incendiary.

The Final Triumph

2008-03-16T15:20:00.004-05:00

On this Triumph of Orthodoxy Sunday, having labored in the Lord and overcome his work healing the Russian Church, Metropolitan Laurus triumphed into eternity.

Memory Eternal! The Heavenly Kingdom to him! (Царствие ему Небесное!)

In less important news, this is my last post at blogger. Before you get to worried that I have quit the blogging business I'll say that I'm moving to Wordpress. So from now on you must go here to find your delicious incendiaries. I'll post that again just so you don't get confused: http://incendiarious.wordpress.com/

On that note

2008-02-22T11:33:00.005-06:00

I'll have you know that I was not one of the 121.976 people that contributed to Barack Obama's sweeping win in Russia.

On the infamous declaration of Kosovo I might echo the words of Patriarch Alexey and say, that it "is an anti-historic event that upsets the global balance and that may lead to very tragic events in a whole series of spots on the globe where separatist sentiments are being fanned."

Maybe an octave lower (because he has a deeper voice) I would sing along with Bishop Peter and say, "unfortunately, the West does not understand either the Russians or the Slavs. I speak openly about this despite the fact that I love the country I was born in. I do not know how to explain it, but I think that the West senses its spiritual bankruptcy in the face of Orthodox Christianity. The West fears Russian patriotism and Slavic unity."

Next, I would almost go as far as Zhirinovsky and say that it is advantageous for the West to back the U.S. on the Kosovo issue, "because this is a defeat of the Orthodox world and the further destruction of disobedient Orthodox Serbia. ...Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine will be lynched in the same manner later."

And, further, if I were such a person, I would say "so there" and "it serves you right" about the burnt embassy in Belgrade.

It's the thought that counts

2008-02-07T03:13:00.000-06:00

...as in the Old Testament outward acts were attended to, so in the New Testament it is not so much what is done outwardly as what is thought inwardly that is regarded with close attention, that it may be punished with searching judgment. For while the law forbids the eating of many things as being unclean, the Lord nevertheless says in the Gospel, Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but the things which come forth from the heart, these are they which defile a man (Matth. xv.11). And soon after He added in explanation, Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts (Ib. 19). Hence it is abundantly indicated that what is shewn by Almighty God to be polluted in act is that which is engendered of the root of polluted thought. Whence also Paul the Apostle says, All things are pure to the pure; but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure (Tit. i. 15). And immediately, to declare the cause of this defilement, he subjoins, For their mind and conscience is defiled.
St. Gregory Diologos

Perfect obedience

2008-01-22T03:07:00.000-06:00

The Orthodox Church by teaching men about perfect love, at the same time, also teaches them perfect obedience from which emanates order and harmony among the faithful. Bishops owe their obedience to the Lord. Priests owe their obedience to the bishops. The faithful owe their obedience to both [bishops and priests]. St. Ignatius writes about this: "You are required to obey without hypocrisy; he who would deceive his visible bishop would also scorn the Invisible [Christ]. I pray you, endeavor to fulfill everything in godly unanimity under the presidency of the bishops who occupy the place of Christ and the presbyters who constitute the assembly of the apostles, not thinking that whatever you do alone and apart would be correct."
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

On Theophany

2008-01-18T13:24:00.000-06:00

You were led to the holy pool of Divine Baptism, as Christ was carried form the Cross to the Sepulchre …And each of you was asked whether he believed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit …You died and were born; and that Water of salvation was at once your grave and your mother …O strange and inconceivable thing! We did not really die; we were not really buried; we were not really crucified and raised again, but our imitation was only figurative, while our salvation is in reality. Christ was actually crucified, and actually buried, and truly rose …Christ received the nails in His undefiled hands and feet, and endured anguish; while to me without suffering or toil, by the fellowship of His pain He vouchsafes salvation…
Therefore with fullest assurance, let us partake as of the Body and Blood of Christ: for in the figure of Bread is given to you His Body, and in the figure of Wine His Blood; that you, by partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, might be made of the same body and the same blood with Him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us …thus it is that, according to the blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). Christ on a certain occasion discoursing with the Jews said, 'Unless you eat My flesh and drink My blood, you have no life in you' (John 6:53) …Contemplate therefore the Bread and the Wine not as bare elements, for they are, according to the Lord's declaration, the Body and Blood of Christ …Let faith establish you.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Christ, the Maker of all, came down as the rain, and was known as a spring, and diffused Himself as a river, and was baptized in the Jordan. …Oh things strange beyond compare! How should the boundless River that makes glad the city of God have been dipped in a little water! The illimitable Spring that bears life to all men, and has no end, was covered by poor and temporary waters! He who is present everywhere, and absent nowhere-who is incomprehensible to angels and invisible to men-comes to the baptism according to His own good pleasure. When you hear these things, beloved, take them not as if spoken literally, but accept them as presented in a figure. Whence also the Lord was not unnoticed by the watery element in what He did in secret, in the kindness of His condescension to man. "For the waters saw Him, and were afraid." They wellnigh broke from their place, and burst away from their boundary. Hence the prophet, having this in his view many generations ago, puts the question, "What aileth thee, O sea, that thou reddest; and thou, Jordan, that thou wast driven back? " And they in reply said, We have seen the Creator of all things in the "form of a servant," and being ignorant of the mystery of the economy, we were lashed with fear. … Do you see, beloved, how many and how great blessings we would have lost, if the Lord had yielded to the exhortation of John, and declined baptism? For the heavens were shut before this; the region above was inaccessible. We would in that case descend to the lower parts, but we would not ascend to the upper. But was it only that the Lord was baptized? He also renewed the old man, and committed to him again the sceptre of adoption. For straightway "the heavens were opened to Him." A reconciliation took place of the visible with the invisible; the celestial orders were filled with joy; the diseases of earth were healed; secret things were made known; those at enmity were restored to amity. For you have heard the word of the evangelist, saying, "The heavens were opened to Him," on account of three wonders. For when Christ the Bridegroom was baptized, it was meet that the bridal-chamber of heaven should open its brilliant gates. And in like manner also, when the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and the Father's voice spread everywhere, it was meet that "the gates of heaven should be lifted up." "And, lo, the heavens were opened to Him; and a voice was heard, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." … The beloved generates love, and the light immaterial the light inaccessible. "This is my beloved Son," He who, being manifested on earth and yet unseparated from the Father's bosom, was manifested, and yet did not appear. For the appearing is a different thing, since in appearance the baptizer here is superior to the baptized. For this reason did the Father send down the Holy Spirit from heaven upon Him who was baptized. For as in the ark of Noah the love of God toward man is signified by the dove, so also now the Spirit, descending in the form of a dove, bearing as it were the fruit of the olive, rested on Him to whom the witness was borne. For what reason? That the faithfulness of the Father's voice might be made known, and that the prophetic utterance of a long time past might be ratified. And what utterance is this? "The voice of the Lord (is) on the waters, the God of glory thundered; the Lord (is) upon many waters." And what voice? "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." This is He who is named the son of Joseph, and (who is) according to the divine essence my Only-begotten. "This is my beloved Son"-He who is hungry, and yet maintains myriads; who is weary, and yet gives rest to the weary; who has not where to lay His head, and yet bears up all things in His hand; who suffers, and yet heals sufferings; who is smitten, and yet confers liberty on the world; who is pierced in the side, and yet repairs the side of Adam.
Hippolytus

Suffering Orthodoxy

2008-01-17T01:43:00.000-06:00

Why does the good Lord permit assaults and sufferings on the True Faith while He permits the pleasure of tranquility to heresies and paganism? Why? Even St. John Chrysostom asks and immediately replies: 'So that you would recognize their weakness (the weakness of the heresies and paganism) when you see that they disintegrate on their own without any disturbance and also to be convinced in the power of faith which endures misfortunes and even multiplies through its adversaries.' “Therefore, if we quarrel with the pagans or with the wretched Jews, it is sufficient to emphasize as evidence of divine power that the Faith (Christianity) which was subjected to countless struggles maintained victory' even when the entire world stood against her [the Church]. St. Isaac the Syrian says: 'The wondrous love of God toward man is recognized when man is in misfortunes that are destroying his hope. Here, God manifests His power for his [man's] salvation. For man never recognizes the power of God in tranquility and freedom.'
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

Another beatitude

2007-12-08T00:10:00.000-06:00

Blessed is he who knows his function and gift received from the Spirit, and who serves according to his designation to the end. Just as the Holy Spirit now apportions His gifts, so the Lord, in His time, will apportion rewards.
O Lord, Holy Spirit, true God, help us to use Thy gifts to the end of our lives in humility, for the well-being of Christ's Church and for our eternal salvation.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

Humbleness

2007-12-07T00:32:00.000-06:00

If we are not humbled by virtues, then sin will humble us.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

Apropos to the feast of St. Justinian

2007-11-26T22:50:00.000-06:00

We believe that the true and immaculate Christian faith is the first and greatest benefit that men enjoy, that it should be strengthened in every respect, and that all the holy priests throughout all the earth should be strengthened in every respect, and that all the holy priests throughout the earth should unite to preach it and should extripate every kind of false doctrine, as ins prescribed by Our laws and Our edicts.
St. Emperor Justinian

The carnal heart

2007-11-25T00:07:00.001-06:00

Our children have so-called "baby-teeth" which fall out by themselves, and in their place other teeth grow — real ones. In the same way we have a heart. But this is a coarse, carnal heart — a selfish one. With such a heart you cannot enter Eternal Life. And it will not fall out by itself. We have to cast it out and replace it with a new heart — not ours, but Christ’s. And any time we help our neighbor and make an effort, we are as if tearing off a piece of our heart and giving it away to our neighbor. And in place of this piece of carnal, sinful heart, the Lord puts in us a similar piece of His heart — Christ’s heart.
Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko)

The dead weight of technology

2007-11-05T14:18:00.000-06:00

Ethics are likened to a lady, and technology like her handmaiden. That is why ethics have to control technology. Eternal values are the territory of ethics and not technology. It is devastating for an entire people to put the purpose of their lives in technology, and all of their labor and sweat they sacrifice to the advancement of technology, dragging behind them ethics, like Achilles dragged the dead Hector tied to a chariot. A people like that can succeed to build all of their cities from ivory and gold, but if people like Ahab and Jezebel live in them, dogs will have the last word and not people.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

Speaking of state capitals

2007-09-06T11:17:00.000-05:00

…the concept of Providence, i.e. of the perennial concern of the Creator with the destiny of His Creation, was actually reduced to something utterly sentimental and subjective.
Fr. Georges Florovsky

"Royal" authority

2007-08-28T09:04:00.000-05:00

The sole head of the Church is Jesus Christ, whose teaching is carefully preserved in its entirety by the Orthodox Church. The Russian emperor, to the extent that he follows this teaching is as much a son of the Church as any other Orthodox Christian. At no time and in no place has the Church ever given him authority over her teaching or considered him her head... If the Russian emperor is not the head of the Church for Russians, much less is he the head of the Church for us. For us he is no more than a brother in faith as are all Russians who share our faith.
St. Nikolaj (Kasatkin) of Japan

Speaking of Russia... I'm leaving today for an extended stay in that locale; I have established a blog to catalogue: Recounting Rus

The devil's ill-logic

2007-08-27T08:04:00.000-05:00

It is as if, at a session of a course of justice, the devil should be addressed as follows: 'Granted that you destroyed all because you found them guilty of sin; but why did you destroy Christ? Is it not very evident that you did so unjustly? Well then, through Him the whole world will be vindicated'
St. John Chrysostom

Pluralities and majorities

2007-08-24T08:02:00.000-05:00

...are necessary for parliaments and parties but not for God's Church, which is the pillar and foundation of faith, independently of the above categories and even in contradiction of them...
St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

The state of affairs

2007-08-23T07:50:00.001-05:00

It would be a very happy state of affairs if only one person corrupted our youth, while the others improved them.
Socrates

On Vice

2007-08-21T08:48:00.000-05:00

Each of us, let us acknowledge it, is the first author of his own vice.
St. Basil the Great

The land of the pharaohs

2007-08-20T09:51:00.000-05:00

Neither the sun, with its multitude of stars, is not as glowing as much as the wilderness of Egypt with all of its monks.
St. John Chrysostom

Fulfilling the commandment

2007-08-19T08:18:00.000-05:00

Adam did not want to go from strength to strength, from grace to grace in communion with God, but wanted to have this strength within himself. And he went away, went away into the byways of human life, and therefore lost the Tree of Life. But God the Merciful One, God the Father gives us His Son Who was incarnate of the Most Holy Virgin, Who lived the Good News of the Gospel and showed us how to fulfill the commandment: Love for God and neighbor.
Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko)

Of categories

2007-08-17T22:26:00.000-05:00

When intellectual and conventional categories replace ontological truth and revelation in Christian theology, then in the historical life of the Church, too, the problem of salvation is obscured by a shadow that torments mankind, that of a “law” which leads nowhere.
Christos Yannaras

Of swords and spears

2007-08-16T08:37:00.000-05:00

...what can we say concerning the swords and spears of passions by which we kill our souls and the souls of our fellow men? O, when we would beat those swords into plowshares that deeply plow the souls and sow the noble seed of Christ in ourselves! And when we would beat the spears into pruning hooks to harvest the tares in our souls and to burn them! Then the peace of Christ would take up abode in the souls of all of us, just as it abided in the souls of the saints.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

On the Dormition

2007-08-15T08:07:00.000-05:00

But after that unutterable nourishment [of being raised in the temple], a most mystical economy of courtship came to pass as regards the Virgin, a strange greeting surpassing speech which the Archangel, descended from above, addressed to her, and disclosures and salutations from God which overturn the condemnation of Eve and Adam and remedy the curse laid on them, transforming it into a blessing. The King of all "hath desired a mystic beauty" of the Ever-Virgin, as David foretold (Ps. 44:11) and, "He bowed the heavens and came down" (Ps. 17:9) and overshadowed her, or rather, the enhypostatic Power of the Most High dwelt in her. Not through darkness and fire, as with Moses the God-seer, nor through tempest and cloud, as with Elias the prophet, did He manifest His presence, but without mediation, without a veil, the Power of the Most High overshadowed the sublimely chaste and virginal womb, separated by nothing, neither air nor aether nor anything sensible, nor anything supra-sensible: this was not an overshadowing but a complete union. Since what overshadows is always wont to produce its own form and figure in whatever is overshadowed, there came to pass in the womb not a union only, but further, a formation, and that thing formed from the Power of the Most High and the all-holy virginal womb was the incarnate Word of God.

… while she alone stood between God and the whole human race, God became the Son of Man and made men sons of God; she made earth heavenly, she deified the human race, and she alone of all women was shown forth to be a mother by nature and the Mother of God transcending every law of nature, and by her ineffable childbirth-the Queen of all creation, both terrestial and celestial. Thus she exalted those under her through herself, and, showing while on earth an obedience to things heavenly rather than things earthly, she partook of more excellent deserts and of superior power, and from the ordination which she received from heaven by the Divine Spirit, she became the most sublime of the sublime and the supremely blest Queen of a blessed race.

… she only is the frontier between created and uncreated nature, and there is no man that shall come to God except he be truly illumined through her, that Lamp truly radiant with divinity, even as the Prophet says, "God is in the midst of her, she shall not be shaken'(Ps. 45:5).

… as it was through the Theotokos alone that the Lord came to us, appeared upon earth and lived among men, being invisible to all before this time, so likewise in the endless age to come, without her mediation, every emanation of illuminating divine light, every revelation of the mysteries of the Godhead, every form of spiritual gift, will exceed the capacity of every created being. She alone has received the all-pervading fulness of Him that filleth all things, and through her all may now contain it, for she dispenses it according to the power of each, in proportion and to the degree of the purity of each. Hence she is the treasury and overseer of the riches of the Godhead. For it is an everlasting ordinance in the heavens that the inferior partake of what lies beyond being, by the mediation of the superior, and the Virgin Mother is incomparably superior to all. It is through her that as many as partake of God do partake, and as many as know God understand her to be the enclosure of the Uncontainable One, and as many as hymn God praise her together with Him. She is the cause of what came before her, the champion of what came after her and the agent of things eternal. She is the substance of the prophets, the principle of the apostles, the firm foundation of the martyrs and the premise of the teachers of the Church . She is the glory of those upon earth, the joy of celestial beings, the adornment of all creation. She is the beginning and the source and root of unutterable good things; she is the summit and consummation of everything holy.
St. Gregory Palamas

The corruption of children

2007-08-14T08:14:00.000-05:00

Children are not an occasional acquirement; we are responsible for their salvation: The negligence of children is the greatest of all sins as it leads to extreme impiety: There is no excuse for us if our children are corrupt.
St. John Chrysostom

How, then, can we speak of "Western captivity"?

2007-08-12T15:16:00.000-05:00

And God has accepted us into His family, the Church of Christ, and in her we can sail over this stormy sea of life as in a safe ship. A ship has everything necessary to protect those sailing in it from the water: it has a strong foundation, a bottom, sides, sails, oars, a rudder. In the same way, the Church of Christ has a rudder by which it is guided by her Godly Pilot, our Lord Jesus Christ; also has sails, oars — these are the godly sacraments; also has a strong foundation — the commandments of Christ of which the main one is love. And if we keep this His main commandment, love, then we will be in His family, that is in the Church, and will rejoice.
Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko)

Living like the Fathers

2007-08-10T12:11:00.000-05:00

It is one of the rules of politeness at such "ecumenical" gatherings that the heterodox are not informed that the first prerequisite for studying the Fathers is to have the same faith as the Fathers of Orthodoxy.
Fr. Seraphim (Rose)

Of Quakers and kites

2007-08-09T08:07:00.000-05:00

If he likes to fly a kite sometimes, what of that! Franklin used to fly a kite. He was a Quaker, or something of that sort, if I am not mistaken. And a Quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous object than anybody else.
Betsey Trotwood in David Copperfield

Followup: The Ark of salvation

2007-08-08T09:33:00.000-05:00

…the Catholic Filioque, that naïve product of excessive piety and half-baked theology
St. Pavel (Florensky)

Admission to eternity

2007-08-07T08:56:00.000-05:00

...he, who to the end mocks the mercy of God and he, who to the very end laughs at the patience of God and he, who to the end opposes the love of God, will God then take him by force into His kingdom and make him a fellow citizen with the angels and saints?
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

The Ark of salvation

2007-08-05T13:46:00.000-05:00

Considering all the hubbub concerning the Pope and the recent "revelation" of the Papal claims I thought it opportune to present the recent (that is, in the Orthodox time frame) encyclicals (1848 and 1895) of the patriarch of Constantinople. May this be education to those outside of the Orthodox Church of her timeless beliefs and a refresher course to some of those within her *ahem*. I have preselected pertinent passages but will include both encyclicals at the end for the perusing pleasure of the die hard fans. nb. The adjective "Catholic" refers to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, i.e., the Orthodox Church of the East and not the Papal church of Rome.

