Greek Church hierarch: The Council of Crete is a path to schism

Metropolitan Amvrosios. Photo: news.in.gr

Orthodoxy suffered a profound wound at the “neither ‘Holy’ nor ‘Great’ Council in Kolymbari,”, Metropolitan Amvrosios of Kalavryta of the Greek Orthodox Church said in an open letter addressed to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, according to AgionOros.ru.

According to Metropolitan Amvrosios, the outcome of the “much-publicized ‘Holy and Great Council’ in Kolymbari” on the island of Crete was that “the Orthodox Church has been divided into many parts, while the Christ-named flock has been thrown into confusion and turmoil. In fact, a new schism is developing.”

The hierarch argued that recognizing the existence of multiple Christian Churches was an “erroneous decision.”

“So there are many Churches? Then why do we confess in the Creed the ‘One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church’? Is this not an ecclesiological contradiction, or even a serious dogmatic distortion? What, then, is the theological meaning and content of the dialogue ‘with other Christian Churches and Confessions’? Do the dogmatic deviations that remain unresolved and unremoved justify calling the heterodox ‘Churches’?” he asked.

In the concluding part of his open letter, Metropolitan Amvrosios called on Patriarch Bartholomew “not to insist on the heretical and blasphemous position according to which both papists and Protestants constitute the ‘CHURCH.’ They are merely branches that once fell away from the tree of the Church. Today, the only Church is the Orthodox Church!”

According to the Metropolitan of Kalavryta, the document “Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World” must be revised; otherwise, a new schism within the Orthodox Church may become inevitable.

Metropolitan Amvrosios also urged the Patriarch of Constantinople to cease the persecution of those who disagree with the decisions of the Council of Crete and to convene a new, “truly Holy and Great Council” that would reconsider the question of the “Church” and the “Christian confessions.”

As previously reported by the UOJ, according to Metropolitan Amvrosios of Kalavryta, Orthodoxy was betrayed in Crete.

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