Saturday, February 6, 2016

UGCC primate on Rome-Moscow Havana meeting

(UGCC) - The Head of the UGCC noted that for many years the ROC refused to participate in such a meeting and named the UGCC as an obstacle for dialogue. “The meeting cannot be an end in itself, but must rather be an instrument, a necessary means for honest and open dialogue. I am, therefore, pleased, that we are no longer considered an obstacle and aren’t being used to justify one’s unwillingness to engage in such dialogue,” said the Primate of the UGCC.

He emphasized that the meeting between the two primates will take place practically days before 70th the anniversary of the Lviv Pseudo-sobor, during which the UGCC was forcibly liquidated. “The Russian Orthodox Church, unfortunately, to this day has not condemned this act of coercion, perpetrated by the Soviet authorities. We hope that the meeting of the Pope and the Patriarch will create a new context for movement in the direction of historical justice,” said His Beatitude Sviatoslav.

The Head of the UGCC also hopes that the very meeting will change the rhetoric on the part of radical individuals within the ROC, who do not recognize the Catholic Church as a true Church, re-baptize Catholics and proselytize into Orthodoxy, refuse to take part in joint prayer, and on the whole describe the entire process of seeking unity of the Churches as “the heresy of ecumenism.” This isn't radical. This is Orthodox doctrine. What would be radical is abandoning our understanding of the Church in favor of a soft congeniality and desire to "get along." An example of such intolerance towards the UGCC was given last week in Donestsk, where during a meeting held outside the walls of a Greek-Catholic church, we were referred to as “a sect.”

“It is likely that during the meeting of the Pope with the Patriarch they will also speak of the present situation in Ukraine. I hope that His Holiness, Pope Francis, who always raises his voice in defense of the wronged, will be a voice for Ukrainians, who are engaged in a battle for the unity and integrity of their land. May God grant, that Patriarch Kirill ultimately be able to send the necessary signals to the faithful of the ROC and the Russian government, so that the aggression of Russia against Ukraine can cease and that a just peace may be achieved,” concluded His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Head of the UGCC.

26 comments:

  1. I think more subtlety, specifics, and nuances are necessary before one designates any of those highlighted portions as either "This is radical" on the one hand, or "This is Orthodox doctrine" on the other. Good, wholesome akribia is certainly not radical, but neither is it entirely correct to say that "Orthodox doctrine" forbids joint prayer with non-Orthodox, or receiving converts by Chrismation, for example.

    [It would DEFINITELY be radical to say that all our patriarchs, priests, monastics, and bishops who have participated in common prayers with non-Orthodox are heretically rejecting Orthodox doctrine. Some have said that. Of course, I wouldn't want to accuse you of saying that unless you affirm this is what you mean.]

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    1. Guide,

      Orthodox doctrine and canonical tradition explicitly forbids praying in joint services with the heterodox. For instance, Sts. Nektary of Optina and Paisios the Athonite were NOT being radical fundamentalists when they declared:

      "One may have a good worldly relationship with nonbelievers, but one cannot have a relationship in prayer and one must not carry on arguments about religion so that the name of God not be offended during an argument."

      "In order for us to pray together with someone we must agree on the faith.”

      The hierarchs and theologians are certainly aware of this, but some suspend this rule to draw people to the Church; some others lead me to believe that they hold certain other churches to be equal to, or alongside Orthodoxy.

      http://classicalchristianity.com/2015/08/29/on-common-prayer/

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    2. Dear Maximus,

      This is something that is clearly not taught enough in seminaries and parishes, because I hear it on the internet all the time, so I won't hold it against you. But you must understand that not everything which appears in the ancient canons is just to impose upon Orthodox today. This is why I can have a Jewish doctor, and pray over the turkey with a non-Orthodox family at Thanksgiving, for example.

      It doesn't matter how many great and holy men have said otherwise for their particular situation; our bishops have the fundamental authority to use their best judgment about the spiritual benefits or liabilities of akribia vs. oikonomia in these matters. Without such a principle church governance simply could not function. It would be as if the American constitution were the law of the land, but the federal government has no power to impose, update, and interpret it.

      Let me add one caveat: I believe that there are many situations, even in the modern world, where Orthodox should avoid praying with non-Orthodox. I also believe that it is a good principle to let your choice of who you pray with reflect your doctrinal belief. This is the principle of the ancient canons, updated for our particular social situation, especially in the diaspora.

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    3. Guide,

      You are misreading me if you think I subscribe to a wooden and inflexible view of the canons. As if an Orthodox has to run out of the stands at a Little League game if some Southern Baptists held prayed on the overhead.