Christ-loving peoples of the glorious countries of the West! We rejoice on the one hand seeing that you have a zeal for Christ, being led by this right persuasion, 'that without faith in Christ it is impossible to please God'; [Heb. 11:6.] but on the other hand it is self-evident to every right-thinking person that the salutary faith in Christ ought by all means to be right in everything, and in agreement with the Holy Scripture and the apostolic traditions, upon which the teaching of the divine Fathers and the seven holy, divinely assembled Ecumenical Councils is based. It is moreover manifest that the universal Church of God, which holds fast in its bosom unique unadulterated and entire this salutary faith as a divine deposit, just as it was of old delivered and unfolded by the God-bearing Fathers moved by the Spirit, and formulated by them during the first nine centuries, is one and the same for ever, and not manifold and varying with the process of time: because the gospel truths are never susceptible to alteration or progress in course of time, like the various philosophical systems; 'for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.' [Heb. 13:8.] Wherefore also the holy Vincent, who was brought up on the milk of the piety received from the fathers in the monastery of Lerins in Gaul, and flourished about the middle of the fifth century, with great wisdom and orthodoxy characterizes the true catholicity of the faith and of the Church, saying: 'In the catholic Church we must especially take heed to hold that which has been believed everywhere at all times, and by all. For this is truly and properly catholic, as the very force and meaning of the word signifies, which moreover comprehends almost everything universally. And that we shall do, if we walk following universality, antiquity, and consent.' But, as has been said before, the Western Church, from the tenth century downwards, has privily brought into herself through the papacy various and strange and heretical doctrines and innovations, and so she has been torn away and removed far from the true and orthodox Church of Christ. How necessary, then, it is for you to come back and return to the ancient and unadulterated doctrines of the Church in order to attain the salvation in Christ after which you press, you can easily understand if you intelligently consider the command of the heaven-ascended Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, saying: 'Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle'; [1Thess.2:15.] and also what the same divine apostle writes to the Galatians saying: 'I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.' [Gal. 1:6-7.] But avoid such perverters of the evangelical truth, 'For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple;[Rom. 16:18.] and come back for the future into the bosom of the holy, catholic and apostolic Church of God, which consists of all the particular holy Churches of God, which being divinely planted, like luxuriant vines throughout the orthodox world, are inseparably united to each other in the unity of the one saving faith in Christ, and in the bond of peace and of the Spirit, that you may obtain the highly-to-be-praised and most glorious name of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, who suffered for the salvation of the world, may be glorified among you also.
1895

...the Roman Church, in insisting on her innovations, and not coming back to the dogma of the Ecumenical Councils, renders herself fully responsible before the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ, which holds fast that which has been received from the Fathers, and keeps the deposit of the faith which was delivered to it unadulterated in all things, in obedience to the Apostolic injunction: 'That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us'; 'avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith." [III Tim. 1:14; 1 Tim. 6:20-21.]
1895

Each one of our brethren and sons in Christ who have been piously brought up and instructed, wisely regarding the wisdom given him from God, will decide that the words of the present Bishop of Rome, like those of his schismatical predecessors, are not words of peace, as he affirms (p. 7,1.8), and of benevolence, but words of deceit and guile, tending to self-aggrandizement, agreeably to the practice of his antisynodical predecessors. We are therefore sure, that even as heretofore, so hereafter the Orthodox will not be beguiled. For the word of our LORD is sure (John x. 5), A stranger will they not follow, but flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.
1848

...in these last times the evil one has rent from the orthodox Church of Christ even whole nations in the West, having inflated the bishops of Rome with thoughts of excessive arrogance, which has given birth to divers lawless and anti-evangelical innovations. And not only so, but furthermore the Popes of Rome from time to time, pursuing absolutely and without examination modes of union according to their own fancy, strive by every means to reduce to their own errors the catholic Church of Christ, which throughout the world walks unshaken in the orthodoxy of faith transmitted to her by the Fathers.
1895

...for the holy purpose of union, the Eastern orthodox and catholic Church of Christ is ready heartily to accept all that which both the Eastern and Western Churches unanimously professed before the ninth century, if she has perchance perverted or does not hold it. And if the Westerns prove from the teaching of the holy Fathers and the divinely assembled Ecumenical Councils that the then orthodox Roman Church, which was throughout the West, even before the ninth century read the Creed with the addition, or used unleavened bread, or accepted the doctrine of a purgatorial fire, or sprinkling instead of baptism, or the immaculate conception of the ever-Virgin, or the temporal power, or the infallibility and absolutism of the Bishop of Rome, we have no more to say. But if, on the contrary, it is plainly demonstrated, as those of the Latins themselves, who love the truth, also acknowledge, that the Eastern and orthodox catholic Church of Christ holds fast the anciently transmitted doctrines which were at that time professed in common both in the East and the West, and that the Western Church perverted them by divers innovations, then it is clear, even to children, that the more natural way to union is the return of the Western Church to the ancient doctrinal and administrative condition of things; for the faith does not change in any way with time or circumstances, but remains the same always and everywhere, for 'there is one body and one Spirit,' it is said, 'even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." [Eph. 4:5-6.]
1895

Let us all beware of false apostles, who, coming to us in sheep's clothing, attempt to entice the more simple among us by various deceptive promises, regarding all things as lawful and allowing them for the sake of union, provided only that the Pope of Rome be recognized as supreme and infallible ruler and absolute sovereign of the universal Church, and only representative of Christ on earth, and the source of all grace.
1895

In vain, therefore, does the Bishop of Rome send us to the sources that we may seek diligently for what our forefathers believed and what the first period of Christianity delivered to us. In these sources we, the orthodox, find the old and divinely-transmitted doctrines, to which we carefully hold fast to the present time, and nowhere do we find the innovations which later times of empty mindedness brought forth in the West, and which the Papal Church having adopted retains till this very day. The orthodox Eastern Church then justly glories in Christ as being the Church of the seven Ecumenical Councils and of the first nine centuries of Christianity, and therefore the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ, 'the pillar and ground of the truth'; [I Tim. 3:15.] but the present Roman Church is the Church of innovations, of the falsification of the writings of the Church Fathers, and of the misinterpretation of the Holy Scripture and of the decrees of the holy councils, for which she has reasonably and justly been disowned, and is still disowned, so far as she remains in her error. 'For better is a praiseworthy war than a peace which separates from God,' as Gregory of Nazianzus also says.
1895

...on important questions which needed the sanction of the universal Church an appeal was made to an Ecumenical Council, which alone was and is the supreme tribunal in the universal Church.
1895

...the Popes of Rome, enticed by the antisynodical privileges offered them for the oppression of the Churches of God, and finding in them much worldly advantage, and "much gain," and conceiving a Monarchy in the Catholic Church and a monopoly of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, changed the ancient worship at will, separating themselves by novelties from the old received Christian Polity.
1848

The blessed Peter, even in his own person, was judged before all for the truth of the Gospel, and, as Scripture declares, was found blamable and not walking uprightly. What opinion is to be formed of those who glory and pride themselves solely in the possession of his Throne, so great in their eyes?
1848

The orthodox Eastern and catholic Church of Christ, with the exception of the Son and Word of God, who was ineffably made man, knows no one infallible upon earth. Even the Apostle Peter himself, whose successor the Pope thinks himself to be, thrice denied the Lord, and was twice rebuked by the Apostle Paul, as not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel. [Gal. 2:11.] Afterwards the Pope Liberius, in the fourth century, subscribed an Arian confession; and likewise Zosimus, in the fifth century, approved an heretical confession, denying original sin. Virgilius, in the sixth century, was condemned for wrong opinions by the fifth Council; and Honorius, having fallen into the Monothelite heresy, was condemned in the seventh century by the sixth Ecumenical Council as a heretic, and the popes who succeeded him acknowledged and accepted his condemnation.
1895

...having recourse to the fathers and the Ecumenical Councils of the Church of the first nine centuries, we are fully persuaded that the Bishop of Rome was never considered as the supreme authority and infallible head of the Church, and that every bishop is head and president of his own particular Church, subject only to the synodical ordinances and decisions of the Church universal as being alone infallible, the Bishop of Rome being in no wise excepted from this rule, as Church history shows. Our Lord Jesus Christ alone is the eternal Prince and immortal Head of the Church, for 'He is the Head of the body, the Church," [Col. 1:18.] who said also to His divine disciples and apostles at His ascension into heaven, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.' [Matt. 28:20.] In the Holy Scripture the Apostle Peter, whom the Papists, relying on apocryphal books of the second century, the pseudo-Clementines, imagine with a purpose to be the founder of the Roman Church and their first bishop, discusses matters as an equal among equals in the apostolic synod of Jerusalem, and at another time is sharply rebuked by the Apostle Paul, as is evident from the Epistle to the Galatians. [Gal. 2:11.] Moreover, the Papists themselves know well that the very passage of the Gospel to which the Pontiff refers, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' [Matt. 16:18. ] is in the first centuries of the Church interpreted quite differently, in a spirit of orthodoxy, both by tradition and by all the divine and sacred Fathers without exception; the fundamental and unshaken rock upon which the Lord has built His own Church, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail, being understood metaphorically of Peter's true confession concerning the Lord, that 'He is Christ, the Son of the living God.' [Matt. 16:16.] Upon this confession and faith the saving preaching of the Gospel by all the apostles and their successors rests unshaken. Whence also the Apostle Paul, who had been caught up into heaven, evidently interpreting this divine passage, declares the divine inspiration, saying: 'According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.' [1 Cor. 3:10, 11.] But it is in another sense that Paul calls all the apostles and prophets together the foundation of the building up in Christ of the faithful; that is to say, the members of the body of Christ, which is the Church; [Col. 1:24.] when he writes to the Ephesians: 'Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the house hold of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone.' [Eph. 2:19, 20. Cp. 1 Pet. 2:4; Rev. 21:14. ] Such, then, being the divinely inspired teaching of the apostles respecting the foundation and Prince of the Church of God, of course the sacred Fathers, who held firmly to the apostolic traditions, could not have or conceive any idea of an absolute primacy of the Apostle Peter and the bishops of Rome; nor could they give any other interpretation, totally unknown to the Church, to that passage of the Gospel, but that which was true and right; nor could they arbitrarily and by themselves invent a novel doctrine respecting excessive privileges of the Bishop of Rome as successor, if so be, of Peter; especially whilst the Church of Rome was chiefly founded, not by Peter, whose apostolic action at Rome is totally unknown to history, but by the heaven-caught apostle of the Gentiles, Paul, through his disciples, whose apostolic ministry in Rome is well known to all. [Acts 28:15, Rom. 15:15-16; Phil. 1:13.]
1895

The divine Fathers, honoring the Bishop of Rome only as the bishop of the capital city of the Empire, gave him the honorary prerogative of presidency, considering him simply as the bishop first in order, that is, first among equals; which prerogative they also assigned afterwards to the Bishop of Constantinople, when that city became the capital of the Roman Empire, as the twenty-eighth canon of the fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon bears witness, saying, among other things, as follows: 'We do also determine and decree the same things respecting the prerogatives of the most holy Church of the said Constantinople, which is New Rome. For the Fathers have rightly given the prerogative to the throne of the elder Rome, because that was the imperial city. And the hundred and fifty most religious bishops, moved by the same consideration, assigned an equal prerogative to the most holy throne of New Rome.' From this canon it is very evident that the Bishop of Rome is equal in honor to the Bishop of the Church of Constantinople and to those other Churches, and there is no hint given in any canon or by any of the Fathers that the Bishop of Rome alone has ever been prince of the universal Church and the infallible judge of the bishops of the other independent and self-governing Churches, or the successor of the Apostle Peter and vicar of Jesus Christ on earth.
1895

...not from his Apostolic Confession does he [the Pope] glorify his Throne, but from his Apostolic Throne seeks to establish his dignity, and from his dignity, his Confession. The truth is the other way.
1848

It [the doctrine of the filioque] has not yet been even plausibly defended out of the Scriptures, or with the least reason out of the Fathers, from the accusations brought against it, notwithstanding all the zeal and efforts of its supporters. The doctrine bears all the marks of error arising out of its nature and peculiarities. All erroneous doctrine touching the Catholic truth of the Blessed Trinity, and the origin of the divine Persons, and the subsistence of the Holy Ghost, is and is called heresy, and they who so hold are deemed heretics, according to the sentence of St. Damasus, Pope of Rome, who says: "If any one rightly holds concerning the Father and the Son, yet holds not rightly of the Holy Ghost, he is an heretic" (Cath. Conf. of Faith which Pope Damasus sent to Paulinus, Bishop of Thessalonica). Wherefore the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, following in the steps of the holy Fathers, both Eastern and Western, proclaimed of old to our progenitors and again teaches today synodically, that the said novel doctrine of the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son is essentially heresy, and its maintainers, whoever they be, are heretics, according to the sentence of Pope St. Damasus, and that the congregations of such are also heretical, and that all spiritual communion in worship of the orthodox sons of the Catholic Church with such is unlawful. Such is the force of the seventh Canon of the third Ecumenical Council.1848

We boldly avow before God and men, that the prayer of our Savior (p. ix. l.43) to God and His Father for the common love and unity of Christians in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, in which we believe, that they may be one, ever as we are one (John xvii. 22), worketh in us no less than in his Holiness. Our brotherly love and zeal meet that of his Holiness, with only this difference, that in us it worketh for the covenanted preservation of the pure, undefiled, divine, spotless, and perfect Creed of the Christian Faith, in conformity to the voice of the Gospel and the decrees of the seven holy Ecumenical Synods and the teachings of the ever-existing Catholic Church: but worketh in his Holiness to prop and strengthen the authority and dignity of them that sit on the Apostolic Throne, and their new doctrine.
1848

The texts in full:

Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs, 1848

A Reply to the Epistle of Pope Pius IX, "to the Easterns"

To All the Bishops Everywhere, Beloved in the Holy Ghost, Our Venerable, Most Dear Brethren; and to their Most Pious Clergy; and to All the Genuine Orthodox Sons of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church: Brotherly Salutation in the Holy Spirit, and Every Good From God, and Salvation.

The holy, evangelical and divine Gospel of Salvation should be set forth by all in its original simplicity, and should evermore be believed in its unadulterated purity, even the same as it was revealed to His holy Apostles by our Savior, who for this very cause, descending from the bosom of God the Father, made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant (Phil. ii. 7); even the same, also, as those Apostles, who were ear and eye witnesses, sounded it forth, like clear-toned trumpets, to all that are under the sun (for their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words into the ends of the world); and, last of all, the very same as the many great and glorious Fathers of the Catholic Church in all parts of the earth, who heard those Apostolic voices, both by their synodical and their individual teachings handed it down to all everywhere, and even unto us. But the Prince of Evil, that spiritual enemy of man's salvation, as formerly in Eden, craftily assuming the pretext of profitable counsel, he made man to become a transgressor of the divinely-spoken command. so in the spiritual Eden, the Church of God, he has from time to time beguiled many; and, mixing the deleterious drugs of heresy with the clear streams of orthodox doctrine, gives of the potion to drink to many of the innocent who live unguardedly, not giving earnest heed to the things they have heard (Heb. ii. 10), and to what they have been told by their fathers (Deut. xxxii. 7), in accordance with the Gospel and in agreement with the ancient Doctors; and who, imagining that the preached and written Word of the LORD and the perpetual witness of His Church are not sufficient for their souls' salvation, impiously seek out novelties, as we change the fashion of our garments, embracing a counterfeit of the evangelical doctrine.

2. Hence have arisen manifold and monstrous heresies, which the Catholic Church, even from her infancy, taking unto her the whole armor of God, and assuming the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God (Eph. vi. 13-17,) has been compelled to combat. She has triumphed over all unto this day, and she will triumph for ever, being manifested as mightier and more illustrious after each struggle.

3. Of these heresies, some already have entirely failed, some are in decay, some have wasted away, some yet flourish in a greater or less degree vigorous until the time of their return to the Faith, while others are reproduced to run their course from their birth to their destruction. For being the miserable cogitations and devices of miserable men, both one and the other, struck with the thunderbolt of the anathema of the seven Ecumenical Councils, shall vanish away, though they may last a thousand years; for the orthodoxy of the Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the living Word of God, alone endures for ever, according to the infallible promise of the LORD: the gates of hell shall not prevail against it (Matt. xviii. 18). Certainly, the mouths of ungodly and heretical men, however bold, however plausible and fair-speaking, however smooth they may be, will not prevail against the orthodox doctrine winning, its way silently and without noise. But, wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? (Jer. xii. 1.) Why are the ungodly exalted and lifted up as the cedars of Lebanon (Ps. xxxvii. 35), to defile the peaceful worship of God? The reason of this is mysterious, and the Church, though daily praying that this cross, this messenger of Satan, may depart from her, ever hears from the Lord: My grace is sufficient for thee, my strength is made perfect in weakness (2. Cor. xii. 9). Wherefore she gladly glories in her infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon her, and that they which are approved may be made manifest (1. Cor. x. 19).

4. Of these heresies diffused, with what sufferings the LORD hath known, over a great part of the world, was formerly Arianism, and at present is the Papacy. This, too, as the former has become extinct, although now flourishing, shall not endure, but pass away and be cast down, and a great voice from heaven shall cry: It is cast down (Rev. xii. 10).

5. The new doctrine, that "the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son," is contrary to the memorable declaration of our LORD, emphatically made respecting it: which proceedeth from the Father (John xv. 26), and contrary to the universal Confession of the Catholic Church as witnessed by the seven Ecumenical Councils, uttering "which proceedeth from the Father." (Symbol of Faith).

i. This novel opinion destroys the oneness from the One cause, and the diverse origin of the Persons of the Blessed Trinity, both of which are witnessed to in the Gospel.

ii. Even into the divine Hypostases or Persons of the Trinity, of equal power and equally to be adored, it introduces diverse and unequal relations, with a confusion or commingling of them.

iii. It reproaches as imperfect, dark, and difficult to be understood, the previous Confession of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

iv. It censures the holy Fathers of the first Ecumenical Synod of Nice and of the second Ecumenical Synod at Constantinople, as imperfectly expressing what relates to the Son and Holy Ghost, as if they had been silent respecting the peculiar property of each Person of the Godhead, when it was necessary that all their divine properties should be expressed against the Arians and Macedonians.

v. It reproaches the Fathers of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh Ecumenical Councils, which had published over the world a divine Creed, perfect and complete, and interdicted under dread anathemas and penalties not removed, all addition, or diminution, or alteration, or variation in the smallest particular of it, by themselves or any whomsoever. Yet was this quickly to be corrected and augmented, and consequently the whole theological doctrine of the Catholic Fathers was to be subjected to change, as if, forsooth, a new property even in regard to the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity had been revealed.

vi. It clandestinely found an entrance at first in the Churches of the West, "a wolf in sheep's clothing," that is, under the signification not of procession, according to the Greek meaning in the Gospel and the Creed, but under the signification of mission, as Pope Martin explained it to the Confessor Maximus, and as Anastasius the Librarian explained it to John VIII.

vii. It exhibits incomparable boldness, acting without authority, and forcibly puts a false stamp upon the Creed, which is the common inheritance of Christianity.

viii. It has introduced huge disturbances into the peaceful Church of God, and divided the nations.

ix. It was publicly proscribed, at its first promulgation, by two ever-to-be-remembered Popes, Leo III and John VIII, the latter of whom, in his epistle to the blessed Photius, classes with Judas those who first brought the interpolation into the Creed.

x. It has been condemned by many Holy Councils of the four Patriarchs of the East.

xi. It was subjected to anathema, as a novelty and augmentation of the Creed, by the eighth Ecumenical Council, congregated at Constantinople for the pacification of the Eastern and Western Churches.

xii. As soon as it was introduced into the Churches of the West it brought forth disgraceful fruits, bringing with it, little by little, other novelties, for the most part contrary to the express commands of our Savior in the Gospel—commands which till its entrance into the Churches were closely observed. Among these novelties may be numbered sprinkling instead of baptism, denial of the divine Cup to the Laity, elevation of one and the same bread broken, the use of wafers, unleavened instead of real bread, the disuse of the Benediction in the Liturgies, even of the sacred Invocation of the All-holy and Consecrating Spirit, the abandonment of the old Apostolic Mysteries of the Church, such as not anointing baptized infants, or their not receiving the Eucharist, the exclusion of married men from the Priesthood, the infallibility of the Pope and his claim as Vicar of Christ, and the like. Thus it was that the interpolation led to the setting aside of the old Apostolic pattern of well nigh all the Mysteries and all doctrine, a pattern which the ancient, holy, and orthodox Church of Rome kept, when she was the most honored part of the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

xiii. It drove the theologians of the West, as its defenders, since they had no ground either in Scripture or the Fathers to countenance heretical teachings, not only into misrepresentations of the Scriptures, such as are seen in none of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, but also into adulterations of the sacred and pure writings of the Fathers alike of the East and West.

xiv. It seemed strange, unheard of, and blasphemous, even to those reputed Christian communions, which, before its origin, had been for other just causes for ages cut off from the Catholic fold.

xv. It has not yet been even plausibly defended out of the Scriptures, or with the least reason out of the Fathers, from the accusations brought against it, notwithstanding all the zeal and efforts of its supporters. The doctrine bears all the marks of error arising out of its nature and peculiarities. All erroneous doctrine touching the Catholic truth of the Blessed Trinity, and the origin of the divine Persons, and the subsistence of the Holy Ghost, is and is called heresy, and they who so hold are deemed heretics, according to the sentence of St. Damasus, Pope of Rome, who says: "If any one rightly holds concerning the Father and the Son, yet holds not rightly of the Holy Ghost, he is an heretic" (Cath. Conf. of Faith which Pope Damasus sent to Paulinus, Bishop of Thessalonica). Wherefore the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, following in the steps of the holy Fathers, both Eastern and Western, proclaimed of old to our progenitors and again teaches today synodically, that the said novel doctrine of the Holy Ghost proceeding from the Father and the Son is essentially heresy, and its maintainers, whoever they be, are heretics, according to the sentence of Pope St. Damasus, and that the congregations of such are also heretical, and that all spiritual communion in worship of the orthodox sons of the Catholic Church with such is unlawful. Such is the force of the seventh Canon of the third Ecumenical Council.

