Thursday, September 29, 2005

And again that WCC just keeps turning up.

Metropolitan Nicholas of Mesogaia and Lavreotiki on the WCC conference held in Athens in May:
If... we extend an invitation to them in order to divvy up and pass around together with them the treasure of the true faith, this is impious. Unfortunately, the World Council of Churches is a syncretistic organization. It is a religious organization which struggles for the unity of Christians but with an earthly and worldly perception. The one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church does not “pray together” but does pray for the God-given and ordained union of all. It does not discuss and dialogue with the aim of reaching human agreement, but provides its obligatory witness in order to call all of us to conversion. ...the Anglicans have in the recent past proceeded with the ordination of women, while a variety of Protestant confessions have gone further and ordained homosexuals. Moves such as these are not of secondary importance, since they are quite an offense to the most holy mystery of the Priesthood. ... We will not drive anyone away. Maybe we will run into a few women who believe that they have the gift of the priesthood. Maybe people of an uncertain character will approach us and present themselves to us as priests. Maybe, furthermore, conference attendees with a worldly way of thinking and image will approach us and will appear to us as angels of the kingdom of God. We clearly contest their so-called ecclesiastical gifts, however we will not insult or offend them. We confess the delusion which exists, however the persons who express it we respect and encounter in a dignified manner. ... Perhaps these people are better than us as it concerns their character. Their faith, however, is dangerously unsound and ailing. It is so ill that we could assert that they believe in a Christ who does not exist. ...within the many opportunities presented by contemporary ideological pluralism, the blessing to submit our witness – not as intolerant persistence in crude ideas, but as magnanimous confession of personally-experienced truths, which we don’t uphold as if they are in danger, but rather confess because without them we are in danger – is exceptionally great. ... I pray that the Resurrected Lord will, on the one hand, help us to know the treasure of the one Church which we hold, and on the other hand help the conference attendees of the many “churches” to discover together with the saving faith that they ignore, the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church with which they converse.

Enough said ...for now.

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