Anonymous world-orthodox man records his observations of MP manipulating pseudo-council

For Study: A raw, candid, and extraordinarily challenging assessment of the upcoming "Great and Holy Synod"    Inbox

Dan Everiss <oregdan@hotmail.com> Sun, Jun 12, 2016 at 12:15 PM Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original MORE! about the soon to be on Crete, "Great Pan-Orthodox Council", etc. WELL WORTH READING AND NOT EXCESSIVELY LONG. Εὐλογία Κυρίου. Да благословит вас Господь. The following is an excerpt from a longer discourse by an individual well-placed in the world of “official” Orthodoxy and much conflicted in conscience, having been privy to the inner working of its administrators and its clergy, by what he experienced and saw. His observations, quite blunt and stark, I offer without endorsement or disagreement. I cannot vouch personally for any of them, but simply present them as the author's educated opinions, which are insightful, informed, and those of a proverbial “insider.” For any of you confused about the wildly contradictory news reports and statements about the upcoming “ecumenical synod”—a term that cannot be applied in its historical sense, even if the gathering somehow avoids being a complete fiasco—I believe that these comments offer a very clear picture of what is really going on. As for the usual skeptics and "πλοίαρχοι τοῦ κουτσομπολιοῦ," who ceaselessly navigate the waters of controversy and who always write to find out “who” the “secret source” of a document like this is, spare me the usual and endless requests, demands, threats, and promises of silence. This material is meant to educate, not to vilify anyone or to titillate our ecclesiastical quidnuncs. And no, I did not write this or prepare it as ghost writer for someone else. (A retired Orthodox bishop, belonging to the GOC Greek church). ========================================================================================== A Raw, Candid, and Extraordinarily Challenging Assessment of the Upcoming “Great" and “Holy" Synod of the Orthodox Churches ...Moscow, Antioch, Belgrade, Sofia, Greece, and Georgia comprise six of the fourteen autocephalous Orthodox Churches, and overwhelmingly represent the majority of Orthodox Christians worldwide. To prove the inadequacy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople as a convening authority, and thus as capable of exercising primacy, Moscow has skillfully used geopolitical, historical, and religious circumstances to defy the Ecumenical Patriarch and to deflate any productive result at the Cretan convocation. Moscow took advantage of the accidental shooting-down of a Russian warplane by Turkey to diminish the prestige of the Great and Holy Synod, forcing it to change the venue of the Synod from Istanbul to Crete. Now it has preemptively negated any discussions or resolutions that might be made at the Synod by ensuring that the Patriarchates of Antioch and Belgrade, as well as the Church of Bulgaria, are absent. Moscow has consolidated theological opposition against the documents prepared for the synod – which Constantinople refuses to modify* – through these foregoing abstaining Churches, as well as through itself, along with Greece and Georgia, making it part of an ecclesiological troika that can stall any ratification of synodal texts. Further to humiliate Constantinople, and thereby exposing its spiritual and diplomatic bankruptcy, it is most likely that Russia has reinforced Antioch’s frustration with the Phanar’s inability to resolve its dispute with Jerusalem over the appointment of a bishop in Qatar (for expatriate Greeks living there). This, of course, underlines the tension between Greeks and Arabs caused by the “Greek axis,” which runs from Istanbul, through the Greek-dominated Jerusalem Patriarchate (administering an Arab-only population with no Arab hierarchs), to the Greek Alexandrian Patriarchate (predominantly administering expatriate Greek communities in North Africa). Finally, with excruciatingly meticulous timing, Moscow has orchestrated all these circumstances to bring matters to a head, at the eleventh hour, before the Synod. The strategic axiom ever applies: “strike your enemy at the place and time of your choosing, and at the place and time least advantageous to him.” At this late date, Patriarch Bartholomew can be regarded as having much in common with the 300 Spartans who faced the Persians at Thermopylae. On the one hand, the Ecumenical Patriarch can surrender by postponing the Synod, and be taken captive by Moscow. On the other hand, he can face certain anihilation on the battlefield of Crete, having exhausted the reputation and the fortune of Constantinople at what will, at best, likely be regarded as a ‘“robber council.” Sunset is not determined by the “setting of the sun,” but by the rotation of the earth. The twilight of Constantinople has been brought about by the human fallibilities of its Phanariotes. These pretenders to the Constantinopolitan See are hierarchs but not true bishops. They do not oversee flocks of faithful Christians, thus gaining wisdom and prudence in administering the affairs of the Church. Rather, they are for the greater part titular bishops of defunct sees in Asia Minor, having too much time on their hands, far removed from the real struggles of Christians in the contemporary world. These claimants to the Byzantine legacy have been