6. This heresy, which has united to itself many innovations, as has been said, appeared about the middle of the seventh century, at first and secretly, and then under various disguises, over the Western Provinces of Europe, until by degrees, creeping along for four or five centuries, it obtained precedence over the ancient orthodoxy of those parts, through the heedlessness of Pastors and the countenance of Princes. Little by little it overspread not only the hitherto orthodox Churches of Spain, but also the German, and French, and Italian Churches, whose orthodoxy at one time was sounded throughout the world, with whom our divine Fathers such as the great Athanasius and heavenly Basil conferred, and whose sympathy and fellowship with us until the seventh Ecumenical Council, preserved unharmed the doctrine of the Catholic and Apostolic Church. But in process of time, by envy of the devil, the novelties respecting the sound and orthodox doctrine of the Holy Ghost, the blasphemy of whom shall not be forgiven unto men either in this world or the next, according to the saying of our Lord (Matt. xii. 32), and others that succeeded respecting the divine Mysteries, particularly that of the world-saving Baptism, and the Holy Communion, and the Priesthood, like prodigious births, overspread even Old Rome; and thus sprung, by assumption of special distinctions in the Church as a badge and title, the Papacy. Some of the Bishops of that City, styled Popes, for example Leo III and John VIII, did indeed, as has been said, denounce the innovation, and published the denunciation to the world, the former by those silver plates, the latter by his letter to the holy Photius at the eighth Ecumenical Council, and another to Sphendopulcrus, by the hands of Methodius, Bishop of Moravia. The greater part, however, of their successors, the Popes of Rome, enticed by the antisynodical privileges offered them for the oppression of the Churches of God, and finding in them much worldly advantage, and "much gain," and conceiving a Monarchy in the Catholic Church and a monopoly of the gifts of the Holy Ghost, changed the ancient worship at will, separating themselves by novelties from the old received Christian Polity. Nor did they cease their endeavors, by lawless projects (as veritable history assures us), to entice the other four Patriarchates into their apostasy from Orthodoxy, and so subject the Catholic Church to the whims and ordinances of men.

7. Our illustrious predecessors and fathers, with united labor and counsel, seeing the evangelical doctrine received from the Fathers to be trodden under foot, and the robe of our Savior woven from above to be torn by wicked hands, and stimulated by fatherly and brotherly love, wept for the desolation of so many Christians for whom Christ died. They exercised much zeal and ardor, both synodically and individually, in order that the orthodox doctrine of the Holy Catholic Church being saved, they might knit together as far as they were able that which had been rent; and like approved physicians they consulted together for the safety of the suffering member, enduring many tribulations, and contempts, and persecutions, if haply the Body of Christ might not be divided, or the definitions of the divine and august Synods be made of none effect. But veracious history has transmitted to us the relentlessness of the Western perseverance in error. These illustrious men proved indeed on this point the truth of the words of our holy father Basil the sublime, when he said, from experience, concerning the Bishops of the West, and particularly of the Pope: "They neither know the truth nor endure to learn it, striving against those who tell them the truth, and strengthening themselves in their heresy" (to Eusebius of Samosata). Thus, after a first and second brotherly admonition, knowing their impenitence, shaking them off and avoiding them, they gave them over to their reprobate mind. "War is better than peace, apart from God," as said our holy father Gregory, concerning the Arians. From that time there has been no spiritual communion between us and them; for they have with their own hands dug deep the chasm between themselves and Orthodoxy.

8. Yet the Papacy has not on this account ceased to annoy the peaceful Church of God, but sending out everywhere so-called missionaries, men of reprobate minds, it compasses land and sea to make one proselyte, to deceive one of the Orthodox, to corrupt the doctrine of our LORD, to adulterate, by addition, the divine Creed of our holy Faith, to prove the Baptism which God gave us superfluous, the communion of the Cup void of sacred efficacy, and a thousand other things which the demon of novelty dictated to the all-daring Schoolmen of the Middle Ages and to the Bishops of the elder Rome, venturing all things through lust of power. Our blessed predecessors and fathers, in their piety, though tried and persecuted in many ways and means, within and without, directly and indirectly, "yet confident in the LORD," were able to save and transmit to us this inestimable inheritance of our fathers, which we too, by the help of God, will transmit as a rich treasure to the generations to come, even to the end of the world. But notwithstanding this, the Papists do not cease to this day, nor will cease, according to wont, to attack Orthodoxy,—a daily living reproach which they have before their eyes, being deserters from the faith of their fathers. Would that they made these aggressions against the heresy which has overspread and mastered the West. For who doubts that had their zeal for the overthrow of Orthodoxy been employed for the overthrow of heresy and novelties, agreeable to the God-loving counsels of Leo III and John VIII, those glorious and last Orthodox Popes, not a trace of it, long ago, would have been remembered under the sun, and we should now be saying the same things, according to the Apostolic promise. But the zeal of those who succeeded them was not for the protection of the Orthodox Faith, in conformity with the zeal worthy of all remembrance which was in Leo III., now among the blessed.

9. In a measure the aggressions of the later Popes in their own persons had ceased, and were carried on only by means of missionaries. But lately, Pius IX., becoming Bishop of Rome and proclaimed Pope in 1847, published on the sixth of January, in this present year, an Encyclical Letter addressed to the Easterns, consisting of twelve pages in the Greek version, which his emissary has disseminated, like a plague coming from without, within our Orthodox Fold. In this Encyclical, he addresses those who at different times have gone over from different Christian Communions, and embraced the Papacy, and of course are favorable to him, extending his arguments also to the Orthodox, either particularly or without naming them; and, citing our divine and holy Fathers (p. 3, 1.14-18; p. 4, 1.19; p. 9, 1.6 and pp. 17, 23), he manifestly calumniates them and us their successors and descendants: them, as if they admitted readily the Papal commands and rescripts without question because issuing from the Popes is undoubted arbiters of the Catholic Church; us, as unfaithful to their examples (for thus he trespasses on the Fold committed to us by God), as severed from our Fathers, as careless of our sacred trusts, and of the soul's salvation of our spiritual children. Usurping as his own possession the Catholic Church of Christ, by occupancy, as he boasts, of the Episcopal Throne of St. Peter, he desires to deceive the more simple into apostasy from Orthodoxy, choosing for the basis of all theological instruction these paradoxical words (p. 10, 1.29): "nor is there any reason why ye refuse a return to the true Church and Communion with this my holy Throne."

10. Each one of our brethren and sons in Christ who have been piously brought up and instructed, wisely regarding the wisdom given him from God, will decide that the words of the present Bishop of Rome, like those of his schismatical predecessors, are not words of peace, as he affirms (p. 7,1.8), and of benevolence, but words of deceit and guile, tending to self-aggrandizement, agreeably to the practice of his antisynodical predecessors. We are therefore sure, that even as heretofore, so hereafter the Orthodox will not be beguiled. For the word of our LORD is sure (John x. 5), A stranger will they not follow, but flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.

11. For all this we have esteemed it our paternal and brotherly need, and a sacred duty, by our present admonition to confirm you in the Orthodoxy you hold from your forefathers, and at the same time point out the emptiness of the syllogisms of the Bishop of Rome, of which he is manifestly himself aware. For not from his Apostolic Confession does he glorify his Throne, but from his Apostolic Throne seeks to establish his dignity, and from his dignity, his Confession. The truth is the other way. The Throne of Rome is esteemed that of St. Peter by a single tradition, but not from Holy Scripture, where the claim is in favor of Antioch, whose Church is therefore witnessed by the great Basil (Ep. 48 Athan.) to be "the most venerable of all the Churches in the world." Still more, the second Ecumenical Council, writing to a Council of the West (to the most honorable and religious brethren and fellow-servants, Damasus, Ambrose, Britto, Valerian, and others), witnesseth, saying: "The oldest and truly Apostolic Church of Antioch, in Syria, where first the honored name of Christians was used." We say then that the Apostolic Church of Antioch had no right of exemption from being judged according to divine Scripture and synodical declarations, though truly venerated for the throne of St. Peter. But what do we say? The blessed Peter, even in his own person, was judged before all for the truth of the Gospel, and, as Scripture declares, was found blamable and not walking uprightly. What opinion is to be formed of those who glory and pride themselves solely in the possession of his Throne, so great in their eyes? Nay, the sublime Basil the great, the Ecumenical teacher of Orthodoxy in the Catholic Church, to whom the Bishops of Rome are obliged to refer us (p. 8, 1.31), has clearly and explicitly above ( 7) shown us what estimation we ought to have of the judgments of the inaccessible Vatican:—"They neither," he says, "know the truth, nor endure to learn it, striving against those who tell them the truth, and strengthening themselves in their heresy." So that these our holy Fathers whom his Holiness the Pope, worthily admiring as lights and teachers even of the West, accounts as belonging to us, and advises us (p. 8) to follow, teach us not to judge Orthodoxy from the holy Throne, but the Throne itself and him that is on the Throne by the sacred Scriptures, by Synodical decrees and limitations, and by the Faith which has been preached, even the Orthodoxy of continuous teaching. Thus did our Fathers judge and condemn Honorius, Pope of Rome, and Dioscorus, Pope of Alexandria, and Macedonius and Nestorius, Patriarchs of Constantinople, and Peter Gnapheus, Patriarch of Antioch, with others. For if the abomination of desolation stood in the Holy Place, why not innovation and heresy upon a holy Throne? Hence is exhibited in a brief compass the weakness and feebleness of the efforts in behalf of the despotism of the Pope of Rome. For, unless the Church of Christ was founded upon the immovable rock of St. Peter’s Confession, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God (which was the answer of the Apostles in common, when the question was put to them, Whom say ye that I am? (Matt. xvi. 15,) as the Fathers, both Eastern and Western, interpret the passage to us), the Church was built upon a slippery foundation, even on Cephas himself, not to say on the Pope, who, after monopolizing the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, has made such an administration of them as is plain from history. But our divine Fathers, with one accord, teach that the sense of the thrice-repeated command, Feed my sheep, implied no prerogative in St. Peter over the other Apostles, least of all in his successors. It was a simple restoration to his Apostleship, from which he had fallen by his thrice-repeated denial. St. Peter himself appears to have understood the intention of the thrice-repeated question of our Lord: Lovest thou Me, and more, and than these?. (John xxi. 16;) for, calling to mind the words, Thou all shall be offended because of Thee, yet will I never be offended (Matt. xxvi. 33), he was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me? But his successors, from self-interest, understand the expression as indicative of St. Peter's more ready mind.

12. His Holiness the Pope says (p. viii. 1.12.) that our LORD said to Peter (Luke xxii. 32), I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. Our LORD so prayed because Satan had sought to overthrow the faith of all the disciples, but the LORD allowed him Peter only, chiefly because he had uttered words of boasting, and justified himself above the rest (Matt. xxvi. 33): Though all shall be offended, because of thee, yet will I never be offended. The permission to Satan was but temporary. He began to curse and to swear: I know not the man. So weak is human nature, left to itself. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. It was but temporary, that, coming again to himself by his return in tears of repentance, he might the rather strengthen his brethren who had neither perjured themselves nor denied. Oh! the wise judgment of the LORD! How divine and mysterious was the last night of our Savior upon earth! That sacred Supper is believed to be consecrated to this day in every Church: This do in remembrance of me (Luke xxii. 19), and As often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the LORD's death till he come (1 Cor. xi. 26). Of the brotherly love thus earnest1y commended to us by the common Master, saying, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciple, if ye have love one to another (John xiii. 35), have the Popes first broken the stamp and seal, supporting and receiving heretical novelties, contrary to the things delivered to us and canonically confirmed by our Teachers and Fathers in common. This love acts at this day with power in the souls of Christian people, and particularly in their leaders. We boldly avow before God and men, that the prayer of our Savior (p. ix. l.43) to God and His Father for the common love and unity of Christians in the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, in which we believe, that they may be one, ever as we are one (John xvii. 22), worketh in us no less than in his Holiness. Our brotherly love and zeal meet that of his Holiness, with only this difference, that in us it worketh for the covenanted preservation of the pure, undefiled, divine, spotless, and perfect Creed of the Christian Faith, in conformity to the voice of the Gospel and the decrees of the seven holy Ecumenical Synods and the teachings of the ever-existing Catholic Church: but worketh in his Holiness to prop and strengthen the authority and dignity of them that sit on the Apostolic Throne, and their new doctrine. Behold then, the head and front, so to speak, of all the differences and disagreements that have happened between us and them, and the middle wall of partition, which we hope will be taken away in the time of his Holiness, and by the aid of his renowned wisdom, according to the promise of God (St. John x. 16): "Other sheep I have which are not of this fold: them also 1 must bring and they shall hear my voice (Who proceedeth from the Father "). Let it be said then, in the third place, that if it be supposed, according to the words of his Holiness, that this prayer of our LORD for Peter when about to deny and perjure himself, remained attached and united to the Throne of Peter, and is transmitted with power to those who from time to time sit upon it, although, as has before been said, nothing contributes to confirm the opinion (as we are strikingly assured from the example of the blessed Peter himself, even after the descent of the Holy Ghost, yet are we convinced from the words of our LORD, that the time will come when that divine prayer concerning the denial of Peter, "that his faith might not fail for ever" will operate also in some one of the successors of his Throne, who will also weep, as he did, bitterly, and being sometime converted will strengthen us, his brethren, still more in the Orthodox Confession, which we hold from our forefathers;—and would that his Holiness might be this true successor of the blessed Peter! To this our humble prayer, what hinders that we should add our sincere and hearty Counsel in the name of the Holy Catholic Church? We dare not say, as does his Holiness (p. x. 1.22), that it should be done "without any delay;" but without haste, utter mature consideration, and also, if need be, after consultation with the more wise, religious, truth-loving, and prudent of the Bishops, Theologians, and Doctors, to be found at the present day, by God's good Providence, in every nation of the West.

13. His Holiness says that the Bishop of Lyons, St. Irenaeus, writes in praise of the Church of Rome: "That the whole Church, namely, the faithful from everywhere, must come together in that Church, because of its Primacy, in which Church the tradition, given by the Apostles, has in all respects been observed by the faithful everywhere." Although this saint says by no means what the followers of the Vatican would make out, yet even granting their interpretation, we reply: Who denies that the ancient Roman Church was Apostolic and Orthodox? None of us will question that it was a model of orthodoxy. We will specially add, for its greater praise, from the historian Sozomen (Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. cap. 12), the passage, which his Holiness has overlooked, respecting the mode by which for a time she was enabled to preserve the orthodoxy which we praise:—"For, as everywhere," saith Sozomen, "the Church throughout the West, being guided purely by the doctrines of the Fathers, was delivered from contention and deception concerning these things." Would any of the Fathers or ourselves deny her canonical privilege in the rank of the hierarchy, so long as she was guided purely by the doctrines of the Fathers, walking by the plain rule of Scripture and the holy Synods! But at present we do not find preserved in her the dogma of the Blessed Trinity according to the Creed of the holy Fathers assembled first in Nicea and afterwards in Constantinople, which the other five Ecumenical Councils confessed and confirmed with such anathemas on those who adulterated it in the smallest particular, as if they had thereby destroyed it. Nor do we find the Apostolical pattern of holy Baptism, nor the Invocation of the consecrating Spirit upon the holy elements: but we see in that Church the eucharistic Cup, heavenly drink, considered superfluous, (what profanity!) and very many other things, unknown not only to our holy Fathers, who were always entitled the catholic, clear rule and index of Orthodoxy, as his Holiness, revering the truth, himself teaches (p. vi), but also unknown to the ancient holy Fathers of the West. We see that very primacy, for which his Holiness now contends with all his might, as did his predecessors, transformed from a brotherly character and hierarchical privilege into a lordly superiority. What then is to be thought of his unwritten traditions, if the written have undergone such a change and alteration for the worse ? Who is so bold and confident in the dignity of the Apostolic Throne, as to dare to say that if our holy Father, St. Irenaeus, were alive again, seeing it was fallen from the ancient and primitive teaching in so many most essential and catholic articles of Christianity, he would not be himself the first to oppose the novelties and self-sufficient constitutions of that Church which was lauded by him as guided purely by the doctrines of the Fathers? For instance, when he saw the Roman Church not only rejecting from her Liturgical Canon, according to the suggestion of the Schoolmen, the very ancient and Apostolic invocation of the Consecrating Spirit, and miserably mutilating the Sacrifice in its most essential part, but also urgently hastening to cut it out from the Liturgies of other Christian Communions also,—his Holiness slanderously asserting, in a manner so unworthy of the Apostolic Throne on which he boasts himself, that it "crept in after the division between the East and West" (p. xi. 1.11)—what would not the holy Father say respecting this novelty ? Irenaeus assures us (lib. iv. c. 34) "that bread, from the ground, receiving the evocation of God, is no longer common bread," etc., meaning by "evocation" invocation: for that Irenaeus believed the Mystery of the Sacrifice to be consecrated by means of this invocation is especially remarked even by Franciscus Feu-Ardentius, of the order of popish monks called Minorites, who in 1639 edited the writings of that saint with comments, who says (lib. i. c. 18, p. 114,) that Irenaeus teaches "that the bread and mixed cup become the true Body and Blood of Christ by the words of invocation." Or, hearing of the vicarial and appellate jurisdiction of the Pope, what would not the Saint say, who, for a small and almost indifferent question concerning the celebration of Easter (Euseb. Eccl. Hist. v. 26), so boldly and victoriously opposed and defeated the violence of Pope Victor in the free Church of Christ? Thus he who is cited by his Holiness as a witness of the primacy of the Roman Church, shows that its dignity is not that of a lordship, nor even appellate, to which St. Peter himself was never ordained, but is a brotherly privilege in the Catholic Church, and an honor assigned the Popes on account of the greatness and privilege of the City. Thus, also, the fourth Ecumenical Council, for the preservation of the gradation in rank of Churches canonically established by the third Ecumenical Council (Canon 8),—following the second (Canon 3), as that again followed the first (Canon 6), which called the appellate jurisdiction of the Pope over the West a Custom,—thus uttered its determination: "On account of that City being the Imperial City, the Fathers have with reason given it prerogatives" (Canon 28). Here is nothing said of the Pope's special monopoly of the Apostolicity of St. Peter, still less of a vicarship in Rome's Bishops, and an universal Pastorate. This deep silence in regard to such great privileges—nor only so, but the reason assigned for the primacy, not "Feed my sheep," not "On this rock will I build my Church," but simply old Custom, and the City being the Imperial City; and these things, not from the LORD, but from the Fathers—will seem, we are sure, a great paradox to his Holiness entertaining other ideas of his prerogatives. The paradox will be the greater, since, as we shall see, he greatly honors the said fourth Ecumenical Synod as one to be found a witness for his Throne; and St. Gregory, the eloquent, called the Great (lib. i. Ep. 25), was wont to speak of the four (Ecumenical Councils [not the Roman See] as the four Gospels, and the four-sided stone on which the Catholic Church is built.

14. His Holiness says (p. ix. 1.12) that the Corinthians, divided among themselves, referred the matter to Clement, Pope of Rome, who wrote to them his decision on the case; and they so prized his decision that they read it in the Churches. But this event is a very weak support for the Papal authority in the house of God. For Rome being then the center of the Imperial Province and the chief City, in which the Emperors lived, it was proper that any question of importance, as history shows that of the Corinthians to have been, should be decided there, especially if one of the contending parties ran thither for external aid: as is done even to this day. The Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, when unexpected points of difficulty arise, write to the Patriarch of Constantinople, because of its being the seat of Empire, as also on account of its synodical privileges; and if this brotherly aid shall rectify that which should be rectified, it is well; but if not, the matter is reported to the province, according to the established system. But this brotherly agreement in Christian faith is not purchased by the servitude of the Churches of God. Let this be our answer also to the examples of a fraternal and proper championship of the privileges of Julius and Innocent Bishops of Rome, by St. Athanasius the Great and St. John Chrysostom, referred to by his Holiness (p. ix. 1. 6,17), for which their successors now seek to recompense us by adulterating the divine Creed. Yet was Julius himself indignant against some for " disturbing the Churches by not maintaining the doctrines of Nice" (Soz. Hist. Ec. lib. iii. c. 7), and threatening (id.) excommunication, "if they ceased not their innovations." In the case of the Corinthians, moreover, it is to be remarked that the Patriarchal Thrones being then but three, Rome was the nearer and more accessible to the Corinthians, to which, therefore, it was proper to have resort. In all this we see nothing extraordinary, nor any proof of the despotic power of the Pope in the free Church of God.

