GOC bishop: Orthodoxy will split if Pan-Orthodox Council legalizes ecumenism

Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus. Photo: Agionoros.ru website

Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus issued a special message devoted to current problems of the modern world in general and the Pan-Orthodox Council in particular, Agionoros.ru reports.

The hierarch noted that the opinion of Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople – that the 2016 Pan-Orthodox Council cannot be called Ecumenical because it will be held without the participation of Western Christians – does not stand up to criticism. “The Orthodox Church possesses the fullness of truth and does not need the presence of heretics in order to give a council an Ecumenical character,” he said.

“A council that legalizes the heresy of ecumenism could become a real mine under the building of pan-Orthodox unity, because it will create far more problems than it supposedly resolves. It will lead to unrest, confusion and schisms,” the hierarch believes.

Metropolitan Seraphim stressed that the real reason why the organizers replaced the word “Ecumenical” with “Pan-Orthodox” in the name of the upcoming Council is that otherwise they would have to recognize the councils of Great Photius and St. Gregory Palamas as the 8th and 9th Ecumenical Councils. “But such a decision would cause concern to the Vatican, since those councils condemned the heresy of papism,” he added.

Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus also expressed the view that “the only result of the ecumenical movement is confusion and syncretism.”

In his opinion, such phenomena as the ordination of women and the legalization of same-sex marriage prove that dialogue with heterodox Christians has failed to persuade heretics to move even slightly closer to Orthodox theology and way of life.

In addition, Metropolitan Seraphim noted that the 2016 Council has no right to change the date of the celebration of Pascha, established by the fathers of the First Ecumenical Council: “If this happens, we will face a new schism, which, unfortunately, will have canonical grounds.”

As the UOJ previously reported, Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) called for revisions to document on relations of the Orthodox Church with non-Orthodox Christians.

Read also