Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Those darned Russians...

It's easier to have a simple relationship with another party when they aren't in your backyard uninvited. From the Russian perspective the Greek Catholics operating in Slavic lands are unwelcome visitors knocking over their garden gnomes. While many would disagree with this role of Uniatism, that's the Muscovite party line and the primary impediment to Russia getting on board the Greek ecumenical train. I'm not sure how calling them "diabolical" is going to help things.


(Catholic Culture) - Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople underlined the importance of ecumenical ties with Rome, and criticized the resistance of the Russian Orthodox Church, in an August 29 address. The Ecumenical Patriarch—recognized as the “first among equals” of the world’s Orthodox leaders—stressed the primary importance of ecumenical affairs, and reiterated that his role involves “protecting the unity of the whole Orthodox Church.”

He said that opposition to ecumenical unity reflects a “diabolical” impulse. Patriarch Bartholomew said that his continuing contacts with the Holy See are a critical component of his ecumenical work. He expressed his enthusiasm for the planned worldwide Orthodox council, but conceded that it cannot accurately be described as an ecumenical council “because Western Christians are not invited to participate as members.”

The Ecumenical Patriarch—who has frequently sparred in recent years with the leaders of the Patriarchate of Moscow—clearly appeared to be criticizing the Russian Orthodox leadership when he spoke critically about Orthodox bodies that “maintain intimate connections with the government of their land and enjoy abundant financial support,” and advance the political interests of their nations.

20 comments:

  1. The term "diabolical" could just as easily be referring to the sorts of attitudes that spread hate for Catholics in Orthodox communities. This is by no means a uniquely Greek problem. EP Bartholemew is correct to say that parties who despise Orthodox-Catholic unity, regardless of circumstances, are in fact acting "diabolically": just as the devil would want them to.

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    1. This is so much adolescent nonsense. If a child says to a parent who will not purchase the latest gizmo for them "you don't love me anymore", or following the EP "you are following a "diabolical impulse", does it make it true?

      The opposition to the apostasy (such as false union with Rome) that the EP promotes as something called "ecumenical" is in no way "diabolical" - on the contrary, it is the very mark of maturity...

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  2. From the slavic perspective Russians are also unwelcomed visitors.

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    1. Just admit you are a bigot who hates Russians and Russian Orthodoxy, then we can all ignore your rhetoric.

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  3. There are also Greek Catholics in Greek and Arabic speaking lands... they deal with this in their back yards just like the Slavs do.

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    1. The numbers in Greek are very tiny. In the Levant the history of Melkites, Maronites, Syriacs, etc. is quite different.

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  4. The number of Greek Catholics in Russia is also very tiny.

    Russia maybe interested in "slavic lands", but Russia is indeed not welcome in most slavic lands - certainly unwelcome an invader, and also not welcome as a comparative johnny-come-lately to eastern Christianity who pretends to own it.

    The salient difference between the treatment of Greek Catholics by Orthodox in the Levant vs by Russians in Slavic lands is the comparative absence of murder and mayhem in the Middle East. Not sure why this difference is considered relevant.

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  5. The EP has used rhetoric that like that before:

    "Those of our forefathers from whom we inherited this separation were the unfortunate victims of the serpent who is the origin of all evils; they are already in the hands of God, the righteous judge...And these men, being the causes for the schism, are now in the hands of God, the righteous judge.” (Address of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the Papal Delegation at the Patronal Feast of the Phanar, Nov. 30, 1998; cited in: Community of Mt. Athos - Karyae, “Open letter from the Athonite Monks to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew”, 11th/24th May 1999)

    In reading an ecumenical work by Fr. John Panteleimon Manoussakis with a foreword Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (he recommends the book "to all with joy"); similar sentiments from Fr. Manoussakis can be found:

    "Reading the polemical works on either side of the [filioque] debate, one cannot find anything positive, not even that unintentional good which has been said to arise from heresies—namely that, in demanding a response, they stir the Church to better define its doctrine and sharpen its theological acumen. No such positive outcome can be credited to the filioque controversy. Rather, some of the better minds of their times heaped up words, treatise after treatise, in the service of a futile and hateful debate. We ought to know better today and so not follow them in this path of self-destruction.

    ...Photius’ addition in his Mystagogia of the formula “ἐκ μόνου τοῦ πατρός” regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit (PG 102: 263–400)—an addition that was certainly as arbitrary and polemical an innovation as the filioque some centuries earlier."

    So, St. Photios' Mystagogy, not to be counted among the positive outcomes of Orthodox responses to heresy, contains self-destructive polemical innovations.

    Fr. Manoussakis also states:

    "In the debate over primacy the Orthodox can feel the need to unite with Rome in its most palpable and tragic urgency—yet, without the recognition of some primacy within the Orthodox Church, the Orthdox cannot reach out to Rome, nor could Rome reach out to the Orthodox Church. In one of those ironic turns of history, it is only Rome that can help the Orthodox communion overcome its own internal divisions. The possibility of a schism among the various Orthodox churches looms as real today as ever over any reconciliatory effort with the Catholic Church; furthermore, it taints and undermines Orthodoxy’s witness to the world and remains a danger to the Orthodox Church’s well-being, like a ticking time bomb placed at its foundations."

    IOW, without Rome we're finished at some point.