15. But, finally, his Holiness says (p. ix. l.12) that the fourth Ecumenical Council (which by mistake he quite transfers from Chalcedon to Carthage), when it read the epistle of Pope Leo I, cried out, "Peter has thus spoken by Leo." It was so indeed. But his Holiness ought not to overlook how, and after what examination, our fathers cried out, as they did, in praise of Leo. Since however his Holiness, consulting brevity, appears to have omitted this most necessary point, and the manifest proof that an Ecumenical Council is not only above the Pope but above any Council of his, we will explain to the public the matter as it really happened. Of more than six hundred fathers assembled in the Counci1 of Chalcedon, about two hundred of the wisest were appointed by the Council to examine both as to language and sense the said epistle of Leo; nor only so, but to give in writing and with their signatures their own judgment upon it, whether it were orthodox or not. These, about two hundred judgments and resolution on the epistle, as chiefly found in the Fourth Session of the said holy Council in such terms as the following:—"Maximus of Antioch in Syria said: 'The epistle of the holy Leo, Archbishop of Imperial Rome, agrees with the decisions of the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers at Nice, and the hundred and fifty at Constantinople, which is new Rome, and with the faith expounded at Ephesus by the most holy Bishop Cyril: and I have subscribed it."
And again:
"Theodoret,the most religious Bishop of Cyrus: 'The epistle of the most holy Archbishop, the lord Leo, agrees with the faith established at Nice by the holy and blessed fathers, and with the symbol of faith expounded at Constantinople by the hundred and fifty, and with the epistles of the blessed Cyril. And accepting it, I have subscribed the said epistle."'
And thus all in succession: "The epistle corresponds," "the epistle is consonant,"the epistle agrees in sense," and the like. After such great and very severe scrutiny in comparing it with former holy Councils, and a full conviction of the correctness of the meaning, and not merely because it was the epistle of the Pope, they cried aloud, ungrudgingly, the exclamation on which his Holiness now vaunts himself: But if his Holiness had sent us statements concordant and in unison with the seven holy Ecumenical Councils, instead of boasting of the piety of his predecessors lauded by our predecessors and fathers in an Ecumenical Council, he might justly have gloried in his own orthodoxy, declaring his own goodness instead of that of his fathers. Therefore let his Holiness be assured, that if, even now, he will write us such things as two hundred fathers on investigation and inquiry shall find consonant and agreeing with the said former Councils, then, we say, he shall hear from us sinners today, not only, "Peter has so spoken," or anything of like honor, but this also, "Let the holy hand be kissed which has wiped away the tears of the Catholic Church."

16. And surely we have a right to expect from the prudent forethought of his Holiness, a work so worthy the true successor of St. Peter, of Leo I, and also of Leo III, who for security of the orthodox faith engraved the divine Creed unaltered upon imperishable plates—a work which will unite the churches of the West to the holy Catholic Church, in which the canonical chief seat of his Holiness, and the seats of all the Bishops of the West remain empty and ready to be occupied. For the Catholic Church, awaiting the conversion of the shepherds who have fallen off from her with their flocks, does not separate in name only, those who have been privily introduced to the rulership by the action of others, thus making little of the Priesthood. But we are expecting the "word of consolation," and hope that he, as wrote St. Basil to St.Ambrose, Bishop of Milan (Epis. b6), will "tread again the ancient footprints of the fathers." Not without great astonishment have we read the said Encyclical letter to the Easterns, in which we see with deep grief of soul his Holiness, famed for prudence, speaking like his predecessors in schism, words that urge upon us the adulteration of our pure holy Creed, on which the Ecumenical Councils have set their seal; and doing violence to the sacred Liturgies, whose heavenly structure alone, and the names of those who framed them, and their tone of reverend antiquity, and the stamp that was placed upon them by the Seventh Ecumenical Synod (Act vi.), should have paralyzed him, and made him to turn aside the sacrilegious and all-daring hand that has thus smitten the King of Glory. From these things we estimate into what an unspeakable labyrinth of wrong and incorrigible sin of revolution the papacy has thrown even the wiser and more godly Bishops of the Roman Church, so that, in order to preserve the innocent, and therefore valued vicarial dignity, as well as the despotic primacy and the things depending upon it, they know no other means shall to insult the most divine and sacred things, daring everything for that one end. Clothing themselves, in words, with pious reverence for "the most venerable antiquity" (p. xi. 1.16), in reality there remains, within, the innovating temper; and yet his Holiness really hears hard upon himself when he says that we "must cast from us everything that has crept in among us since the Separation," (!) while he and his have spread the poison of their innovation even into the Supper of our LORD. His Holiness evidently takes it for granted that in the Orthodox Church the same thing has happened which he is conscious has happened in the Church of Rome since the rise of the Papacy: to wit, a sweeping change in all the Mysteries, and corruption from scholastic subtleties, a reliance on which must suffice as an equivalent for our sacred Liturgies and Mysteries and doctrines: yet all the while, forsooth, reverencing our "venerable antiquity," and all this by a condescension entirely Apostolic!—"without," as he says, "troubling us by any harsh conditions"! From such ignorance of the Apostolic and Catholic food on which we live emanates another sententious declaration of his (p. vii. 1. 22): "It is not possible that unity of doctrine and sacred observance should be preserved among you," paradoxically ascribing to us the very misfortune from which he suffers at home; just as Pope Leo IX wrote to the blessed Michael Cerularius, accusing the Greeks of changing the Creed of the Catholic Church, without blushing either for his own honor or for the truth of history. We are persuaded that if his Holiness will call to mind ecclesiastical archaeology and history, the doctrine of the holy Fathers and the old Liturgies of France and Spain, and the Sacramentary of the ancient Roman Church, he will be struck with surprise on finding how many other monstrous daughters, now living, the Papacy has brought forth in the West: while Orthodoxy, with us, has preserved the Catholic Church as an incorruptible bride for her Bridegroom, although we have no temporal power, nor, as his Holiness says, any sacred "observances," but by the sole tie of love and affection to a common Mother are bound together in the unity of a faith sealed with the seven seals of the Spirit (Rev. v. 1), and by the seven Ecumenical Councils, and in obedience to the Truth. He will find, also, flow many modern papistical doctrines and mysteries must be rejected as "commandments of men" in order that the Church of the West, which has introduced all sorts of novelties, may be changed back again to the immutable Catholic Orthodox faith of our common fathers. As his Holiness recognizes our common zeal in this faith, when he says (p. viii. l.30), "let us take heed to the doctrine preserved by our forefathers," so he does well in instructing us (l. 31) to follow the old pontiffs and the faithful of the Eastern Metropolitans. What these thought of the doctrinal fidelity of the Archbishops of the elder Rome, and what idea we ought to have of them in the Orthodox Church, and in what manner we ought to receive their teachings, they have synodically given us an example ( 15), and the sublime Basil has well interpreted it ( 7). As to the supremacy, since we are not setting forth a treatise, let the same great Basil present the matter in a f'ew words, "I preferred to address myself to Him who is Head over them."

17. From all this, every one nourished in sound Catholic doctrine, particularly his Holiness, must draw the conclusion, how impious and anti-synodical it is to attempt the alteration of our doctrine and liturgies and other divine offices which are, and are proved to be, coeval with the preaching of Christianity: for which reason reverence was always bestowed on then, and they were confided in as pure even by the old orthodox Popes themselves, to whom these things were an inheritance in common with ourselves. How becoming and holy would be the mending of the innovations, the time of whose entrance in the Church of Rome we know in each case; for our illustrious fathers have testified from time to time against each novelty. But there are other reasons which should incline his Holiness to this change. First, because those things that are ours were once venerable to the Westerns, as having the same divine Offices and confessing the same Creed; but the novelties were not known to our Fathers, nor could they be shown in the writings of the orthodox Western Fathers, nor as having their origin either in antiquity or catholicity. Moreover, neither Patriarchs nor Councils could then have introduced novelties amongst us, because the protector of religion is the very body of the Church, even the people themselves, who desire their religious worship to be ever unchanged and of the same kind as that of their fathers: for as, after the Schism, many of the Popes and Latinizing Patriarchs made attempts that came to nothing even in the Western Church; and as, from time to time, either by fair means or foul, the Popes have commanded novelties for the sake of expediency (as they have explained to our fathers, although they were thus dismembering the Body of Christ): so now again the Pope, for the sake of a truly divine and most just expediency, forsooth (not mending the nets, but himself rending the garment of the Savior), dare to oppose the venerable things of antiquity,—things well fitted to preserve religion, as his Holiness confesses (p. xi. l.16), and which he himself honors, as he says (lb. 1.16), together with his predecessors, for he repeats that memorable expression of one of those blessed predecessors (Celestine, writing to the third Ecumenical Council): "Let novelty cease to attack antiquity." And let the Catholic Church enjoy this benefit from this so far blameless declaration of the Popes. It must by all rneans be confessed, that in such his attempt, even though Pius IX be eminent for wisdom and piety, and, as he says, for zeal after Christian unity in the Catholic Church, he will meet, within and without, with difficulties and toils. And here we must put his Holiness in mind, if he will excuse our boldness, of that portion of his letter (p. viii. L.32), "That in things which relate to the confession of our divine religion, nothing is to be feared, when we look to the glory of Christ, and the reward which awaits us in eternal life." It is incumbent on his Holiness to show before God and man, that, as prime mover of the counsel which pleases God, so is he a willing protector of the ill-treated evangelical and synodical truth, even to the sacrifice of his own interests, according to the Prophet (Is. lx. 17), A ruler in peace and a bishop in righteousness. So be it! But until there be this desired returning of the apostate Churches to the body of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, of which Christ is the Head (Eph. iv. 15), and each of us "members in particular," all advice proceeding from them, and every officious exhortation tending to the dissolution of our pure faith handed down from the Fathers is condemned,as it ought to be, synodically, not only as suspicious and to he eschewed, but as impious and soul-destroying: and in this category, among the first we place the said Encyclical to the Easterns from Pope Pius IX, Bishop of the elder Rome; and such we proclaim it to be in the Catholic Church.

18. Wherefore, beloved brethren and fellow-ministers of our mediocrity, as always, so also now, particularly on this occasion of the publication of the said Encyclical, we hold it to be our inexorable duty, in accordance with our patriarchal and synodical responsibility, in order that none may be lost to the divine fold of the Catholic Orthodox Church, the most holy Mother of us all, to encourage each other, and to urge you that, reminding one another of the words and exhortations of St. Paul to our holy predecessors when he summoned them to Ephesus, we reiterate to each other: take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own Blood. For know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. Therefore,watch. (Acts xx.28-31.) Then our predecessors and Fathers, hearing this divine charge, wept sore, and falling upon his neck, kissed him. Come, then, and let us, brethren, hearing him admonishing us with tears, fall in spirit, lamenting, upon his neck, and, kissing him, comfort him by our own firm assurance, that no one shall separate us from the love of Christ, no one mislead us from evangelical doctrine, no one entice us from the safe path of our fathers, as none was able to deceive them, by any degree of zeal which they manifested, who from time to time were raised up for this purpose by the tempter: so that at last we shall hear from the Master: Well done, good and faithful servant, receiving the end of our faith, even the salvation of our souls, and of the reasonable flock over whom the Holy Ghost has made us shepherds.

19. This Apostolic charge and exhortation we have quoted for your sake, and address it to all the Orthodox congregation, wherever they be found settled on the earth, to the Priests and Abbots, to the Deacons and Monks, in a word, to all the Clergy and godly People, the rulers and the ruled, the rich and the poor, to parents and children, to teachers and scholars, to the educated and uneducated, to masters and servants, that we all, supporting and counseling each other, may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For thus St. Peter the Apostle exhorts us (1 Pet.): Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist, steadfast in the faith.

20. For our faith, brethren, is not of men nor by man, but by revelation of Jesus Christ, which the divine Apostles preached, the holy Ecumenical Councils confirmed, the greatest and wisest teachers of the world handed down in succession, and the shed blood of the holy martyrs ratified. Let us hold fast to the confession which we have received unadulterated from such men, turning away from every novelty as a suggestion of the devil. He that accepts a novelty reproaches with deficiency the preached Orthodox Faith. But that Faith has long ago been sealed in completeness, not to admit of diminution or increase, or any change whatever; and he who dares to do, or advise, or think of such a thing has already denied the faith of Christ, has already of his own accord been struck with an eternal anathema, for blaspheming the Holy Ghost as not having spoken fully in the Scriptures and through the Ecumenical Councils. This fearful anathema, brethren and sons beloved in Christ, we do not pronounce today, but our Savior first pronounced it (Matt. xii. 32): Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. St. Paul pronounced the same anathema (Gal. i. 6): I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another Gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you, than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. This same anathema the Seven Ecumenical Councils and the whole choir of God-serving fathers pronounced. All, therefore, innovating, either by heresy or schism, have voluntarily clothed themselves, according to the Psalm (cix. 18), ("with a curse as with a garment,") whether they be Popes, or Patriarchs, or Clergy, or Laity; nay, if any one, though an angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. Thus our wise fathers, obedient to the soul-saving words of St. Paul, were established firm and steadfast in the faith handed down unbrokenly to them, and preserved it unchanged and uncontaminate in the midst of so many heresies, and have delivered it to us pure and undefiled, as it came pure from the mouth of the first servants of the Word. Let us, too, thus wise, transmit it, pure as we have received it, to coming generations, altering nothing, that they may be, as we are, full of confidence, and with nothing to be ashamed of when speaking of the faith of their forefathers.

21. Therefore, brethren, and sons beloved in the LORD, having purified your souls in obeying the truth (1 Pet. i. 22), let us give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. (Heb. ii. 1.) The faith and confession we have received is not one to be ashamed of, being taught in the Gospel from the mouth of our LORD, witnessed by the holy Apostles, by the seven sacred Ecumenical Councils, preached throughout the world, witnessed to by its very enemies, who, before they apostatized from orthodoxy to heresies, themselves held this same faith, or at least their fathers and fathers' fathers thus held it. It is witnessed to by continuous history, as triumphing over all the heresies which have persecuted or now persecute it, as ye see even to this day. The succession of our holy divine fathers and predecessors beginning from the Apostles, and those whom the Apostles appointed their successors, to this day, forming one unbroken chain, and joining hand to hand, keep fast the sacred inclosure of which the door is Christ, in which all the orthodox Flock is fed in the fertile pastures of the mystical Eden, and not in the pathless and rugged wilderness, as his Holiness supposes (p. 7.1.12). Our Church holds the infallible and genuine deposit of the Holy Scriptures, of the Old Testament a true and perfect version, of the New the divine original itself. The rites of the sacred Mysteries, and especially those of the divine Liturgy, are the same glorious and heartquickening rites, handed down from the Apostles. No nation, no Christian communion, can boast of such Liturgies as those of James, Basil, Chrysostom. The august Ecumenical Councils, those seven pillars of the house of Wisdom, were organized in it and among us. This, our Church, holds the originals of their sacred definitions. The Chief Pastors in it, and the honorable Presbytery, and the monastic Order, preserve the primitive and pure dignity of the first ages of Christianity, in opinions, in polity, and even in the simplicity of their vestments. Yes! verily, "grievous wolves" have constantly attacked this holy fold, and are attacking it now, as we see for ourselves, according to the prediction of the Apostle, which shows that the true lambs of the great Shepherd are folded in it; but that Church has sung and shall sing forever: " They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about: but in the name of the Lord I will destroy them (Ps. cxviii. l1). Let us add one reflection, a painful one indeed, but useful in order to manifest and confirm the truth of our words:—All Christian nations whatsoever that are today seen calling upon the Name of Christ (not excepting either the West generally, or Rome herself, as we prove by the catalogue of her earliest Popes), were taught the true faith in Christ by our holy predecessors and fathers; and yet afterwards deceitful men, many of whom were shepherds, and chief shepherds too, of those nations, by wretched sophistries and heretical opinions dared to defile, alas! the orthodoxy of those nations, as veracious history informs us, and as St. Paul predicted.

22. Therefore, brethren, and ye our spiritual children, we acknowledge how great the favor and grace which God has bestowed upon our Orthodox Faith, and on His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, which, like a mother who is unsuspected of her husband, nourishes us as children of whom she is not ashamed, and who are excusable in our high-toned boldness concerning the hope that is in us. But what shall we sinners render to the LORD for all that He hath bestowed upon us? Our bounteous LORD and God, who hath redeemed us by his own Blood, requires nothing else of us but the devotion of our whole soul and heart to the blameless, holy faith of our fathers, and love and affection to the Orthodox Church, which has regenerated us not with a novel sprinkling, but with the divine washing of Apostolic Baptism. She it is that nourishes us, according to the eternal covenant of our Savior, with His own precious Body, and abundantly, as a true Mother, gives us to drink of that precious Blood poured out for us and for the salvation of the world. Let us then encompass her in spirit, as the young their parent bird, wherever on earth we find ourselves, in the north or south, or east, or west. Let us fix our eyes and thoughts upon her divine countenance and her most glorious beauty. Let us take hold with both our hands on her shining robe which the Bridegroom, "altogether lovely," has with His own undefiled hands thrown around her, when He redeemed her from the bondage of error, and adorned her as an eternal Bride for Himself. Let us feel in our own souls the mutual grief of the children-loving mother and the mother-loving children, when it is seen that men of wolfish minds and making gain of souls are zealous in plotting how they may lead her captive, or tear the lambs from their mothers. Let us, Clergy as well as Laity, cherish this feeling most intensely now, when the unseen adversary of our salvation, combining his fraudful arts (p. xi. 1. 2-25), employs such powerful instrumentalities, and walketh about everywhere, as saith St. Peter, seeking whom he may devour; and when in this way, in which we walk peacefully and innocently, he sets his deceitful snares.

23. Now, the God of peace, "that brought again from the dead that great Shepherd of the sheep," "He that keepeth Israel," who "shall neither slumber nor sleep," "keep your hearts and minds," "and direct your ways to every good work."
Peace and joy be with you in the LORD.

May, 1848, Indiction 6.

+ ANTHIMOS, by the Mercy of God, Archbishop of Constantinople, new Rome, and Ecumenical Patriarch, a beloved brother in Christ our God, and suppliant.

+ HIEROTHEUS, by the Mercy of God, Patriarch of Alexandria and of all Egypt, a beloved brother in Christ our God, and suppliant.

+ METHODIOS, by the Mercy of God, Patriarch of the great City of God, Antioch, and of all Anatolia, a beloved brother in Christ our God, and suppliant.

+ CYRIL, by the Mercy of God, Patriarch of Jerusalem and of all Palestine, a beloved brother in Christ our God, and suppliant.

The Holy Synod in Constantinople:
+ PAISIUS OF CAESAREA
+ ANTHIMUS OF EPHESUS
+ DIONYSIUS OF HERACLEA
+ JOACHIM OF CYZICUS
+ DIONYSIUS OF NICODEMIA
+ HIEROTHEUS OF CHALCEDON
+ NEOPHYTUS OF DERCI
+ GERASIMUS OF ADRIANOPLE
+ CYRIL OF NEOCAESAREA
+ THEOCLETUS OF BEREA
+ MELETIUS OF PISIDIA
+ ATHANASIUS OF SMYRNA
+ DIONYSIUS OF MELENICUS
+ PAISIUS OF SOPHIA
+ DANIEL OF LEMNOS
+ PANTELEIMON OF DEYINOPOLIS
+ JOSEPH OF ERSECIUM
+ ANTHIMUS OF BODENI

The Holy Synod in Antioch:
+ ZACHARIAS OF ARCADIA
+ METHODIOS OF EMESA
+ JOANNICIUS OF TRIPOLIS
+ ARTEMIUS OF LAODICEA

The Holy Synod in Jerusalem:
+ MELETIUS OF PETRA
+ DIONYSIUS OF BETHLEHEM
+ PHILEMON OF GAZA
+ SAMUEL OF NEAPOLIS
+ THADDEUS OF SEBASTE
+ JOANNICIUS OF PHILADELPHIA
+ HIEROTHEUS OF TABOR

The Patriarchal Encyclical of 1895

A Reply to the Papal Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, on Reunion

To the most Sacred and Most Divinely-beloved Brethren in Christ the Metropolitans and Bishops, and their sacred and venerable Clergy, and all the godly and orthodox Laity of the Most Holy Apostolic and Patriarchal Throne of Constantinople.

"Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their own conversation:
"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and for ever. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines." (Heb. xiii. 7, 8).

I. Every godly and orthodox soul, which has a sincere zeal for the glory of God, is deeply afflicted and weighed down with great pain upon seeing that he, who detests that which is good and is a murderer from the beginning, impelled by envy of man's salvation, never ceases continually to sow divers tares in the field of the Lord, in order to sift the wheat. From this source indeed, even from the earliest times, there sprang up in the Church of God heretical tares, which have in many ways made havoc, and do still make havoc, of the salvation of mankind by Christ; which moreover, as bad seeds and corrupted members, are rightly cut off from the sound body of the orthodox catholic Church of Christ. But in these last times the evil one has rent from the orthodox Church of Christ even whole nations in the West, having inflated the bishops of Rome with thoughts of excessive arrogance, which has given birth to divers lawless and anti-evangelical innovations. And not only so, but furthermore the Popes of Rome from time to time, pursuing absolutely and without examination modes of union according to their own fancy, strive by every means to reduce to their own errors the catholic Church of Christ, which throughout the world walks unshaken in the orthodoxy of faith transmitted to her by the Fathers.

II. Accordingly the Pope of Rome, Leo XIII, on the occasion of his episcopal jubilee, published in the month of June of the year of grace 1895 an encyclical letter, addressed to the leaders and peoples of the world, by which he also at the same time invites our orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ to unite with the papal throne, thinking that such union can only be obtained by acknowledging him as supreme pontiff and the highest spiritual and temporal ruler of the universal Church, as the only representative of Christ upon earth and the dispenser of all grace.