      I'll grant that there may be some circumstances where joint prayers may occur (some bishops get caught in them); or there may even be some missionary opportunities where it may even be helpful, but our normative doctrine is that joint prayers are forbidden. It's in the Councils, the Canons and the Saints, that's a fact; and that's Orthodox doctrine which bishops vow to uphold at their ordination. There is no authoritative source of Tradition that allows for it, is there? Now, whether our Tradition on this subject is applicable is whole other discussion. Fr. Seraphim Rose states my position:

      The canons were made for man, and not man for the canons. Some canons simply cannot or should not, at certain times and circumstances, be applied with strictness; hence the Church’s “economy”. Also, as a rule, the application of the canons (and their “economy”) is the business of bishops, and they do as much as possible with mutual consultation. How much more, then, should the rest of us refrain from trusting our own judgment with regard to them? Some of them, to be sure, that concern us directly, we must know about and, if possible, being taught by or consulting with others wiser in the faith, must be prepared to defend — for example, the canons regarding common prayer with heretics, the trangressing of which involves a betrayal of the very idea of the Church of Christ. Other canons, such as the permissible age for ordination to diaconate or priesthood, do not involve any such betrayal and are none of our business, and if we were to start making bishops accountable (to ourselves!) for them it would be exactly the same as if the bishops were to start interfering in the home and job life of ordinary parishioners. (Oct. 18/31, 1972 Letters From Father Seraphim

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    4. Anyone who knows the history of East/West relations over the past 1,000 years would snicker -- and snicker loudly -- at someone invoking "the canons" to justify much of anything, particularly a prohibition on communicatio in sacris. However, petty fundamentalism, even when cloaked in "economia," knows no limits in American Orthodoxy, the proverbial toothless, mouth-breathing backwater of the entire Orthodox Church.

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    5. Anyone that "snickers" at the Holy Canons, despite their misuse and abuse over the centuries, is being mocked by the demons.

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  2. Unia is a rapine coercion without legitimacy. Its history delegitimizes it. These fascists are an obstacle. Until they are gone, there will be no meaningful dialogue.

    Josaphat Kuntsevich, Stepan Bandera, Melnyk, Sheptitsky, Slipy. Those scum have blood on their hands.

    It was not improper to liquidate the Unia on Soviet territory but historic justice. These people were given a choice between return to the Orthodox Catholic Church or to continue as papists of the papal rite. Large majorities 90%+ rejected submission to Rome under such a choice. That says everything we need to know about the religious counterfeit of Unia.

    There will never be an apology for fighting the injustice of Unia, but there will be a righting of this injustice soon enough.

    Only an apostate heretic who himself has betrayed CHRIST would date to call Patristic and canonical stances radical. Positions like this being made public are precisely why nothing will come of this. Rome must repent and return to the Orthodox Faith and disavow Uniate evil.

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    1. I am sorry, whose blood does Sheptytsky and Slipyj have on their hands?

      And the more you call the "Unia" fascist, the more attractive it becomes from a certain point of view. Heavens, at least you didn't call them "liberals."

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    2. Speaking of Sheptytsky you might find this statement of interest: http://www.sheptytskyinstitute.ca/statement-regarding-meeting-of-pope-francis-and-patriarch-kirill-in-cuba/

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    3. Apologize less, learn more.

      Sheptytsky began correspondence with Adolph Hitler petitioning for him to create a Ukrainian SS division. Slipy continued the work culminating in the creation of a Ukrainian, Galician, SS Division. Uniate chaplains were provided for it and concentration camp guards.

      But it seems to you the SS and concentration camp guards were just a misunderstood bunch of guys. No doubt you are just as sympathetic to the current banderofascist karbats murdering and vivisecting and selling the organs of their child, civilian, political prisoner and pensioner civilians, seeming them as just as "benign."

      Yes, the Uniate church and the so called "kp" is not only pastoring these karbats and banderofascist groups like Right Sector, but fueling the fires of "Ukrainian ethnogenesis," ethnic cleansing, and genocide. With Rome's imprimatur.

      Rome yet again in the person of this homophone, liberal, heretical pope feigns ignorance while proclaiming the propriety of Unia.

      The victims of fascism numbering in the millions condemn such collaboration. Along with the Nuremberg Process.

      No, liberals only empower, train, arm and fund fascists and Islamist terrorists today, leaving these lackeys to do their dirty work.

      But there is no difference really between political liberalism and fascism these days, just the difference of who is giving and who is following the orders.

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    4. This is so funny, I don't even know where to start. Thanks.

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    5. I normally don't spar with people below my level, but what the heck...

      The SS Galicia was comprised of both Greek Catholics and Ukrainian Orthodox. Sheptytsky's desire for the division was rooted in wanting an armed front against the Soviets at that time. Although Sheyptytsky did, imprudently, welcome the Nazi invasion of Galicia, it was not because of any racialist or fascist sentiments but because he wanted the Soviet army gone. Sheptytsky and other hierarchs of the UGCC regularly spoke out against anti-Semitism and extremist nationalism, though they clearly saw Sovietism as the predominant threat to their way of life.

      Metropolitan Anastasy of ROCOR wrote Hitler in 1938 thanking him for his protection and Russian Orthodoxy in the diaspora fought on the side of the Nazis against -- you guessed it -- the Soviets.

      Before dropping in emptyheaded accusations or attempting to tilt the discussion by using scare-tactic terms, perhaps it would be best if you sat down and read up on that rather tumultuous and difficult period in history.

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    6. You are not even an adequate liar, but are you Neanderthal or subspecies? Regardless, you have earned your Darwin Award.

