Your
attention is especially drawn to the Prayer read by the bishop [pages
12 & 13 of the attached] wherein one asks the Lord to strengthen us
in Orthodoxy and
to enlighten those who have gone astray. This is followed by a deacon
who reads the Nicene Creed, then the Anathemas [to those whose practices
and beliefs are contrary to the True Faith and thus cannot be members of the Church of Christ, that is are excommunicated], and Memory Eternal, which is the annual commemoration of all who defended the Orthodox Faith, ending with the Hymn of Saint Ambrose of Milan.
During
the reading of the Anathemas it is to be noted that the bishop sits on
the throne of the cathedra in the middle of the Church holding his staff
[in Russian zhezla] in hand. This is the only time that a bishop holds a staff and sits on the throne of the cathedra.
All staffs show a Cross at the top and many indicate two serpents on
each side representing an attack on the Holy Church. In this manner the
Cross is a manifestation that the Holy Church will never be vanquished,
the bishop is a defender of it, and is a consolation for the Faithful.
As guided by Saint Philaret, Metropolitan of New York, one is not to
cross oneself as the anathemas are read, but to do so as the Memory
Eternal commemorations are read. The attached version [1967] does not
include the anathemas of those who practice ecumenism nor sergianism
which have been subsequently added.
1. Here is the text for ecumenism-from the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia [ROCOR] 1983:
‘To
those who attack the Church of Christ by teaching that the Lord's
Church is divided into so-called "branches" which differ in doctrine and
way of life, or that the Church does not exist visibly, but will be
formed in the future when all "branches" of sects or denomination, and
even religions, will be united into one body, and who do not distinguish
the priesthood and mysteries of the Church from those of the heretics,
but say that the baptism and eucharist of heretics is effectual for
salvation; therefore, to those who knowingly have communion with these
aforementioned heretics or who advocate, disseminate, or defend their
new heresy of Ecumenism under the pretext of brotherly love or the
supposed unification of separated Christians: Anathema.'
2. And here is the text for sergianism-from the session
of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad took
place on October 10\23, 2012, in the Synod Office in Odessa:
“To those that call the godless authority of antichrist blessed rather than a trial alllowed by God, to those
that subjugated the Holy Church to that authority in order to preserve an external structure, to those that scorned
God's commandments, the holy canons, patristic tradition and the sobornost of the Church, to those that denied
the Holy Martyrs and Confessors of Christ and blasphemed their holy struggle and gave them over to their
tormentors, to those that justify this mentality and these actions, akin to those of Judas, as a "special wisdom"
for the sake of the "salvation of the Church"; to give in to the temptation prepared by the Antichrist to revere the
leaders as being sent from God, to the sergianists, the new renovationists—Anathema.”
The following is an excerpt from Saint Philaret's 1985 sermon on the Triumph of Orthodoxy:
"...The
Apostles, especially St. Paul still warned the Christians that among
them people would appear who did not reason or teach correctly, and this
also came to pass. Immediately after the Apostles, and even during
their times, the first heretics appeared with their incorrect reasoning
and false teachings. Initially, heresies did not greatly trouble the
Church, but when the period of persecution ended, the era of heresy
began. Heresies were more dangerous than persecution of the Church.
Persecution was oppression from outside the Church; the faithful had
nothing to fear from persecution. The Church during the period of
persecutions was merely embellished by the blood of the martyrs. On the
other hand, heresies destroyed the Church from within."
Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:42 PM
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