III. No doubt every Christian heart ought to be filled with longing for union of the Churches, and especially the whole orthodox world, being inspired by a true spirit of piety, according to the divine purpose of the establishment of the church by the God-man our Savior Christ, ardently longs for the unity of the Churches in the one rule of faith, and on the foundation of the apostolic doctrine handed down to us through the Fathers, 'Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone.' [1] Wherefore she also every day, in her public prayers to the Lord, prays for the gathering together of the scattered and for the return of those who have gone astray to the right way of the truth, which alone leads to the Life of all, the only-begotten Son and Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. [2] Agreeably, therefore, to this sacred longing, our orthodox Church of Christ is always ready to accept any proposal of union, if only the Bishop of Rome would shake off once for all the whole series of the many and divers anti-evangelical novelties that have been 'privily brought in' to his Church, and have provoked the sad division of the Churches of the East and West, and would return to the basis of the seven holy Ecumenical Councils, which, having been assembled in the Holy Spirit, of representatives of all the holy Churches of God, for the determination of the right teaching of the faith against heretics, have a universal and perpetual supremacy in the Church of Christ. And this, both by her writings and encyclical letters, the Orthodox Church has never ceased to intimate to the Papal Church, having clearly and explicitly set forth that so long as the latter perseveres in her innovations, and the orthodox Church adheres to the divine and apostolic traditions of Christianity, during which the Western Churches were of the same mind and were united with the Churches of the East, so long is it a vain and empty thing to talk of union. For which cause we have remained silent until now, and have declined to take into consideration the papal encyclical in question, esteeming it unprofitable to speak to the ears of those who do not hear. Since, however, from a certain period the Papal Church, having abandoned the method of persuasion and discussion, began, to our general astonishment and perplexity, to lay traps for the conscience of the more simple orthodox Christians by means of deceitful workers transformed into apostles of Christ, [3] sending into the East clerics with the dress and headcovering of orthodox priests, inventing also divers and other artful means to obtain her proselytizing objects; for this reason, as in sacred duty bound, we issue this patriarchal and synodical encyclical, for a safeguard of the orthodox faith and piety, knowing 'that the observance of the true canons is a duty for every good man, and much more for those who have been thought worthy by Providence to direct the affairs of others.' [4]

IV. The union of the separated Churches with herself in one rule of faith is, as has been said before, a sacred and inward desire of the holy, catholic and orthodox apostolic Church of Christ; but without such unity in the faith, the desired union of the Churches becomes impossible. This being the case, we wonder in truth how Pope Leo XIII, though he himself also acknowledges this truth, falls into a plain self-contradiction, declaring, on the one hand, that true union lies in the unity of faith, and, on the other hand, that every Church, even after the union, can hold her own dogmatic and canonical definitions, even when they differ from those of the Papal Church, as the Pope declares in a previous encyclical, dated November 30, 1894. For there is an evident contradiction when in one and the same Church one believes that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, and another that He proceeds from the Father and the Son; when one sprinkles, and another baptizes (immerses) thrice in the water; one uses leavened bread in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, and another unleavened; one imparts to the people of the chalice as well as of the bread, and the other only of the holy bread; and other things like these. But what this contradiction signifies, whether respect for the evangelical truths of the holy Church of Christ and an indirect concession and acknowledgment of them, or something else, we cannot say.

V. But however that may be, for the practical realization of the pious longing for the union of the Churches, a common principle and basis must be settled first of all; and there can be no such safe common principle and basis other than the teaching of the Gospel and of the seven holy Ecumenical Councils. Reverting, then, to that teaching which was common to the Churches of the East and of the West until the separation, we ought, with a sincere desire to know the truth, to search what the one holy, catholic and orthodox apostolic Church of Christ, being then 'of the same body,' throughout the East and West believed, and to hold this fact, entire, and unaltered. But whatsoever has in later times been added or taken away, every one has a sacred and indispensable duty, if he sincerely seeks for the glory of God more than for his own glory, that in a spirit of piety he should correct it, considering that by arrogantly continuing in the perversion of the truth he is liable to a heavy account before the impartial judgment-seat of Christ. In saying this we do not at all refer to the differences regarding the ritual of the sacred services and the hymns, or the sacred vestments, and the like, which matters, even though they still vary, as they did of old, do not in the least injure the substance and unity of the faith; but we refer to those essential differences which have reference to the divinely transmitted doctrines of the faith, and the divinely instituted canonical constitution of the administration of the Churches. 'In cases where the thing disregarded is not the faith (says also the holy Photius), [5] and is no falling away from any general and catholic decree, different rites and customs being observed among different people, a man who knows how to judge rightly would decide that neither do those who observe them act wrongly, nor do those who have not received them break the law.' [6]

VI. And indeed for the holy purpose of union, the Eastern orthodox and catholic Church of Christ is ready heartily to accept all that which both the Eastern and Western Churches unanimously professed before the ninth century, if she has perchance perverted or does not hold it. And if the Westerns prove from the teaching of the holy Fathers and the divinely assembled Ecumenical Councils that the then orthodox Roman Church, which was throughout the West, even before the ninth century read the Creed with the addition, or used unleavened bread, or accepted the doctrine of a purgatorial fire, or sprinkling instead of baptism, or the immaculate conception of the ever-Virgin, or the temporal power, or the infallibility and absolutism of the Bishop of Rome, we have no more to say. But if, on the contrary, it is plainly demonstrated, as those of the Latins themselves, who love the truth, also acknowledge, that the Eastern and orthodox catholic Church of Christ holds fast the anciently transmitted doctrines which were at that time professed in common both in the East and the West, and that the Western Church perverted them by divers innovations, then it is clear, even to children, that the more natural way to union is the return of the Western Church to the ancient doctrinal and administrative condition of things; for the faith does not change in any way with time or circumstances, but remains the same always and everywhere, for 'there is one body and one Spirit,' it is said, 'even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." [7]

VII. So then the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the seven Ecumenical Councils believed and taught in accordance with the words of the Gospel that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father; but in the West, even from the ninth century, the holy Creed, which was composed and sanctioned by Ecumenical Councils, began to be falsified, and the idea that the Holy Ghost proceeds 'also from the Son' to be arbitrarily promulgated. And certainly Pope Leo XIII is not ignorant that his orthodox predecessor and namesake, the defender of orthodoxy, Leo III, in the year 809 denounced synodically this anti-evangelical and utterly lawless addition, 'and from the Son' (filioque); and engraved on two silver plates, in Greek and Latin, the holy Creed of the first and second Ecumenical Councils, entire and without any addition; having written moreover, 'These words I, Leo, have set down for love and as a safeguard of the orthodox faith' (Haec Leo posui amore et cautela fidei orthodoxa'). [8]
Likewise he is by no means ignorant that during the tenth century, or at the beginning of the eleventh, this anti-evangelical and lawless addition was with difficulty inserted officially into the holy Creed at Rome also, and that consequently the Roman Church, in insisting on her innovations, and not coming back to the dogma of the Ecumenical Councils, renders herself fully responsible before the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ, which holds fast that which has been received from the Fathers, and keeps the deposit of the faith which was delivered to it unadulterated in all things, in obedience to the Apostolic injunction: 'That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us'; 'avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith." [9]

VIII. The one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the first seven Ecumenical Councils baptized by three immersions in the water, and the Pope Pelagius speaks of the triple immersion as a command of the Lord, and in the thirteenth century baptism by immersions still prevailed in the West; and the sacred fonts themselves, preserved in the more ancient churches in Italy, are eloquent witnesses on this point; but in later times sprinkling or effusion, being privily brought in, came to be accepted by the Papal Church, which still holds fast the innovation, thus also widening the gulf which she has opened; but we Orthodox, remaining faithful to the apostolic tradition and the practice of the seven Ecumenical Councils, 'stand fast, contending for the common profession, the paternal treasure of the sound faith.' [10]

IX. The one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the seven Ecumenical Councils, according to the example of our Savior, celebrated the divine Eucharist for more than a thousand years throughout the East and West with leavened bread, as the truth-loving papal theologians themselves also bear witness; but the Papal Church from the eleventh century made an innovation also in the sacrament of the divine Eucharist by introducing unleavened bread.

X. The one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the seven Ecumenical Councils held that the precious gifts are consecrated after the prayer of the invocation of the Holy Ghost by the blessing of the priest, as the ancient rituals of Rome and Gaul testify; nevertheless afterwards the Papal Church made an innovation in this also, by arbitrarily accepting the consecration of the precious gifts as taking place along with the utterance of the Lord's words: 'Take, eat; this is my body': and 'Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood.' [11]

XI. The one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the seven Ecumenical Councils, following the Lord's command, 'Drink ye all of it,' [12] imparted also of the holy chalice to all; but the Papal Church from the ninth century downwards has made an innovation in this rite also, by depriving the laity of the holy chalice, contrary to the Lord's command and the universal practice of the ancient Church, as well as the express prohibition of many ancient orthodox bishops of Rome.

XII. The one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the seven Ecumenical Councils, walking according to the divinely inspired teaching of the Holy Scripture and the old apostolic tradition, prays and invokes the mercy of God for the forgiveness and rest of those 'which have fallen asleep in the Lord'; [13] but the Papal Church from the twelfth century downwards has invented and heaped together in the person of the Pope, as one singularly privileged, a multitude of innovations concerning purgatorial fire, a superabundance of the virtues of the saints, and the distribution of them to those who need them, and the like, setting forth also a full reward for the just before the universal resurrection and judgment.

XIII. The one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the seven Ecumenical Councils teaches that the supernatural incarnation of the only-begotten Son and Word of God, of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, is alone pure and immaculate; but the Papal Church scarcely forty years ago again made an innovation by laying down a novel dogma concerning the immaculate conception of the Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary, which was unknown to the ancient Church (and strongly opposed at different times even by the more distinguished among the papal theologians).

XIV. Passing over, then, these serious and substantial differences between the two churches respecting the faith, which differences, as has been said before, were created in the West, the Pope in his encyclical represents the question of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff as the principal and, so to speak, only cause of the dissension, and sends us to the sources, that we may make diligent search as to what our forefathers believed and what the first age of Christianity delivered to us. But having recourse to the fathers and the Ecumenical Councils of the Church of the first nine centuries, we are fully persuaded that the Bishop of Rome was never considered as the supreme authority and infallible head of the Church, and that every bishop is head and president of his own particular Church, subject only to the synodical ordinances and decisions of the Church universal as being alone infallible, the Bishop of Rome being in no wise excepted from this rule, as Church history shows. Our Lord Jesus Christ alone is the eternal Prince and immortal Head of the Church, for 'He is the Head of the body, the Church," [14] who said also to His divine disciples and apostles at His ascension into heaven, 'Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.' [15] In the Holy Scripture the Apostle Peter, whom the Papists, relying on apocryphal books of the second century, the pseudo-Clementines, imagine with a purpose to be the founder of the Roman Church and their first bishop, discusses matters as an equal among equals in the apostolic synod of Jerusalem, and at another time is sharply rebuked by the Apostle Paul, as is evident from the Epistle to the Galatians. [16] Moreover, the Papists themselves know well that the very passage of the Gospel to which the Pontiff refers, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church,' [17] is in the first centuries of the Church interpreted quite differently, in a spirit of orthodoxy, both by tradition and by all the divine and sacred Fathers without exception; the fundamental and unshaken rock upon which the Lord has built His own Church, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail, being understood metaphorically of Peter's true confession concerning the Lord, that 'He is Christ, the Son of the living God.' [18] Upon this confession and faith the saving preaching of the Gospel by all the apostles and their successors rests unshaken. Whence also the Apostle Paul, who had been caught up into heaven, evidently interpreting this divine passage, declares the divine inspiration, saying: 'According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.' [19] But it is in another sense that Paul calls all the apostles and prophets together the foundation of the building up in Christ of the faithful; that is to say, the members of the body of Christ, which is the Church; [20] when he writes to the Ephesians: 'Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the house hold of God; and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone.' [21] Such, then, being the divinely inspired teaching of the apostles respecting the foundation and Prince of the Church of God, of course the sacred Fathers, who held firmly to the apostolic traditions, could not have or conceive any idea of an absolute primacy of the Apostle Peter and the bishops of Rome; nor could they give any other interpretation, totally unknown to the Church, to that passage of the Gospel, but that which was true and right; nor could they arbitrarily and by themselves invent a novel doctrine respecting excessive privileges of the Bishop of Rome as successor, if so be, of Peter; especially whilst the Church of Rome was chiefly founded, not by Peter, whose apostolic action at Rome is totally unknown to history, but by the heaven-caught apostle of the Gentiles, Paul, through his disciples, whose apostolic ministry in Rome is well known to all. [22]

XV. The divine Fathers, honoring the Bishop of Rome only as the bishop of the capital city of the Empire, gave him the honorary prerogative of presidency, considering him simply as the bishop first in order, that is, first among equals; which prerogative they also assigned afterwards to the Bishop of Constantinople, when that city became the capital of the Roman Empire, as the twenty-eighth canon of the fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon bears witness, saying, among other things, as follows: 'We do also determine and decree the same things respecting the prerogatives of the most holy Church of the said Constantinople, which is New Rome. For the Fathers have rightly given the prerogative to the throne of the elder Rome, because that was the imperial city. And the hundred and fifty most religious bishops, moved by the same consideration, assigned an equal prerogative to the most holy throne of New Rome.' From this canon it is very evident that the Bishop of Rome is equal in honor to the Bishop of the Church of Constantinople and to those other Churches, and there is no hint given in any canon or by any of the Fathers that the Bishop of Rome alone has ever been prince of the universal Church and the infallible judge of the bishops of the other independent and self-governing Churches, or the successor of the Apostle Peter and vicar of Jesus Christ on earth.

XVI. Each particular self-governing Church, both in the East and West, was totally independent and self-administered in the time of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. And just as the bishops of the self-governing Churches of the East, so also those of Africa, Spain, Gaul, Germany and Britain managed the affairs of their own Churches, each by their local synods, the Bishop of Rome having no right to interfere, and he himself also was equally subject and obedient to the decrees of synods. But on important questions which needed the sanction of the universal Church an appeal was made to an Ecumenical Council, which alone was and is the supreme tribunal in the universal Church. Such was the ancient constitution of the Church; but the bishops were independent of each other and each entirely free within his own bounds, obeying only the syndical decrees, and they sat as equal one to another in synods. Moreover, none of them ever laid claim to monarchical rights over the universal Church; and sometimes certain ambitious bishops of Rome raised excessive claims to an absolutism unknown to the Church, such were duly reproved and rebuked The assertion therefore of Leo XIII, when he says in his Encyclical that before the period of the great Photius the name of the Roman throne was holy among all the peoples of the Christian world, and that the East, like the West, with one accord and without opposition, was subject to the Roman pontiff as lawful successor, so to say, of the Apostle Peter, and consequently vicar of Jesus Christ on earth is proved to be inaccurate and a manifest error.

XVII. During the nine centuries of the Ecumenical Councils the Eastern Orthodox Church never recognized the excessive claims of primacy on the part of the bishops of Rome, nor consequently did she ever submit herself to them, as Church history plainly bears witness. The independent relation of the East to the West is clearly and manifestly shown also by those few and most significant words of Basil the Great, which he writes in a letter to the holy Eusebius, Bishop of Samosata: 'For when haughty characters are courted, it is their nature to become still more disdainful. For if the Lord be merciful to us, what other assistance do we need? But if the wrath of God abide on us, what help is there for us from Western superciliousness? Men who neither know the truth nor can bear to learn it, but being prejudiced by false suspicions, they act now as they did before in the case of Marcellus.' [23] The celebrated Photius, therefore, the sacred Prelate and luminary of Constantinople, defending this independence of the Church of Constantinople after the middle of the ninth century, and foreseeing the impending perversion of the ecclesiastical constitution in the West, and its defection from the orthodox East, at first endeavored in a peaceful manner to avert the danger; but the Bishop of Rome, Nicholas I, by his uncanonical interference with the East, beyond the bounds of his diocese, and by the attempt which he made to subdue the Church of Constantinople to himself, pushed maners to the verge of the grievous separation of the Churches. The first seeds of these claims of a papal absolutism were scattered abroad in the pseudo-Clementines, and were cultivated, exactly at the epoch of this Nicholas, in the so-called pseudo-lsidorian decrees, which are a farrago of spurious and forged royal decrees and letters of ancient bishops of Rome, by which, contrary to the truth of history and the established constitution of the Church, it was purposely promulgated that, as they said, Christian antiquity assigned to the bishops of Rome an unbounded authority over the universal Church.

XVIII. These facts we recall with sorrow of heart, inasmuch as the Papal Church, though she now acknowledges the spuriousness and forged character of those decrees on which her excessive claims are grounded, not only stubbornly refuses to come back to the canons and decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, but even in the expiring years of the nineteenth century has widened the existing gulf by officially proclaiming, to the astonishment of the Christian world, that the Bishop of Rome is even infallible. The orthodox Eastern and catholic Church of Christ, with the exception of the Son and Word of God, who was ineffably made man, knows no one infallible upon earth. Even the Apostle Peter himself, whose successor the Pope thinks himself to be, thrice denied the Lord, and was twice rebuked by the Apostle Paul, as not walking uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel. [24] Afterwards the Pope Liberius, in the fourth century, subscribed an Arian confession; and likewise Zosimus, in the fifth century, approved an heretical confession, denying original sin. Virgilius, in the sixth century, was condemned for wrong opinions by the fifth Council; and Honorius, having fallen into the Monothelite heresy, was condemned in the seventh century by the sixth Ecumenical Council as a heretic, and the popes who succeeded him acknowledged and accepted his condemnation.

XIX. With these and such facts in view, the peoples of the West, becoming gradually civilized by the diffusion of letters, began to protest against innovations, and to demand (as was done in the fifteenth century at the Councils of Constance and Basle) the return to the ecclesiastical constitution of the first centuries, to which, by the grace of God, the orthodox Churches throughout the East and North, which alone now form the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ, the pillar and ground of the truth, remain, and will always remain, faithful. The same was done in the seventeenth century by the learned Gallican theologians, and in the eighteenth by the bishops of Germany; and in this present century of science and criticism, the Christian conscience rose up in one body in the year 1870, in the persons of the celebrated clerics and theologians of Germany, on account of the novel dogma of the infallibility of the Popes, issued by the Vatican Council, a consequence of which rising is seen in the formation of the separate religious communities of the old Catholics, who, having disowned the papacy, are quite independent of it.

XX. In vain, therefore, does the Bishop of Rome send us to the sources that we may seek diligently for what our forefathers believed and what the first period of Christianity delivered to us. In these sources we, the orthodox, find the old and divinely-transmitted doctrines, to which we carefully hold fast to the present time, and nowhere do we find the innovations which later times of empty mindedness brought forth in the West, and which the Papal Church having adopted retains till this very day. The orthodox Eastern Church then justly glories in Christ as being the Church of the seven Ecumenical Councils and of the first nine centuries of Christianity, and therefore the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ, 'the pillar and ground of the truth'; [25] but the present Roman Church is the Church of innovations, of the falsification of the writings of the Church Fathers, and of the misinterpretation of the Holy Scripture and of the decrees of the holy councils, for which she has reasonably and justly been disowned, and is still disowned, so far as she remains in her error. 'For better is a praiseworthy war than a peace which separates from God,' as Gregory of Nazianzus also says.

XXI. Such are, briefly, the serious and arbitrary innovations concerning the faith and the administrative constitution of the Church, which the Papal Church has introduced and which, it is evident, the Papal Encyclical purposely passes over in silence. These innovations, which have reference to essential points of the faith and of the administrative system of the Church, and which are manifestly opposed to the ecclesiastical condition of the first nine centuries, make the longed-for union of the Churches impossible: and every pious and orthodox heart is filled with inexpressible sorrow on seeing the Papal Church disdainfully persisting in them, and not in the least contributing to the sacred purpose of union by rejecting those heretical innovations and coming back to the ancient condition of the one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ, of which she also at that time formed a part.