      No, the Galician SS Division was a Galician Uniate institution shepherded by Uniate chaplains appointed by Slipy. Galicia was Uniate and the Galician SS even tried to propagate Unia in Orthodox parts of the Ukraine, Poland and Bekorussia. It dud so with rapine, murder, lynchings, crimes against humanity. This NAZI organization rounded up Jews, gypsies, Communists, Poles, partisans and either liquidated them with mobile crematoriums and gas chambers or sent them off to Auschwitz and Sobibor. They perpetrated pogroms against Ukrainian, Russian and Belirussian Orthodox and crimes against humanity. They had no Orthodox chaplains. This organization was condemned at Nuremberg. Sheptytsky and Slipy also provided chaplains for Ukrainian concentration camp guards and blessed their services for the Reich.

      But here you are feigning subhuman superiority in praise of the deeds of Adolph Hitler's SS. And you expect someone to take you seriously? Or to accept the legitimacy of the Unia, Ukrainian nationalism and the other inhuman movements which deny the Holocaust and seek not only amnesty for genocide but rehabilitation of its ideological and religious arms?! Your type swung at Nuremberg.

      ROCOR was nothing representative of the Russian Orthodox Church, not in 1936, not in 1976, not in 2006: in 2007 they said as much REPENTING OF SCHISM! ROCOR DID NOT BLESS AND STAFF HITLER'S CADRES TO PERPETRATE GENOCIDE. SHEPTYTSKY begged Hitler to form an SS Division "to have Ukrainians take part in the glorious vision of the Third Reich." While Slipy "blessed the heroic and virtuous work of the SS for the savior of the Ukraine, the great fuhrer, Adolph Hitler."

      So in all honesty, you Darwin award winning Holocaust denier, are speaking up to your moral better. I am human: you are subhuman, Neo NAZI ooze. I am a person committed to outing the part of the people you support in the Holocaust. I am a person fighting your support of a fascism condemned by humanity at Nuremberg, but which your Uniate church sponsored and sponsors today, relying on the subhuman support of orcs like yourself. You are one of the voices of Hitler's legacy in the twenty first century. We dealt with your master race, Arian buffoonery before, and you will not get away with it now. The time of your Uniate, Ukrainian genocidal hate is coming to an end.

      Unia and its fascist past and present do not have a future. I write that looking down on evolutionary, atavized Neo NAZI ooze in the person of people like yourself and the soon to be disbanded and prosecuted UGCC.

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  5. Don't worry everyone, Moscow already confirmed that they won't pray together. Whewwww..dodged that bullet.

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  6. Since when has the papacy acted in good faith with Orthodoxy?

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  8. "This isn't radical. This is Orthodox doctrine. What would be radical is abandoning our understanding of the Church in favor of a soft congeniality and desire to 'get along.'"
    Wonderful. You apparently have zero knowledge of the historical practice of the Russian Orthodox church or how the people of your own church were received into Orthodoxy.

    How ignorant!

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  9. Here is another interpretation of the meeting from a Russian writer: http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/02/07/third-rome-to-meet-first-rome-to-oppose-second-rome-kholmogorov-says/#arvlbdata

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    1. Fascinating how a person who is not Russian, supports Uniates and fascists, has the audacity to speak for "real Russians."

      Real Russian Orthodox want to know why this capitulation to papal heresy was sprung on them in one week and why all the leg work was done in secret by the Renovationist and toadie of Kallistos Ware, Hilarion Alfeev, because real Russian Orthodox Christians are being ethnically cleansed today by Ukrainian papist, banderofascist scum.

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  10. What has the heretical papacy done to deserve it?

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  11. If "this is Orthodox doctrine," why does the Ecumenical Patriarchate not "re-baptize Catholics and proselytize into Orthodoxy, refuse to take part in joint prayer, and on the whole describe the entire process of seeking unity of the Churches as 'the heresy of ecumenism.'”

    Because its not "Orthodox doctrine" in any universally-regarded way.

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  12. No, because Istanbul has compromised Orthodoxy, and the heresiarch there got his degree in Rome from a papal university.

    Nor do the Holy Canons once even mention an Istanbul as having any authority!!!

    The Holy Fathers, the Holy Canons teaching Scripture, upholding the Tradition and expressing the Mind of CHRIST are what is normative of the Orthodox Church. Not heretic in Istanbul.

    Mt. Athos has a millenium long witness in leading the people in theosis, and it concurs with Fr. Zisis while condemning the heretical ecclesiology of Istanbul.

    The papists are heretics. The filioque is not only heresy, it is blasphemy of the HOLY SPIRIT. Created Grace is heresy. Papal magisterium heresy. Teachings on original sin heresy. Azymes heresy. Etc., etc., etc.

    We are Orthodox are called upon to instruct heretics in love to restore them to the Church.

    In 1755 the Ecumenical Patriarchate declared all papists are to be received by Holy Baptism. No one questions the Orthodoxy of Constantinople in that era. The Holy Canons anathemize prayer with heretics. The Holy Eastern Patriarchs in 1848 and in 1870 called on the pope and all papists to repent and return to the Orthodox Church.

    Seems you Istanbul koolaid drinkers don't know what you are talking about.

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