with the heterodox not in terms of
their existence, but solely in terms of their historical appellation as
non-Orthodox Christian Churches or Confessions.” This raises a
justifiable question: “How is it possible for one to name something,
while at the same time denying the existence of that which he names?”
Likewise, from a dogmatic standpoint, endorsement of the term
“non-Orthodox Christian Churches or Confessions” is contradictory and
unacceptable. Heterodox Confessions cannot be called “Churches”
precisely because they accept other, heretical doctrines and, as
heretics, cannot constitute “Churches.”
Most
distressing also is the fact that the delegation of the Church of Greece
did not remain unshakably loyal to the decisions of the Synod of
Bishops on May 24-25 (2016), as they ought to have done. The Synod of
Bishops decided that the phrase “the historical existence of other
Christian Churches and Confessions” should be replaced by the phrase
“the historical existence of other Christian Confessions and
Communities.”
(8) Finally, yet another
sorrowful observation: all that Oecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew
proclaimed, indeed braggingly, at the conclusion of the proceedings.
Among other things, he declared that “the Oecumenical Patriarchate was a
pioneer in the realm of the ecumenical movement.” He also adverted to
the pan-heretical Encyclical of 1920, “which is characterized by many as
the founding charter of the subsequently established World Council of
Churches,” and that “the Oecumenical Patriarchate was one of the
founding members of the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam.”
For
the time being, we confine ourselves to the foregoing comments,
although that does not mean that the list of sorrowful observations ends
here. In view of all that we have mentioned above, the following
question naturally arises: What can one expect from a Synod that
commenced and proceeded in such a way?
As the
Lord observes: ““For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit;
neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit; for every tree is
known by its own fruit” (St. Luke 6:43-44). Let each reader draw his own
conclusions.
Вторник 28 Июнь 2016 Tuesday 28 June 2016 