XXII. But what are we to say of all that the Roman Pontiff writes when he addresses the glorious Slavonic nations? No one, indeed, has ever denied that by the virtue and the apostolic toils of SS. Cyril and Methodius the grace of salvation was vouchsafed to not a few of the Slavonic peoples: but history testifies that at the period of the great Photius those Greek apostles to the Slavs and intimate friends of that divine Father, setting out from Thessalonica, were sent to convert the Slavonic tribes not from Rome but from Constantinople, where moreover they had been trained, living as monks in the monastery of St. Polychronius. It is therefore utterly incoherent which is proclaimed in the Roman Pontiff's Encyclical, that, as he says, a kindly relation and mutual sympathy was brought about between the Slavonic tribes and the pontiffs of the Roman Church; for even if the Pope is ignorant of it, history nevertheless explicitly proclaims that these sacred apostles to the Slavs of whom we speak, encountered greater difficulties in their work from the bishops of Rome through their excommunications and opposition, and were more cruelly persecuted by the Frankish papal bishops than by the heathen inhabitants of those countries. Certainly the Pope knows well that the blessed Methodius having departed to the Lord, two hundred of the most distinguished of his disciples' after many struggles against the opposition of the Roman Pontiffs, were driven out of Moravia and led away by military force beyond its boundaries, from whence afterwards they were dispersed into Bulgaria and elsewhere. And he knows also that with the expulsion of the more erudite Slavonic clergy, the ritual of the East, as well as the Slavonic language then in use, were also driven out, and in process of time all vestige of orthodoxy was effaced from those provinces, and all these things done with the official cooperation of the bishops of Rome in a manner not the least honorable to the holiness of the episcopal dignity. But notwithstanding all this despiteful treatment, the orthodox Slavonic Churches, the beloved daughters of the orthodox East, and especially the great and glorious Church of divinely preserved Russia, having been preserved harmless by the grace of God, have kept, and will keep till the end of the ages, the orthodox faith, and stand forth conspicuous testimonies of the liberty that is in Christ. In vain, therefore, does the Papal Encyclical promise to the Slavonic Churches prosperity and greatness, because by the goodwill of the most gracious God they already possess these blessings, and such as these, standing firm in the orthodoxy of their fathers and glorifying in it in Christ.

XXIII. These things being so, and being indisputably proved by ecclesiastical history, we, anxious as it is our duty to be, address ourselves to the peoples of the West, who through ignorance of the true and impartial history of ecclesiastical matters, being credulously led away, follow the anti-evangelical and utterly lawless innovations of the papacy, having been separated and continuing far from the one holy, catholic and apostolic orthodox Church of Christ, which is 'the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth, [26] in which also their gracious ancestors and forefathers shone by their piety and orthodoxy of faith, having been faithful and precious members of it during nine whole centuries, obediently following and walking according to the decrees of the divinely assembled Ecumenical Councils.

XXIV. Christ-loving peoples of the glorious countries of the West! We rejoice on the one hand seeing that you have a zeal for Christ, being led by this right persuasion, 'that without faith in Christ it is impossible to please God'; [27] but on the other hand it is self-evident to every right-thinking person that the salutary faith in Christ ought by all means to be right in everything, and in agreement with the Holy Scripture and the apostolic traditions, upon which the teaching of the divine Fathers and the seven holy, divinely assembled Ecumenical Councils is based. It is moreover manifest that the universal Church of God, which holds fast in its bosom unique unadulterated and entire this salutary faith as a divine deposit, just as it was of old delivered and unfolded by the God-bearing Fathers moved by the Spirit, and formulated by them during the first nine centuries, is one and the same for ever, and not manifold and varying with the process of time: because the gospel truths are never susceptible to alteration or progress in course of time, like the various philosophical systems; 'for Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.' [28] Wherefore also the holy Vincent, who was brought up on the milk of the piety received from the fathers in the monastery of Lerins in Gaul, and flourished about the middle of the fifth century, with great wisdom and orthodoxy characterizes the true catholicity of the faith and of the Church, saying: 'In the catholic Church we must especially take heed to hold that which has been believed everywhere at all times, and by all. For this is truly and properly catholic, as the very force and meaning of the word signifies, which moreover comprehends almost everything universally. And that we shall do, if we walk following universality, antiquity, and consent.' [29] But, as has been said before, the Western Church, from the tenth century downwards, has privily brought into herself through the papacy various and strange and heretical doctrines and innovations, and so she has been torn away and removed far from the true and orthodox Church of Christ. How necessary, then, it is for you to come back and return to the ancient and unadulterated doctrines of the Church in order to attain the salvation in Christ after which you press, you can easily understand if you intelligently consider the command of the heaven-ascended Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, saying: 'Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle'; [30] and also what the same divine apostle writes to the Galatians saying: 'I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.' [31] But avoid such perverters of the evangelical truth, 'For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple;[32] and come back for the future into the bosom of the holy, catholic and apostolic Church of God, which consists of all the particular holy Churches of God, which being divinely planted, like luxuriant vines throughout the orthodox world, are inseparably united to each other in the unity of the one saving faith in Christ, and in the bond of peace and of the Spirit, that you may obtain the highly-to-be-praised and most glorious name of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, who suffered for the salvation of the world, may be glorified among you also.

XXV. But let us, who by the grace and goodwill of the most gracious God are precious members of the body of Christ, that is to say of His one holy, catholic and apostolic Church, hold fast to the piety of our fathers, handed down to us from the apostles. Let us all beware of false apostles, who, coming to us in sheep's clothing, attempt to entice the more simple among us by various deceptive promises, regarding all things as lawful and allowing them for the sake of union, provided only that the Pope of Rome be recognized as supreme and infallible ruler and absolute sovereign of the universal Church, and only representative of Christ on earth, and the source of all grace. And especially let us, who by the grace and mercy of God have been appointed bishops, pastors, and teachers of the holy Churches of God, 'take heed unto ourselves,—and to all the flock, over which the Holy Ghost hath made us overseers, to feed the Church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood,' [33] as they that must give account. 'Wherefore let us comfort ourselves together, and edify one another.' [34] 'And the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus ... make us perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle us,' [35] and grant that all those who are without and far away from the one holy, catholic and orthodox fold of His reasonable sheep may be enlightened with the light of His grace and the acknowledging of the truth. To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.
Amen.

In the Patriarchal Palace of Constantinople, in the month of August of the year of grace MDCCCXCV.

+ ANTHIMOS of Constantinople, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.
+ NICODEMOS of Cyzicos, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.
+ PHILOTHEOS of Nicomedia, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.
+ JEROME of Nicea, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.
+ NATHANAEL of Prusa, beloved brother and intercessor of Christ our God.
+ BASIL of Smyrna, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.
+ STEPHEN of Philadelphia, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.
+ ATHANASIOS of Lemnos, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.
+ BESSARION of Dyrrachium, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.
+ DOROTHEOS of Belgrade, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.
+ NICODEMOS of Elasson, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.
+ SOPHRONIOS of Carpathos and Cassos, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.
+ DIONYSIOS of Eleutheropolis, beloved brother and intercessor in Christ our God.

Endnotes
1. Eph. 2:20.
2. John 14:6.
3. II Cor. 11:13.
4. Phot. Epist. iii. 10.
5. Patriarch of Constantinople; c. 800.
6. Phot. Epist iii. 6.
7. Eph. 4:5-6.
8. See life of Leo 111 by Athanasius, presbyter and librarian at Rome, in his Lives of the Popes. The holy Photius also, making mention of this invective of the orthodox Pope of Rome, Leo III, against the holders of the erroneous doctrine, in his renowned letter to the Metropolitan of Acquileia, expresses himself as follows: 'For (not to mention those who were before him) Leo the elder, prelate of Rome, as well as Leo the younger after him, shew themselves to be of the same mind with the catholic and apostolic Church, with the holy prelates their predecessors, and with the apostolic commands; the one having contributed much to the assembling of the fourth holy Ecumenical Council, both by the sacred men who were sent to represent him, and by his letter, through which both Nestorius and Eutyches were overthrown; by which letter he moreover, in accordance with previous synodical decrees, declared the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father, but not also "from the Son." And in like manner Leo the younger, his counterpart in faith as well as in name. This latter indeed, who was ardently zealous for true piety, in order that the unspotted pattern of true piety might not in any way whatever be falsified by a barbarous language, published it in Greek, as has already been said in the beginning, to the people of the West, that they might thereby glorify and preach aright the Holy Trinity. And not only by word and command, but also, having inscribed and exposed it to the sight of all on certain shields specially made, as on certain monuments, he fixed it at the gates of the Church, in order that every person might easily learn the uncontaminated faith, and in order that no chance whatever might be left to secret forgers and innovators of adulterating the piety of us Christians, and of bringing in the Son besides the Father as a second cause of the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father with honor equal to that of the begotten Son. And it was not these two holy men alone, who shone brightly in the West, who preserved the faith free from innovation; for the Church is not in such want as that of Western preachers; but there is also a host of them not easily counted who did likewise.'—Epist. v. 53.
9. III Tim. 1:14; 1 Tim. 6:20-21.
10. St. Basil the Great, Ep. 243, To the Bishops of Italy and Gaul.
11. Matt. 26:26, 28
12. Matt. 26:28.
13. Matt. 26:31; Heb. 11:39-40; II Tim. 4:8; II Macc. 12:45.
14. Col. 1:18.
15. Matt. 28:20.
16. Gal. 2:11.
17. Matt. 16:18.
18. Matt. 16:16.
19. 1 Cor. 3:10, 11.
20. Col. 1:24.
21. Eph. 2:19, 20. Cp. 1 Pet. 2:4; Rev. 21:14.
22. See Acts of the Apostles 28:15, Rom. 15:15-16; Phil. 1:13.
23. Epist. 239.
24. Gal. 2:11.
25. I Tim. 3:15.
26. I Tim. 3:15.
27. Heb. 11:6.
28. Heb. 13:8.
29. 'In ipsa item Catholica Ecclesia magnopere curandum est, ut teneamus, quod ubique quod semper ab omnibus creditum est. Hoc est enim vere proprieque Catholicum (quod ipsa vis nominis ratioque declarat), quod omnia fere universaliter comprehendit. Sed hoc fiet si sequimur universalitatem, antiquitatem, consensionem' (Vincentii Lirinensis Commonitorium pro CatholicEe fidei antiquitate et universalitate cap. iii, cf. cap. viii and xiv).
30. 1Thess.2:15.
31. Gal. 1:6-7.
32. Rom. 16:18.
33. Acts 20:28.
34. I Thess. 5:11.
35. I Pet. 5:10.

The Apostolic Church

2007-07-22T11:27:00.000-05:00

'Give ye them to eat!' Did this mean physical food only? No. It meant everything that the God-Man has brought to earth: salvation of the human race, spiritual food, all the sacraments which were established by the Lord, the entire Church of Christ, Catholic and Apostolic. But the Apostles were mortal and the Church is eternal. The Apostles would need successors: deacons, priests, bishops. In such a way the Church will exist eternally and feed believers. She will give them that which no one and nothing on earth can give. With the words: 'Give ye them to eat!' Christ makes His Church Apostolic. And at that moment, when Christ commanded the people to sit down on the grass in groups — this is the great moment of the organization of the Church.
Archbishop Andrei (Rymarenko)

To some small end

2007-07-19T08:21:00.000-05:00

...money would never keep that man out of mischief. He is such an incarnate hypocrite, that whatever object he pursues, he must pursue crookedly. It's his only compensation for the outward restraints he puts on himself. Always creeping along the ground to some small end or other, he will always magnify every object in the way; and consequently will hate and suspect everybody that comes, in the most innocent manner, between him and it. So, the crooked courses will become crookeder, at any mooment, for the least reason, or for none.
Thomas Traddles in David Copperfield

The "Christianization" of atheism

2007-07-16T07:52:00.000-05:00

Now it is not what is pleasing to God or the Church that is good, but what is 'progressive,' 'liberal,' revolutionary; that which is 'right-leaning' is the concatenation of all evils. 'It is in agreement with Marx!' - this is the highest praise for any teaching, for any opinion. Even holy Christian doctrine is assessed on the basis of this new standard. Thus, all of Christianity's fundamental teaching concerning the personal struggle of repentance and humility is cast aside, while only some sort of 'social teaching' is taken up and given consideration, and in it only that which one can reinterpret in a liberal-revolutionary way is approved.

...they wish to 'correct' the Church's understanding of Christianity, replacing it with their own, in which the teaching of Christ is shown to bear a remarkable resemblance to all the most recent teachings and actions of the godless, up to and including revolutions, expropriations, and bombings. On the basis of such interpretations of Christianity, in renunciation of the authority of Church, there have appeared a 'Christian Brotherhood [?!] of Struggle' and a 'Christian Socialism,' and who knows whether there will appear at some point 'Christian' brigandage, etc., etc.

If socialism looks upon itself as a world-view, what, then, is this world-view? It is, first of all, a consistent materialism. A materialistic understanding of history, as acknowledged by the socialists themselves, comprises the essence of the entire theory of their teaching, its cornerstone, according to the expression of Bernstein. "One must seek the basic reasons of all social changes and revolutions not in the heads of men and not in their views on eternal righteousness and justice, but in changes in the means of production and distribution" (Engels). If socialism is so closely bound up with materialism, how can it bear any relationship to religion? Crudely distorting the moral and educational significance of religion, the materialistic criticism of Marx and Engels sees religion as the mere 'handiwork of man,' the product of ignorant imagination or profit motives; and God Himself as a reflection of economic relations. Even in the Christian God they dare to see an 'anthropological idealization of a capitalism which thirsts for power and satisfaction.' Religion is called forth, in the words of Engels, 'by the dark, primordial ideas of man concerning his personal nature and that which surrounds him,' and is defined in its permutations "by class, and consequently economic, relations". Religion seemed to Marx to be a superstition which has outlived its time, 'a dead question for the intelligentsia, but an opium for the people.' According to this, Marx considered 'freedom of conscience from the charms of religion' to be 'the assistance of the people toward real happiness.'

Socialism is the 'mystery of iniquity' which the holy Apostle Paul prophesied (II Thess. 2:7). Is there any need to refute socialism? No, it is sufficient merely to say what socialism is, and those who have still kept their faith in Christ to any degree will reject this ungodly scandal with horror. The believing man is absolutely unable speak of any agreement between socialism and Christianity whatever. Socialism is not only not ours, it is our declared and dangerous adversary. It is guilty of enmity toward Christianity and deserves no condescension. It is our enemy. Every member of the Church must be aware of this, and it is essential that the Church explain this for all the world to hear. If passing into heresy entails separation from the Church, passing into socialism is an error more grievous than any heresy, and is even more deserving of punishment. 'If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema' (I Cor. 16:22). We have already seen how socialism 'loves' Jesus Christ. It is necessary to commit all inveterate socialism to anathema. Ravening wolves must be driven from the flock, else the whole flock will perish. How can one speak of the 'Christianization of socialism'? These are empty words. Can one Christianize atheism? 'Christian socialism' is a contradiction in terms. What is Christian cannot be socialist. If we do not loudly and openly declare that socialism is the enemy of Christianity, nothing will result except harm and scandal. All compromises are inappropriate here. One must look one's enemy in the eye. To underestimate danger is always deleterious.
St. Hilarion (Troitsky)

The height of stupidity

2007-07-15T08:35:00.000-05:00

"But the Pharisees said, He casteth out demons through the prince of demons." (Matt 9:34) These words are the height of stupidity, for no demon casts out other demons. But let us suppose that He cast out demons as one who served the prince of demons, that is, as a magician. How then did He heal diseases, forgive sins, and preach the Kingdom? For the demon does just the opposite: he brings on diseases and separates man from God.
Blessed Theophylact

Modern breeding specifications

2007-07-08T06:15:00.000-05:00

...when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies, Julia, and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had better find the way out.
David Copperfield

Is your rowboat secure?

2007-07-04T07:44:00.000-05:00

When man alienates himself from God in his heart he usually trusts in men and in himself, for in who else can he otherwise trust when he untied his rowboat from God's boat? Since he has already untied his rowboat from God's boat, nothing else remains for him except to trust in his rowboat or in the rowboat of his neighbors. Weak trust, but there is no other for him! Weeping trust above the abyss of destruction, but there is no other!

But, O heaven and earth, why did man untie his rowboat from God's boat? What happened to man that he flees from his security? What kind of calculation did he calculate when he discovered it would be better for him alone on the tempestuous waves than in the household of God and near the hem of God! With whom did he make an alliance when he breached the alliance with God? Is it with someone stronger than God? Foolishness, foolishness, foolishness!
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

St. Theophan: Thoughts: June 20/ July 3

2007-07-03T10:14:00.000-05:00

(1 Cor. 1:1-9; Matt. 13:24-30) The good seed had been sown but the enemy came and sowed tares in with the wheat. Tares are heresies and schisms in the Church and in every one of us bad thoughts, feelings, desires, and passions. A man that accepts the good seed, the words of God, decides to live a holy life and begins to live such. When such a man sleeps, that is, relaxes attention to himself, then comes the enemy of salvation and embeds in him bad thoughts which, not having been repelled in the beginning, ripen in desires and dispositions and they take their circle of deeds and propositions, having intermixed with good actions, feelings and thoughts. They are as such, both together, until the harvest. This harvest is confession. The Lord sends angels, feelings of destruction and fear of God and they, having appeared like a sickle, gather up all the tares and throw them in the fire of self-condemnation. The pure wheat remains in the granary of the heart to the joy of man, the angels and the all good God worshiped in Trinity.

По-русски

Ferocious doctrine

2007-07-02T08:16:00.000-05:00

"Does he gloomily profess to be (I am ashamed to use the word in such association) religious still?" I inquired.
"You anticipate, sir," said Mr. Chillip, his eyelids getting quite red with the unwonted stimulus in which he was indulging. "One of Mrs. Chillip's most impressive remarks. Mrs. Chillip," he proceeded, in the calmest and slowest manner, "quite electrified me, by pointing out that Mr. Murdstone sets up an image of himself, and calls it the Divine Nature. You might have knocked me down on the flat of my back, sir, with the feather of a pen, I assure you, when Mrs. Chillip said so. The ladies are great observers, sir?"
"Intuitively," said I, to his extreme delight.
"I am very happy to receive such support in my opinion, sir," he rejoined. "It is not often that I venture to give a non-medical opinion, I assure you. Mr. Murdstone delivers public addresses sometimes, and it is said,--in short, sir, it is said by Mrs. Chillip,--that the darker tyrant he has lately been, the more ferocious is his doctrine."
"I believe Mrs. Chillip to be perfectly right," said I.
"Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say," pursued the meekest of little men, much encouraged, "that what such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad-humours and arrogance. And do you know I must say, sir," he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, "that I don't find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the New Testament?"
..."as Mrs. Chillip says, sir, they undergo a continual punishment; for they are turned inward, to feed upon their own hearts, and their own hearts are very bad feeding."
Mr. Chillip in David Copperfield

Let us not be carried away

2007-06-29T09:05:00.000-05:00

What is written by every holy writer is written from his spiritual level (attainment) and from his practice (experience), in conformity with his level and practice. We must pay special attention to this point. Let us not be carried away and enraptured by a book written as if with fire that tells of high states and activities for which we are unfit. The reading of such a book, by firing the imagination, can harm us by communicating a knowledge of and desire for labours that are untimely and impossible for us. Let us apply ourselves to the book of a Father nearer to our state in the matter of attainment.
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

Somersaults for God

2007-06-25T07:47:00.000-05:00

When bodily exertion - prostrations, vigils and sacrifices - takes place with love, with passionate eros, the body is not harmed. When this effort is made freely and with love towards the loved one, towards Christ, you show how much you love Him. No one takes account of exertion and fatigue for the person he loves. For example, a monk climbs up a mountain, he struggles and sweats and tires himself out. 'Why did you do it?' people ask him. 'For the person I love,' he replies. 'Because I knew that I would make him happy.' The person with faith displays his love, his devotion and his adoration of Christ in tangible ways. That's why bodily exertion is made. That's why we make prostrations. Not to gain anything, but because your love for Christ doesn't allow you to do otherwise.
Perhaps someone will say, 'I have love in my heart.' That's all very well, but prostrations and all the other exercises are still required, because, although they are external forms, through those formal actions we are able to penetrate to the substance. It we don't penetrate to the heart of the matter, all is a waste of time. Should I turn somersaults now for God to see and be pleased? God takes no delight in these things. Nor do we add anything to Christ with the worship which we offer Him. It is we who receive the fruits of our efforts; we have need of those things. ...when prostrations are made for Christ, grace works directly on the soul and brings penitence, serenity, peace and joy.
Elder Porphyrios

St. Theophan: Thoughts: June 9/ June 22

2007-06-22T08:50:00.000-05:00

(Rom. 11:25-36; Matt. 12:1-8) "But if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless." So, in order to be delivered from the condemnation of sin it is necessary to develop a merciful heart. A merciful heart not only doesn't convict apparent violation of the law but even violations that are obvious for all. In the place of judgement it perceives regret and is quickly ready to weep than reproach. Actually the condemnation of sin is fruit of an unmerciful heart, spiteful and delighted in the humiliation of those close to it, slander is it's name, in bringing others down is its honor. This is the case: the murderous business happens according to the spirit that is the murderer from time immemorial. There is much calumny which is from it's source the devil, for the devil slanders and everywhere spreads slander. Hasten to awaken within yourself compassion every time there comes evil desire of condemnation. With this compassionate heart turning with prayer to the Lord so that He will have mercy on us all, not only the one who wanted to condemn but even us and mabye more than that stop short evil desire.