educated primarily in western theological schools, especially at the Vatican; they are not schooled in traditional Orthodox piety through lives of prayer and asceticism. These supposedly prominent Greeks of Istanbul are pseudo-monastics, having received only pro forma tonsure prior to their diaconal ordination, but never having lived a day in a monastery, thereby proving themselves through ascetic struggle within a pious, spiritual community. These supposed paragons of clerical virtue are men known publicly for their dubious personal character and, if not personally culpable of moral turpitude, have knowingly and willingly overlooked those clerics so guilty. In the shimmering heat of a Cretan Summer, these denizens of the Phanar will experience their own personal Göterdämerung;** they will live through the hell of a second fall of Constantinople, whose heart was lost in 1453 to the Turks and its soul to the Russians in 2016. We can surmise that Moscow will most likely be ascendant after the Council in Crete. The sun is presently rising over the Moskva River, though it will eventually wane and set on Moscow as the world turns and human history marches forward. It is likely, too, that sooner or later Constantinople will be numbered fourteenth out of fourteen autocephalous Churches, just as Jerusalem was once counted fifth out of five Patriarchates.*** The vapid and specious ecclesiology of the theologically-bankrupt Ecumenical Patriarchate is best exemplified by its own amanuensis, Deacon John Chrysavgis – once a respected professor and author of Orthodoxy – who made the ridiculous public statement, “If one or more churches don’t attend (the Synod in Crete), all the decisions made will still hold and be binding for all Orthodox churches.”****  This valedictory whimper will be the epitaph ascribed to the once holy and great Ecumenical and Patriarchal See of Constantinople. (These notes are also from the above author of this statement): * As an aside, we might note that the prevailing notion among westernized Orthodox thinkers is that the Oecumenical Synods (which include the seven usually cited in the West,  but which are actually nine in number in the Orthodox Church) “defined” the Faith. As Father Georges Florovsky constantly emphasized, the Synods gathered to protect and preserve the existing Faith, which was neither defined nor codified by any Synod, but which was the product of a dogmatic triad of that which “the Lord gave, the Apostles preached, and the Fathers preserved,” to use a famous formula of St. Athanasios the Great. The Synods were subject to the recapitulation of all that was said before them and were considered “infallible” only if the reflected and entered into the conscience of the Church, being ratified by the People of God and the experience of the Church. Thus, Constantinople’s contemporary habit of setting the agenda of synods, pre-writing their decisions, and proclaiming such decisions ecumenical by some self-styled act of  “patriarchal fiat” is foreign to Orthodoxy and in no way whatsoever consistent with the actions of those synods recognized by the Orthodox Church as oecumenical, as any historian of the holy synods can determine.  ** I.e., the fading of its influence; literally, the “twilight” or “waning" of the gods, referring to the last of the grand operas (dramas, as he called them) that make up Wagner’s famous operatic tetralogy "Der Ring des Nibelungen." *** We should note that a somewhat westernized historiographical model, which has influenced the writing of much of the Church’s history in the East, often conflates the ranking of the Patriarchates "by influence” and “official recognition” (i.e., imperial and political status) with the informal tradition of ranking them "by spiritual honor," wherein Jerusalem was (and still is, in some circles) ranked first among the original Patriarchates, despite its political insignificance. The Roman-Constantinopolitan argument over primacy, then, can be seen in a traditional spiritual light that subtly redefines that argument. Conciliarity in the papal model and primacy among equals in the Constantinopolitan model both show serious deficits, if one takes into account spiritual primacy. This is illustrated by the fact that Constantinople must deal with the Orthodox veneration, not only of many of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, but of numerous pre-Schism Roman Popes (Patriarchs) as Saints, and Rome with the fact that some of its own Popes, the doctrine of infallibility ex cathedra notwithstanding, were heretics (as were not a few Patriarchs of Constantinople, Nestorios infamous among them). It is in the context of this clear distinction between the issue of Church administration (order) and of spiritual eminence (prophecy, if you will) that we must keep in mind, therefore, that Oecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, from the proper Orthodox perspective, has no authority to establish ex cathedra the agenda for the upcoming Synod and has absolutely no authority to make the decisions of a synod, convened under his administrative right to call a synod, binding on anyone, absent from the deliberations or not. Nor does any decision made that contravenes the spirit, decisions, or enactments of the earlier synods, except in terms of strictly administrative issues, have any meaning whatsoever for the Orthodox Church or the People of God.