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  6. I think the salient point being made by the EP is being lost in this thread by old-school rhetoric of Orthodox-Catholic polemics. What His Holiness is stating is that in the work of promoting the words of Christ "that all may be one" (Jn 17) there have been significant areas of resistance to this work by certain Orthodox bodies who have put the interests of mammon over the Gospel, specifically the interests of governments and finances. For those who have eyes to see, and ears to hear, there should be no surprise that the ROC is the focus of this concern. The examples to back this up are more voluminous than missing e-mails on a Clinton server. Just within this past year, there was a gathering of influential Christian leaders the world-over in Rome (Oct. 2014) to discuss issues relating to the state of the family, and concomitant issues. External Affairs Minister of the ROC, Met. HIlarion, was invited to address the assembled prelates on the ROC perspective on family issues. One would think this high ranking member of the ROC hierarchy would use the opportunity to speak on faith and family. To the shock of Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic leaders present he used the opportunity to attack the right of Greek Catholics to exist in Ukraine and calumniated their name by imputing guilt on them for the war in eastern Ukraine. Clearly, this was a page taken from the FSB foreign relations department.

    What Pat. Bartholomew is doing is simply stating facts. The ROC has never repudiated its collaboration with an evil regime (beginning wit the Sergian collaboration in 1927-1991), it's documented cooperation with the KGB, its participation in the pseudo-synod of 1946 and its harassing of Greek Catholics on its territory to this day. It clearly works with Russian national and political interests at the forefront of its agenda. There is zero room for this among Christians in the world. Caesaropapism and phyletism are proper to Heterodoxy, not Orthodoxy. Many years to His Holiness Bartholomew.

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    1. "The ROC has never repudiated its collaboration with an evil regime (beginning wit the Sergian collaboration in 1927-1991)"

      it started in 1700s if not earlier

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    2. Sorry, it is not "mammon over the Gospel" that motivates the ROC and just about every other autocephalous Church that is not under the thumb of an EP bishop to resist his ambitions in this area - on the contrary, it is simply the Gospel itself. As the EP himself has said (no doubt one of his better moments) there are "ontological differences" between east and west, and have been since they "lost the patristic consensus" by the 9th centurary.

      Actually, if anyone in this area can be accused of putting the interests of "mammon" above the Gospel, it is the EP and his desperate search for "relevancy" in the modern world (such as his silly "photo ops" with Pope, and his environmental activism).

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  7. "One would think this high ranking member of the ROC hierarchy would use the opportunity to speak on faith and family. To the shock of Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic leaders present he used the opportunity to attack the right of Greek Catholics to exist in Ukraine and calumniated their name by imputing guilt on them for the war in eastern Ukraine."

    Metropolitan Hilarion never said that UGCC has no right to exist in Ukraine. He was only stating the truth when he criticized the UGCC for taking sides in the Ukrainian civil war, unlike the Moscow Patriarchate. The West likes to talk about the MP's "support" for the pro-Russian separatists in Donbass but never mentions the numerous UOC-MP military chaplains who are with the Ukrainian army and the blessings given by UOC-MP hierarchs to the Kyiv regime war effort. Patriarch Kirill has never condemned them, instead allowing bishops and priests under him to minister to either side. This is truly above politics.

    Major Archbishop Shevchuk joined "Patriarch" Denysenko in a trip to Washington DC where he asked the US government to intervene at the height of Maidan. http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/2943/head_of_ukrainian_greekcatholic_church_made_official_visit_to_the_united_states.aspx

    It is not calumny then to say that Major Archbishop Shevchuk bears part of the blame for the Ukraine civil war, as he had supported the US government pressure that played a big role in pulling down Yanukovych.

    "its harassing of Greek Catholics on its territory to this day."

    Nothing compared to the harassment suffered by the UOC-MP. Churches shelled by the Kyiv regime forces in Donbass, mor than 30 UOC-MP churches grabbed by UOC-KP usually in Galicia with UGCC media like RISU applauding it.

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  8. "Russia maybe interested in "slavic lands", but Russia is indeed not welcome in most slavic lands - certainly unwelcome an invader, and also not welcome as a comparative johnny-come-lately to eastern Christianity who pretends to own it."

    Tell that to the Serbs. Tell that to the canonical Orthodox in Montenegro. Tell that to the uncanonical Macedonian Orthodox Church that has academic links to Russia and heeded Moscow's call to it to negotiate with Serbia. Tell that to the Synod of the Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church.

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    1. right. the only Slavs that like Russians are the ones that had never had direct contacts (ie. Russian invasion) with them

      and btw Russians have pretty good relations with the non-canonical Macedonian Church as well

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  9. I have a question - why is everyone attacking Kirill for not condemning Kremlin but not Sviatoslav Shevchuk who is silent when it comes to the countless atrocities committed by Ukrainian nationalists and the Ukrainian regime now in power? Who is silent when Greek Catholic Galician politicians do what they can to obstruct Minsk 2 and oppose the decentralization it promised?

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    1. "countless atrocities committed by Ukrainian nationalists and the Ukrainian regime now in power? "

      such as?

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  10. I have taken Ordo's advice and talked to Serbs and Montenegrins (and Bulgarians). None that I talked to would welcome a Russian invasion of their nations; none would welcome the establishment of MP jurisdictions in their nations; none would welcome the Russian praxis supplanting their considerably older ways.

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  11. And none buy into the third Rome mythos.

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  12. I think "Ordo Antiquus" is a Putin internet troll. I bet the IP address is at the infamous building in St. Petersburg...

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