Spiritual guidance

2007-06-22T07:01:00.000-05:00

The carnal and natural man, on hearing spiritual guidance, understands it in conformity with his state, twists and distorts it, and by following it in his distorted sense, takes a wrong course and holds to it stubbornly as a course given by holy guidance.
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

The good and beautiful

2007-06-20T07:26:00.000-05:00

...if we are Christians laboring and toiling for what is good and beautiful, we must leave our requests up to God's judgement. If God sees that our requests will truly be to our benefit, He may then give them to us; otherwise He will not.
Bishop Augustinos (Kantiotes)

A new social system

2007-06-19T12:58:00.000-05:00

I shall now invent an entire social system and you will not believe how easy it is! All you have to do is isolate yourself off in a corner or even end up inside a crocodile, close your eyes and immediately you will invent an entire paradise for all of mankind. ... True, at first everything must be refuted. But it's so easy to refute from within a crocodile. Moreover, it all seems to be much clearer from inside a crocodile.
Fyodor Dostoevsky

St. Theophan: Thoughts: June 5/ June 18

2007-06-18T11:30:00.000-05:00

(Rom. 9:18-33; Matt. 11:2-15) "...the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force." The Kingdom binds itself, that is with poverty with labour, with effort and podvig; therefore, the one who reaches the Kingdom is the one who lives life through much labour and podvig. With this, on the way to the Kingdom, is the denial of every type of consolation. Pleasures of every kind take away from the Kingdom, and now we even have only worries that are about pleasures, rarely spiritual, more fleshly: to eat, to drink, to be happy, to walk and to live in luxury in all ways. The Kingdom said, "I ask you, excuse me," though in it is a feast, a kingly feast, to which no one comes prepared, the taste we have isn't right. What is sweet we consider bitter, what is pleasing we are against, what is joyful to us is irksome - it completely clashes with us. The Kingdom with the poor, enrapturing him, moves away from us. We, joyful and ready, quickly would drive them away and our speech about that already leads us away, yes, everyone is crafty that doesn't manage to accomodate this.
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St. Theophan: Thoughts: June 4/ June 17

2007-06-17T08:58:00.000-05:00

(Rom. 5:1-10; Matt. 6:22-33). "If therefore your eye is good [pure, clean], your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness." The eye here stands for the mind and the body the whole soul. Thus, when the mind is simple then in the soul it will be light; when the mind is evil then in the soul it will be dark. What is a simple mind and what is an evil mind? A simple mind is one which accepts everything written in the word of God and indesputably is convinced that all is so as it is written: there is no cunning, no wavering or doubts in it. And evil mind is one which comes to the word of God with craftiness, cunning words and disregard. It is not able to believe correctly but submits the word of God under it's own understanding. It comes to the word not as a disciple but as a judge and critic in order to test what it says and then whether to sneer or to haughtily say, "Yes, that's not bad." Such a mind doesn't have a strict position for the reason that it obviously doesn't believe the word of God and it's own understanding is always unstable - now such a way and tomorrow another way. From this it has fluctuation, perplexity, questions without answers; its possessions are not in the same place and it walks rummaging in the dark. The simple mind sees everything clearly: it's well-defined character has all of its possessions, formed with the words of God, therefore, all of its possessions are in the same place and it knows exactly how it is in relationship to what to hold on to, it walks, it knows with comple assurance, by the open visible roads that they lead to the genuine goal.
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The power of the tongue

2007-06-16T14:28:00.000-05:00

O my brethren, we cannot whisper anything here to the earth that the heavens are not going to hear. Our every word comes before the assembly of the angels of God. Hades receives our every evil word and retains it as a guarantee of our eternal death and Paradise receives every good word and retains it as a guarantee of our eternal life. Truly, does the Old Testament sage wisely speaks and promptly reminds us with the words that: "Death and life are in the power of the tongue."
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

This day in history

2007-06-15T07:57:00.000-05:00

On this day of St. Vitus let us remember St. Prince Lazar and his countrymen who perished in a battle that still rages.

And don't forget Blessed Augustine:

…the end of the world will admit us to life everlasting, and then the souls of the just will no longer be subject to the vicissitudes of time.

For the blood of Christ was shed so efficaciously for the remission of all sins, that it could wipe out even the very sin of shedding it.

In the earliest times, "the Holy Ghost fell upon them that believed: and they spake with tongues," which they had not learned, "as the Spirit gave them utterance." These were signs adapted to the time. For there behooved to be that betokening of the Holy Spirit in all tongues, to shew that the Gospel of God was to run through all tongues over the whole earth. That thing was done for a betokening, and it passed away. In the laying on of hands now, that persons may receive the Holy Ghost, do we look that they should speak with tongues? Or when we laid the hand on these infants, did each one of you look to see whether they would speak with tongues, and, when he saw that they did not speak with tongues, was any of you so wrong-minded as to say, These have not received the Holy Ghost; for, had they received, they would speak with tongues as was the case in those times?

St. Theophan: Thoughts: June 2/ June 15

2007-06-15T07:35:00.000-05:00

(Rom. 9:6-19; Matt. 10:32-35(36), 11:1) "Whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven." Is it difficult to confess the Lord? In no way is it difficult. How is it difficult to say, when it is demanded, that our Lord Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God and God, Who for our sake came to earth, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became man, was crucified, suffered, was buried, arose on the third day, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father, who will come again to judge the living and the dead, who sent the Holy Spirit upon the holy apostles, who by His power built the holy Church, which teaching truth and performing the mysteries, ... all of its believing children to the Heavenly Kingdom? All of this we repeat every time we hear and say the symbol of faith. So take these truths, imprint them upon your heart and be ready, not being afraid of any human being who comes against you that so, and not otherwise, it is necessary to believe so that you will be saved, prepare to be patient and so that in another situation it will be well with you. Fill your mouth with the words of truth of the teachers of Christianity - and receive what the Lord promises. Confess Him as God and Saviour before man and He will confess you before God the Father, in that you are His true follower and confessor.
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St. Theophan: Thoughts: June 1/ June 14

2007-06-13T22:46:00.000-05:00

(Rom. 8:22-27; Matt. 10:23-31) "...there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known." Consequently, as we hide ourselves with our sins there is no profit. The time approaches - is it long in coming? and everything will come into the open. How will we be? It is not necessary to hide. You sinned - go and reveal the sin to your spiritual father. When you receive absolution the sin disappears as if it had never been. If you hide your sin and don't repent and keep it in yourself it will be revealed in it's own time as your denunciation. Everything, first of all, is revealed to us by God, in order that we can now manage to disable His righteous and terrible judgement on us sinners.
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St. Theophan: Thoughts: May 31/ June 13

2007-06-13T10:27:00.000-05:00

(Rom. 8:2-13; Matt. 10:16-22) "...he who endures to the end will be saved." And what do we have to endure? - you will not be lacking in things to endure. The field of suffering for everyone is wide; it will be your salvation, by the work of your own hands. Endure all to the end and you will be saved. It is necessary, however, to suffer skillfully or else it is possible to suffer and not receive benefit. Firstly, guard the holy faith and the irreproachable life according to that faith and cleanse every sin with confession. Secondly, everything that comes for you to suffer receive as from the hands of God; remember that without the will of God nothing happens. Thirdly, believe that everything from the Lord is sent for the benefit of our souls, sincerely thank God for everything - for grief and for solace. Fourthly, love every sorrow for the sake of greater salvation and awaken your thirst as to a bitter but healing drink. Fifthly, always remember that when trouble comes not to throw it out like worn clothes - you need to put them on. Whether or not you endure according to Christianity everything you suffer is inevitable; it is better, therefore, to endure according to Christianity. Don't murmer about troubles but only wear them out; with determination and a good nature, in humble submission to the Providence of God, take away the ties of troubles. Sixthly, realize your own unworthiness; if the Lord were to act in all fairness towards us wouldn't it follow that He sent us such trouble anyway? Seventhly, more than all, pray and the merciful Lord will give you strength of spirit, according to which, when others marvel at your troubles, to endure them, to you, it will seem as nothing at all.
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St. Theophan: Thoughts: May 29/ June 11

2007-06-11T10:38:00.001-05:00

For anyone who's actually reading these: sorry for the lull, they have been rather difficult to translate of late.

(Rom. 7:1-13; Matt. 9:36-10:8) Sending the holy Apostles to preach the Lord commanded them to proclaim to all that the "Kingdom of Heaven is at hand," that is, the Kingdom has come - enter into it. What follows for us to preach? We need to shout to all: sons of the Kingdom! don't flee from the Kingdom into bondage and captivity - because they are running. Freedom of mind captivates one: "We don't want," they say,"the bonds of faith and the oppression of authority even if it's divine; everyone themselves guessed and decided." Well, they decided. They constructed a fable, in which there is more childishness than in Greek mythology and they praise themselves for this... Others are carried away by the wide road of the passions: "We don't want," they say, "to know the absolute commandments, nor the demands of the conscience, they are all distraction: we need simple feeling." They all went after these things. So what happened? They put on the stupidity of the beasts. Is it not from this that came about the collapse of morality and the theory of the descent of man from beast? Here is where they are going! And everyone flees from the Lord, everyone runs away...
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Memory Eternal

2007-06-10T17:34:00.000-05:00

Protopresbyter Elias Wen Dies

June 9, at 2:30 pm Western Daylight Time, the eldest clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, Protopresbyter Elias Wen, died. At 5 pm, before all-night vigil on the eve of the day of All Russian Saints at the Cathedral of the Mother of God “Joy of All Who Sorrow,” the first pannikhida was served by the Cathedral clergymen and sung by the Cathedral Choir under the direction of Vladimir Krassovsky.

Well put

2007-06-08T07:57:00.000-05:00

...in universal Orthodoxy there is no hierarch whose role would be similar to that of the Pope of Rome in the Western Church. There must be no illusion that there is such a hierarch. We respect the Patriarch of Constantinople as the first in honour among the primates of local Orthodox Churches, but we are against regarding him as ‘Pope of the East’.
Bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev)

St. Theophan: Thoughts: May 23/ June 5

2007-06-05T08:02:00.000-05:00

(Rom. 4:4-12; Matt. 7:15-21) "Beware of false prophets." In the beginning of Christianity and even up to now there hasn't been a time which hasn't had this warning. The Lord didn't show in what way exactly to beware of false prophets or how to determine them. They change, like fashion, and every time gives rise to their own. They always appear in sheeps' clothing with goodwill in their step and truth in their speech. In our time their clothing is woven from progress, civilization, enlightenment, freedom in thoughts and deeds, personal freedom, the abandonment of faith and whatever is comfortable. All these are flattering deceptions. Therefore, upon meeting a show of these clothes, don't rush to open your mouth and with your speech proclaim in them prophets. Take a look whether a wolf is hidden in this sheeps' clothing. Know that the Lord is the one driving force to genuine truth, the one softener of hearts and dispositions, the one enlightener, the one giver of freedom filling the heart with true feelings, who doesn't forcibly sway anyone. Because if you notice in the speech of such new prophets a hint of opposition to the teaching of the Lord, know that these are wolf-predators and turn away from them.

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St. Theophan: Thoughts: May 21/ June 3

2007-06-03T09:13:00.000-05:00

(Heb 11:22-12:2; Matt 10:32-33, 37-38, 19:27-30) Every day the Holy Church remembers the saints but since there were saints of God, having struggled in obscurity, not being revealed to the Church, in order not to leave them without a celebration the Holy Church established a day, in which all those pleasing to God from all generations are glorified. This day was created for commemoration immediately after the descent of the Holy Spirit because all the saints became and are becoming holy with the grace of the Holy Spirit, which grace brings repentance and the abandonment of sin. Grace eneters into battle with the passions and lusts and is crowned in this podvig with purity and passionlessness. In such a way appears a new creature, fit for the new heaven and the new earth. Being jealous we follow after the saints of God. Today's Gospel teaches us how to do this: it demands fearless confession of faith in the Lord, a principled love towards Him, taking up the cross of selflessness and a heart-felt renunciation. According to these instructions we establish our beginning.

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St. Theophan: Thoughts: May 19/ June 1

2007-06-01T06:44:00.000-05:00

(Rom. 2:14-29; Matt. 5:33-41) "But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil"; otherwise you give yourself up to sacrifice to wayward and evil people. Is it possible to live that way? Don't worry - the one who gave this command is our guide and guardian. When with complete faith, from all your soul you wish to live this way, in order not to resist any evil person, then the Lord himself will make for you a way of life, not only tolerable but happy. In addition to this, conflict further incites the antagonist and prompts him into further unpleasantness but a concession disarms and subdues him. From this it occurs that you suffer only the first onslaught of rage - people then have pity and and leave you in peace. But conflict and revenge unleashes rage which from the first multiplies sevenfold and then from generation to generation.

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St. Theophan: Thoughts: May 18/31

2007-05-31T07:52:00.000-05:00

(Rom. 1:28-2:9; Matt. 5:27-32) "Whoever looks at a woman...has already committed adultery with her". How is it possible to live in society and not look upon women? After all, not simply looking upon a woman is committing adultery but looking with lust. Look but keep your heart on a leash. Look with the eyes of a children, who look upon women purely, without a wicked thought at all. It is necessary to love women for in the commandment about love they are not excluded but with pure love, which has in it's thought spiritual means besides all else. In Christianity, as before God, there is not male nor female, and it is such in inter-relations of Christians.

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St. Theophan: Thoughts: May 17/30

2007-05-30T11:51:00.000-05:00

(Rom. 1:18-27; Matt. 5:20-26) "Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven." The characteristics of scribes is such-knowledge of the law without a life according to the law. The characteristics of the Pharisees is such-correctness in external conduct without genuine working for correctness of the heart and the thoughts. This and other moral patterns of judgement are external to the Kingdom of Heaven. Take from this all the necessary lessons for yourself. Find out the law of the gospel to know it but in order to set up your life according to knowledge. In conduct try to be correct but at the same time take a hold of your internal disposition and feelings. Having discovered this do not stop with this knowledge but go farther and complete the conclusion, to which, in this case, this knowledge obliges you and requires that you act. In this same conduct act such that your feelings and disposition don't go beyond your external acts and that your external acts won't be called feelings and dispositions and serve simply as expressions. In such a way you will be higher than the scribes and pharisees and the door of the Kingdom won't be shut before you.

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The fall of an empire

2007-05-29T09:04:00.000-05:00

Alack and alas! The Turks have taken Constantinople,
They've taken the King's throne, the rulers are changed.
Churches mourn, monasteries cry,
and St. John Chrysostom weeps and laments.
“Don't cry, St. John, and don't lament, Romania is taken.
But though gone, Romania will blossom again.”

- From a poem in praise of Constantinople

Constantinople, wondrous city near the Bosphorus blue,

With your glory, whose glory can be measured?

You were an awesome battleground of spiritual warriors,

Blasphemous heretics and saints of God.

As through a sieve you sifted throughout the centuries long

And declared apostates and servants of God.

By many sins you are soiled, and by filth of sinners,

You are consecrated with the abundance of the blood of martyrs.

Who could enumerate the spiritual heroes,

And all heavenly visions and your mysteries, all?

The angels of God often swooped down upon you,

And men, as angels, to heaven were raised.

The Mother of God, many times, within you appeared,

To deliver those in danger, the sick to heal.

The flock of wonderful saints, over you, hover

And the prayers of your children, to the Most High, bear.

O, how many saints were your children!

As many as there are lilies next to lilies and saints next to saints!

History and calendar, in red, you wrote,

By your effort even the great Symbol [The Creed] was written.

And about you, in such a way, this could be said:

Among the many cities, a red letter you are.

With Holy Faith, you enlightened the universe

From paganism and heresies, the world you healed.

Tortured much, but not slain, you have not yet passed.

That is why we all celebrate you! Confessor, that you are!

Throughout the earth and in the heavens, your glory echoes;

Everyone baptized, a great gratitude owes you.

St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

St. Theophan: Thoughts: May 15/28: The Day of the Holy Spirit

2007-05-28T09:14:00.000-05:00

(Ephesians 5:9-19; Matthew 18:10-20) Consoling His disciples, the Lord said that it is better that He ascends to heaven; for, having ascended He will send in His place and Comforter-Spirit. The Holy Spirit, having descended and remaining in the Church accomplishes in every believer the works of Christ. Every Christian is a participant in the Spirit. This is essential - the one who doesn't have the Spirit doesn't have Christ. Take a closer, more thorough look, do you have the Spirit of grace? He does not remain in everyone, it happens that He leaves. Here is an example: First one finds the spirit of repentance and it teaches the Christian to appeal to God and correct his life. The spirit of repentance, having accomplished its task, gives the Christian to the spirit of sanctity and purity, whose successor, in the end, is a spirit of sonship. The first characteristic is industrious zeal; the second characteristic is a warm and burning light heart; the third characteristic is the feeling of adoption, according to which the heart cries out to God, "Abba, father!" Look and see on which level you are; if you are not on any take up your work and take charge of yourself.

Once again, compare here if able.

St. Theophan: Thoughts: May 14/27

2007-05-27T08:32:00.000-05:00

This is a rather rickety translation but you should get the idea. Once again, if any happen to read Russian go here and tell me how it should really be translated.

(Acts 2:1-11; John 7:37-52, 8:12) Accomplished is the economy of our salvation! The activity of the complete person of the Holy Trinity in this action henceforth entered into effect. God the Father is disposed towards the one who the Son of God Himself fills; then descends the Holy Spirit to the believer. For our salvation "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:2). For this sake "baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" being bound "to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:19, 20). The one not confessing the All-Holy Trinity may not have a part in the saving activity of its person nor consequently receive salvation. Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, Trinity one in essence and undivided, for having given us this confession! "Father Almighty, Word and Spirit, linking in Thy Hyposteses presubstantiality and superdivinity, in Thee we were baptized, Thee do we bless unto all ages."

St. Theophan: Thoughts: May 10/23

2007-05-23T11:04:00.000-05:00

This is my 'umble translation of St. Theophan's Thoughts for every day of the year. (If you want to compare the original go here)

(Acts 23:1-11; John 16:15-23) The Lord says to the holy apostles before his crucifixion: "A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me". The crucifixion and death of the Lord so struck the holy apostles that the eyes of their mind became muddled and they ceased to see the Lord as Lord; the light being hidden, they sat in bitter and agonizing darkness. The light of the resurrection of Christ chased away this darkness and they again beheld the Lord. As the Lord explained His own words: "You will weep," He said, "and lament but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful but your sorrow will turn into joy." It is said that every soul on the way to perfection experiences such trials. The darkness completely covers the soul and it doesn't know where to go; but the Lord comes and its sorrow is converted into joy. Truly these trials are necessarily so as it is necessary for a woman to suffer before giving birth. Can we conclude from this that the one who isn't tried does not grow into a genuine Christian?

St. Paisius on gun control

2007-05-22T10:27:00.000-05:00

But is prayer the cause of such deception? May it not be. And if for this you find fault with mental prayer, then you should also consider the knife to be at fault if a small child, because of his senselessness at play, should happen to stab himself with it. Likewise, in your view, one should also forbid soldiers to use the military sword which they receive to fight the enemy, if some senseless soldier should happen to stab himself with his own sword. But just as the knife and the sword are not guilty of any fault but only accuse the senselessness of those who stab themselves with them, so likewise the spiritual sword, sacred mental prayer, is innocent of any fault, but rather the self-will and pride of the self-willed are the cause of demonic deceptions and every spiritual harm.
St. Paisius (Velichkovsky)

A Retrospect

2007-05-18T12:25:00.000-05:00

So I graduated in absentia on Sunday (I figured, correctly, that partaking in the Eucharist is a little more important than the parody of bestowing a recognition of "education" on someone). Thus ends my college career (I think seven years is length enough to consider it a career). Follow are observations of this journey...

The average college student is a doofus. Having come to this conclusion after returning to college after short hiatuses in the "real world" it was further enforced by my working in the school library. Countless times students come asking to borrow a writing utensil; one should have a writing utensil at all times (especially on a college campus) the lack of a writing utensil equates with illiteracy. Countless times I observed the return of DVD's or VHS' in a slot clearly labeled as prohibited for the return of such items. This is hardly a convenience issue as the desk, where such items should be returned, is about 3 feet away. The average college student has no common sense nor are they so technologically aware/advanced as people seem to like to think. Untold countless times have I had to explain how to use a simple online library catalog. Many a time have I been confronted with people who must have never set foot in a library in their life and furthermore know not that such things as books are stored therein. I am growing weary in this retrospect...

Let the Heavens rejoice!

2007-05-17T08:31:00.000-05:00

The Russian Church, having gone through the crucible of persecution, and having co-suffered with Christ, conquered the division.
Patriarch Alexey II

Патриархия.RU

The will of God

2007-05-09T07:14:00.000-05:00

The Abba John the Short asked the monks: "Who sold Joseph?" One monk replied: "His brothers." To that, the elder replied: "No brethren, rather his humility. Joseph could have said that he is their brother and could have protested to being sold but he remained silent. His humility, therefore, sold him. Afterward, this same humility made him master over Egypt." In surrendering ourselves to the will of God, we defend ourselves too much from external unpleasantness, that is why we lose the good fruits which is harvested at the end of unpleasantness endured with humility. Abba Pimen wisely spoke: "We have abandoned the easy yoke, i.e., self-reproach and we have burdened ourselves with a heavy yoke, i.e., self-justification." The Christian accepts every unpleasantness as deserving of their present or their past sins; seeking in all, the will of God with faith and awaiting the end with hope.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

Sound reason

2007-05-07T13:58:00.000-05:00

What you call sound reason we Christians take to be a reason so infirm, so darkened and so far gone astray, that there can be no healing for it except by cutting off, with the sword of faith, and renouncing all the learning that has gone into its formation. If we take it for a sound reason, basing ourselves on a foundation that is uncertain, tottering, indefinite, constantly changing -- then it, being sound, will renounce Christ too.
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

The MP the EP and the WCC

2007-05-03T10:09:00.000-05:00

The Russian Orthodox Church as the world’s biggest Orthodox Church seeks leadership at international forums. If she leaves the WCC, the Orthodox representation will be assumed by the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the voice of the Russian Orthodox Church will remain unheard. We believe this is a serious reason for the Moscow Patriarchate to remain involved with the WCC at least for some time.
Archpriest Alexander Lebedev

Inevitable necessity

2007-05-01T08:25:00.000-05:00

If the origin of our virtues and of our vices is not in ourselves, but is the fatal consequence of our birth, it is useless for legislators to prescribe for us what we ought to do, and what we ought to avoid; it is useless for judges to honour virtue and to punish vice. The guilt is not in the robber, not in the assassin: it was willed for him; it was impossible for him to hold back his hand, urged to evil by inevitable necessity.
St. Basil the Great

On "Ecumenical dialogue"

2007-04-27T11:28:00.000-05:00

...the cosmological dimension of the event of salvation and its ontological content is an area of little concern for the 'ecumenical dialogues' of our times.
Christos Yannaras

Name your favorite modern master of Biblical exegesis

2007-04-26T09:39:00.000-05:00

...giving themselves up to the distorted meaning of allegory, have undertaken to give a majesty of their own invention to Scripture. It is to believe themselves wiser than the Holy Spirit, and to bring forth their own ideas under a pretext of exegesis. Let us hear Scripture as it has been written.
St. Basil the Great

The Ecumenical Throne

2007-04-25T12:14:00.000-05:00

...has value and usefulness only when it sheds abroad upon all the earth the sweet and unsetting light of Orthodoxy. Lighthouses are useful if and as long as they light the way for those who travel on the sea to avoid the reefs. When their lights is extinguished, then they are not only useless but harmful, for they are themselves transformed into hazards.
Archimandrite Epiphanios (Theodoropoulos)

On Wisdom

2007-04-24T09:16:00.000-05:00

...the Wisdom of God is Christ His Only-begotten Son: and he by his doctrine degraded the Wisdom of God into a female element...
St. Cyril of Jerusalem

I think you'll agree with me that there have been many of these "he's", especially in these modern times, i.e., the last 100-150 years.

Proper posture

2007-04-23T09:44:00.000-05:00

Standing in God's temple, picture to yourself that you are in heaven itself, that you stand before God with the higher powers and do with them everything that they do. In picturing this to yourself, make a rule for yourself that under no circumstances will you leave church before the end of the service.
If you stand thus perfectly in order as said above, and from this standing you become very tired, or you become exhausted from some bodily illness or old age, then sit wherever there is a place in church, in order not to tempt your brother.
Examine yourself, whether it be not despondency or laziness that make you tired, whether it be not distraction of mind and bodily passions that make you lose your strength and manly courage. Reflecting thus, accuse yourself of impatience, of infirmity, of weakness, of laziness, and again be ashamed before God and His angels and men, and reflect in your conscience that he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved (Mk. 13:13).
If while standing in prayer you become completely unable to endure some natural necessity, or if some great affliction strikes you, accuse yourself likewise, just as written above. ...
And if you will thus reflect and accuse your own soul, and if you endure unto the end, you shall proceed from strength to strength and shall receive invisibly from God health of body and enlightenment of soul.
Elder Nazarius

You must know Christ!

2007-04-20T12:13:00.000-05:00

You reason about salvation, yet you do not know what salvation is, why men are in need of it, and finally, you do not know Christ, the only means of our salvation. ... You must know Christ! You must realize that you do not know Him, that you deny Him if you acknowledge salvation possible without Him for any kind of good works! He who acknowledges salvation to be possible without Christ denies Christ and, perhaps without knowing it, falls into the grave sin of blasphemy. ... To be sure, you had a revelation from above on this subject, concerning what is contrary and what is not contrary to Divine mercy? -- No, it was sound reason that pointed it out. Ah, your sound reason! Still, where in your sound reason did you find out that it was possible to understand, with your own limited human mind, what is contrary and what is not contrary to the Divine mercy?
St. Ignatius (Brianchaninov)

My fear and trembling increase

2007-04-19T08:31:00.000-05:00

...all the more at the thought that, while the strength and zeal of the leaders of the Church of Christ today are far from rivaling those of the Apostles, they must do battle with considerably stronger enemies and overcome considerably more powerful obstacles and difficulties in this service. The holy Apostles, after all, had to do with a fervent--even if falsely directed--striving toward truth, whereas we, in our time, must have to do with a hardened rejection of truth and even of the very idea of the Living God and His indispensability for the human heart. With all their dark sides, their insufficiencies and errors, the paganism and Judaism of antiquity were nonetheless an honest seeking of God, and honest desire to serve Him, a living and active exemplification of thirst for communion with Him. But the unbelief of today, every conceivable form of error and frenzy--both learned and illiterate, both anti-religious and anti-moral--and the whole public life of today: do they not express in men a complete unwillingness to know God, and unwillingness even to admit His existence, but on the contrary the desire to be completely rid of Him, to do without Him, to live solely by the accomplishments of the proud human mind and culture?
Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh) of Petrograd

The presence of Christ

2007-04-18T09:13:00.000-05:00

Only by severely downgrading or eliminating altogether the importance of initiation into the life of the Church can one speak of Orthodox witness to the heterodox in the framework of ecumenical encounter. Ultimately, this translates into denying the existential reality of the Church itself (the life in Christ), and hence, by extension, the very diachronic presence of the Incarnate Christ Himself.
Fr. Peter Alban Heers

On Orthodox "unity" in America

2007-04-17T10:05:00.000-05:00

Administrative union among Orthodox Churches is the least thing that is needed today. Those who are practicing true Orthodoxy are already one and united in spirit. What is actually needed is personal podvig in the full Orthodox Tradition from everyone who consciously calls himself Orthodox. No other kind of Orthodoxy has ever produced saints, in America or anywhere else.
Gleb (Fr. Herman) Podmoshensky

The essence of the question

2007-04-16T22:20:00.000-05:00

It is not a question of one or another valuation of the conduct of Cardinal Humbert; it is not a question of any personal falling-out between Pope and Patriarch that could be easily healed by mutual Christian forgiveness; no -- the essence of the question lies in those deviations from Orthodoxy which have become rooted in the Roman Church during the course of centuries...
Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky)

Stalin's mistake

2007-04-12T07:23:00.000-05:00

Stalinist culture considered that it represented the only escape from history and that the rest of the world had not yet entered the realm of pure mythology but remained historical. And it was here that Stalinist culture encountered its limit--it was swept away by the forces of history, because unlike Christianity it had failed to establish itself in the superhistorical; and when the extrahistorical competes with the historical, it inevitably loses, because it is fighting on alien ground.
Boris Groys

Christ is Risen

2007-04-09T10:00:00.000-05:00

No one is so all-embracing as is the Lord Jesus. Who, of those so-called philanthropists of mankind, teachers, leaders or enlighteners ever attempted to perform any good for the dead?
St. Nikolai (Velimirovic)

The order of knowledge

2007-04-04T08:57:00.000-05:00

...the lovers of God are not simpletons because they know God well enough that they are able to love Him. Of all human knowledge, this knowledge is more important and greater. To this must be added that the enemies of God cannot be more knowledgeable, even though they consider themselves as such, because their knowledge is unavoidably chaotic, for it does not have a source and does not have order. For the source and order of all knowledge is God.
St. Nikolai (Velimirovic)

Where is your goat's trail to be found?

2007-04-02T09:47:00.000-05:00

Most men are surrendered unto Satan and run after wealth and other things of this life. But there are a few who believe with simplicity in the words of Christ. And again among these are found a few who go and live far away from the world, struggling and walking their whole life on the narrow and arduous goat's trail which our Lord showed us. They go to the desert and seek to find the hidden door of Paradise. These blessed men are not mistaken, but rather, know well where their ancient Fatherland is found.
From the life of St. Mark the Anchorite

Christ among us

2007-03-30T07:01:00.000-05:00

Churches, shrines, chapels, ikons, candles, processions, priests, bells, monasteries, travelling preachers, every day's saints, fast seasons—everything is the repetition of the same idea, namely, that Christ is the ruler of life and we are His followers. Christ must be expressed everywhere, indoors and outdoors. Many Englishmen have remarked that the Bible is read very seldom in the home in Russia and Serbia. That is true. People read the Bible more in symbols, pictures and signs, in music and prayers, than in the Book, Our religion is not a book religion, not even a learned religion. It is a dramatic mystery. The Bible contains the words, but in this dramatic mystery there is something higher and deeper than words. Slav Christianity is something greater than the Bible. Looking at an ikon, a Russian mujik perceives the Bible incarnated in a saint's life-drama. Mystery of sin, mystery of atonement, mystery of heroic suffering, mystery of the daily presence of Christ among us in holy wine, in holy bread, in holy water, in holy word, in holy deed, in every sanctified substance, even in matter as in spirit, mystery of communion of sins and of virtues—all are recorded once in the Bible, and all are recorded and repeated also in our daily life—that is what we call our Slav Orthodoxy. We take the mystic outlines of the Bible and do not care about the details. In those mystic outlines we put our daily life, with its details of sins and sufferings.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

On "liturgical piety"

2007-03-28T07:34:00.000-05:00

...it is difficult to reconcile oneself also to the term 'liturgical piety.' In the ordinary usage of words, piety is Christian faith, hope and love, independently of the forms of their expression. Such an understanding is instilled in us by the sacred Scriptures, which distinguish only authentic piety (piety is profitable unto all things - I Tim. 4:8) from false or empty piety (James 1:26, II Tim. 3:5). Piety is expressed in prayer, in Divine services, and the forms of its expression vary depending on circumstances: whether in church, at home, in prison, or in the catacombs, But we Orthodox scarcely need a special term like 'liturgical piety' or 'church piety,' as if one were pious in a different manner in church than at home, and as if there existed two kinds of religiousness: 'religiousness of faith' and 'religiousness of cult.' Both the language of the Holy Fathers and the language of theology have always done without such a concept. And therefore it is a new conception, foreign to us, of a special liturgical piety.

If we speak of worship as members of the Orthodox Church, there should be present to us that principle in the understanding of the history of our worship and its present status by which the Church Herself lives. ...if we maintain the Orthodox Symbol of Faith, if we confess that we stand on the right dogmatic path, we should not doubt that both the direction of church life and the structure of worship which was erected on the foundation of our Orthodox confession of faith, are faultless and true. We cannot acknowledge that our 'liturgical piety,' after a series of reformations, has gone far, far away from the spirit of Apostolic times.
Fr. Michael Pomazansky

...piety is, as it were, the groundwork and foundation of perfection.
St. Basil the Great

On Creation

2007-03-26T07:47:00.000-05:00

I want creation to penetrate you with so much admiration that everywhere, wherever you may be, the least plant may bring to you the clear remembrance of the Creator.

...shall we, whom the Lord, the great worker of marvels, calls to the contemplation of His own works, tire of looking at them, or be slow to hear the words of the Holy Spirit? Shall we not rather stand around the vast and varied workshop of divine creation and, carried back in mind to the times of old, shall we not view all the order of creation?

...the sight of the moon, making us think of the rapid vicissitudes of human things, ought to teach us not to pride ourselves on the good things of this life, and not to glory in our power, not to be carried away by uncertain riches, to despise our flesh which is subject to change, and to take care of the soul, for its good is unmoved.

...the world was not conceived by chance and without reason, but for an useful end and for the great advantage of all beings, since it is really the school where reasonable souls exercise themselves, the training ground where they learn to know God; since by the sight of visible and sensible things the mind is led, as by a hand, to the contemplation of invisible things.

St. Basil the Great

The first place

2007-03-21T17:45:00.000-05:00

Even today common enemies make peace among themselves when they find it necessary to attack and condemn the Lord. There are many who kill one another until you mention the Name of the Lord to them. As soon as they hear that Name, they gradually make peace among themselves for the sake of attacking that Holy Name. It is easier for the unjust to tolerate the unjust than it is for them to tolerate the just. It is easier for the unjust to come to an understanding and reconciliation with the unjust than with the just.

Even in some countries, the most quarrelsome parties seek reconciliation among themselves when it is deemed necessary to decide what place should be given to the Lord Jesus Christ in the State, either to render Him the first place, which is befitting to Him, or the last place? To these questions sworn enemies reconcile among themselves in order that our Lord will be given the last place only. So, also, it was with the quarreling parties of Pharisees and Saducees who were reconciled and entered into a partnership against Christ.

Why is it that the Most Pure and the Most Needed had to be awarded the last place? Because, according to their thinking, the first place would then be reserved for them. The same incentive was there between sworn enemies, the Pharisees and Saducees, when it was deemed necessary to seek to put Christ to death. The same incentive was the occasion that caused the reconciliation between Pilate and Herod when it was deemed necessary to judge that Christ had to be put to death.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

The ideal of repentance

2007-03-19T08:49:00.000-05:00

...repentance from things better to things worse is a change impossible to us.
St. Polycarp of Smyrna

The terrible judgement

2007-03-17T09:54:00.000-05:00

He who does not see God as the merciful Samaritan on earth will see Him as the Dreadful Judge in Heaven.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

"...I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." [Matthew 26:64]

The evocation of contrition

2007-03-16T13:59:00.000-05:00

In the countries of Europe there are churches with paintings that are famous for their artistic merit; yet they do not have the mystery and the power of evoking contrition possessed by the icons that were done by some unlettered and simple Byzantine painters.
Fotis Kontoglou

What a simple way to discredit Western Art, no?

No light comes from the West

2007-03-15T14:27:00.000-05:00

The Eastern light has come to the West -- to the uttermost Western end. And blessed be they who, with a clear vision, perceive this light just as it shines in the East. This light, although it came from the East, did not change, but while it shines in the West, it continues to be the light of the East; it is the Eternal Light. Christ, Who is the East Himself, laid down Himself as the chief cornerstone of His Church, which He established in the East, and they in the West who receive this Light of the East, must so shine as the Light of the East would have them be enlightened; but not allow themselves to be dazzled with the glare of a false fire; I say fire, but not light, as no light comes from the West! Praise and glorify the Good God! See, He comes to the West from the East, that all may see by that One Light, and be saved in the bond of union, which is love!
Archimandrite Sebastian (Dabovic)

I've always been perplexed when people dislike using the term "Eastern" to refer to our Church. Seems to me like it is a new heresy of our times. I think I will call it "ненавистники восточного Христоса" - Haters of the Eastern Christ.

Another lenten reminder

2007-03-14T06:48:00.000-05:00

St. John Chrysostom writes thusly against those who create a disturbance in church and who depart from church before the completion of the Divine Liturgical Service of God. 'Some do not approach Holy Communion with trembling but with commotion, shoving one another, burning with anger, hollering, scolding, pushing their neighbor, full of disturbance. About this, I have often spoken and will not cease to speak about this. Do you not see the order of behavior at the pagan Olympic games when the Arranger passes through the arena with a wreath on his head, dressed in a lengthy garment, holding a staff in his hand and the Crier declares that there be silence and order? Is it not obscene that there, where the devil reigns there is such silence, and here where Christ invites us to Himself there is such an uproar. At the arena, silence: and in church, uproar! On the sea, calm and in the harbor, tempest! When you are invited to a meal, you must not leave before the others, even though you are satisfied before the others, and here while the awesome mystery of Christ is being celebrated, while the priestly functions are still continuing, you leave in the middle of it and exit? How can this be forgiven? How can this be justified? Judas, after receiving Communion at the Last Supper [Mystical Supper] that final night, departed quickly while the others remained at the table. Behold, whose example do they follow who hurry to depart before the final thanksgiving?' (Homily on the Feast of the Epiphany).
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

The path of the sunflower

2007-03-13T08:54:00.000-05:00

The only true means for attaining our happiness in this life and in the next is the constant turning of our attention within ourselves, to our own conscience, to our thoughts, words, and deeds, so as to raise them to passionlessness: this will reveal to us our mistakes in life and indicate the only path to salvation. This path is the entire devotion of our whole being, of our whole self with all the circumstances of our life, to the will of God. As a symbol of this our turning to God we may take the growth of the sunflower; let it be ever before our eyes.

Christian! Observe once and for all how the sunflower even on gloomy days pursues its circular course, following the sun with the unchanging love and attraction natural to it. Our sun, illuminating our path through this world, it the will of God; it does not always illuminate our path in life without clouds; often clear days are followed by gloomy ones: rain, wind, storms, arise... But let our love for our Sun, the will of God, be so strong that we may continue, inseparably from it, even in days of misfortune and sorrow, like the sunflower on gloomy days, to navigate faultlessly on the sea of life, following the indications of the 'barometer' and 'compass' of the will of God, which leads us into the safe harbor of eternity.
St. John (Maximovitch) of Tobolsk

The salvation of the ignorant

2007-03-09T12:12:00.000-06:00

By what can the ignorant be saved? By nothing except by faith in Christ and faith to Christ. Who are the most ignorant ones in the world? They are those who deny whatever Christ claimed and claim whatever He denied. In a word: there are those who think that they know something contrary to the knowledge of Christ. They are the worst and the most dangerous ignorant ones both to themselves and to others.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

On Susceptibility

2007-03-08T14:02:00.000-06:00

If you have not faith, do not fear beasts so much as your faithlessness, which renders you susceptible of all corruption.
St. Basil the Great

The true hierarchy

2007-03-07T10:15:00.000-06:00

Which hierarchy is the true and lawful one? It is the priesthood which has retained and continues to follow these conditions:

1. In the first place such a hierarchy is true, which has received the grace of the Holy Spirit from the Apostles themselves in an unbroken line of succession from one to another. ...In the time when the erring Church of Rome spawned the Protestant sects, the Protestants commenced to elect and establish presbyters themselves, and these ministers not only baptize, but they officiate at a so-called "communion service," which of course is not a valid sacrament, as the ministers have no apostolic ordination and are not presbyters.

2. Secondly, an authentic hierarchy is such, which confesses all the truths of holy religion, for there are heresies which entirely deprive bishops and priests of their ministerial grace.

3. Thirdly, a Priesthood to be lawful must administer the Sacraments orderly, according to the rules of the Holy Church Catholic, not changing essential actions, as there are acts and conditions in the rites of Mysteries that are essential, without which a certain Sacrament may not be valid.

4. Fourthly, to be a lawful and true hierarchy, the same must be governed and govern its spiritual charge according to the rules of the Holy Apostles, the Seven Ecumenical Councils, and other laws which are accepted by the Orthodox Church in general.

5. A fifth condition necessary for proving the lawfulness of the Priesthood is its unity with the Orthodox Church in the spirit of peace and love. Whoever destroys this unity, except for a genuine and important cause, and bishops and priests together with Christians who follow them, that separate themselves from the higher Church authorities, are excommunicated from the Church, according to the rules of the Apostles and the canons of the Councils.
Archimandrite Sebastian (Dabovic)

The least plants

2007-03-06T09:18:00.000-06:00

The whole universe cannot give us a right idea of the greatness of God; and it is only by signs, weak and slight in themselves, often by the help of the smallest insects and of the least plants, that we raise ourselves to Him.
St. Basil the Great

Put out into deep water

2007-03-05T11:29:00.001-06:00

In shallow waters there are only small fish; that is the entire catch. But in the greater depths, the danger is also greater. There you have large sea creatures and great storms. That is dangerous. But there are also much larger and better fish in enormous quantity; that is the catch. O, enlightened one, come therefore into the deep! "Put out into the deep" mysterious sea of life, but do not set out without Christ in your boat. By no means. ... Perhaps the winds could carry you away and cast you into an abyss. Perhaps the monstrous and enormous beasts of the sea will consume you. The winds, O enlightened one, those are your own passions which accompany you unavoidably if you set out into the deep without Christ.
St. Nikolaj (Velimirovic)

To remember during Lent

2007-03-02T09:29:00.000-06:00

The time which you lend to God is not lost: he will return it to you with large interest.
St. Basil the Great

And while you're lending your time remember this.

The troubles of the world

2007-03-01T09:37:00.000-06:00

What a troublesome world this is, when one has the most right to expect it to be as agreeable as possible!
Clara Copperfield (Murdstone)