(ROC) - The Jesus portal has published a commentary of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations, on the attitudes prevalent on Holy Mount Athos ard to Constantinople’s creation of ‘a new church’ in Ukraine.
There is a contradictory information coming from Mouth Athos. On one hand, we have seen how two Athonite abbots came to Kiev for the ‘enthronement’ of a new head of the schism legalized by Constantinople, with Father Xenophon attending the event while the abbot of the Vatopedi monastery fell ill but managed to take a picture with the leaders of the schismatics. On the other hand, we can hear how the delegation of the Ukrainian schismatic structure was not let in the St. Panteleimon monastery while, after the visit of this delegation, seven monks have left the Vatopedi.
Evidently, the legalization of the Ukrainian schism by Patriarch Bartholomew has caused new divisions: one of them is being formed before our eyes in the very heart of the Patriarchate of Constantinople – on Holy Mount Athos.
Throughout centuries Athos has stood guard over the church truth and canonical order. And now it has to make a choice: to continue its ages-old vigil for the canonical truth or to obey the lawless decision of the Patriarch of Constantinople. This choice is to be made by Athonite monastic brotherhood as a whole and each monastery in particular.
The Athonites know Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine very well. Until recently, he was their frequent guest. Once, having come to Athos, I could hardly recognize him in the monks’ midst, as he stood modestly, wearing an ordinary black monastic klobuk sawn in the Greek fashion and wearing no pectoral icon. And many other hierarchs of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church used to come to Athos on a regular basis. And now Patriarch Bartholomew has declared their Church non-existent.
We all love Athos and used to come to it with joy until it was possible. But we love Athos not for its antiquity or architecture or beautiful landscapes, but, first of all, for the fact that Athos remains important as a pillar of the church truth for millions of Orthodox believers, for the feat of prayer for peace that the Athonite monks are performing, for the striking spiritual tranquillity with which everyone who comes to the Holy Mount comes in touch.
The spiritual atmosphere of Athos is unique. It has been created by the efforts of many generations of the religious. And many Athonite monks are right to fear that it may be destroyed if Athos becomes open to women, as European politicians have repeatedly proposed it. But isn’t communion with the schismatics fraught with even more dangers for the whole order of monastic life? Will not Athos turn into the salt which has lost its savour (Mt. 5:13), if the troubled waters of the schism flood this holy place?
I sincerely hope that in this situation, which has been suddenly dumped on it, Athos will make the only right choice – the one in favour of canonical order. And I thank all the Athonite monks and abbots who have already made this choice.
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
How Moscow sees Mount Athos
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" But isn’t communion with the schismatics fraught with even more dangers for the whole order of monastic life? Will not Athos turn into the salt which has lost its savour (Mt. 5:13), if the troubled waters of the schism flood this holy place?
ReplyDeleteI sincerely hope that in this situation, which has been suddenly dumped on it, Athos will make the only right choice – the one in favour of canonical order. And I thank all the Athonite monks and abbots who have already made this choice."
Geez, I thought the EP was straining his loyalty bank account but this "if you are not with us you are against us" is surely going to sour the monks otherwise natural sympathies towards Moscow canonical interpretation I would think. Why would they want to get into the middle of this turf war any more than they have to?
Jake, please stop taking the blue pills every morning.
DeleteHow has anything that Constantinople has done in the past 6 months even come close to passing the straight face test?
"anything that Constantinople has done in the past 6 months"
DeleteBy pushing the issue in Ukraine, the EP has done something Christian vis-a-vis millions of Orthodox who were not in communion with the rest of the Church. The MP apparently was prepared to sit on the canonical Sabbath indefinitely...
Schisms are healed via the repentance of at least one if not both parties.
DeleteThere was no repentance just a "magical" declaration of "healing". What about the canons?
These schismatics are revealing themselves by their fruits.
Now the existing schism has actually been "forged in the fire" & the EP is damaging its credibility in the Church by its unilateral actions.
"What about the canons?"
DeleteWhat about them? They are being misused and abused in a propaganda war. They are an expression of the Gospel, not some kind of new Law that trumps the Gospel (see Romans 7). "Schismatic" according to your uncritical acceptance of the MP rhetoric is some kind of metaphysical blot for which Christ Himself can't even over come. Try not to reduce the canons to religious idiocy. Perhaps this Saint might help you put the canons in the right perspective:
"I will sacrifice myself in order to save the Canons of the Church, but in the case of saving one person, I will sacrifice all the Canons." St. Justin Popovich
note well who said that - St. Justin Popovich, the well know ecumeninist and lax progressive ;)
Jake, these two groups in Ukraine are & continue to be considered schismatic not only by the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church & the Moscow Patriarchate, but by every Orthodox Church around the world including the Ecumenical Patriarchate until the last few months.
DeleteGiven this how do you brand recognizing them for what they are as schismatics as "uncritical acceptance fo the MP rhetoric"? That is a real question & not merely rhetoric.
Still plying the canonical logic/legal trade I see Timmy ;)
DeleteLet me ask you a question: what are you going to say, or rather what are your ancestors going to say, in about 50 years (or maybe 100) when these so called "schismatics" are in full communion the whole "pan-Orthodox" Church?
If your looking for consistency of definition (around the word "schismatic" or anything else) within the canons, to say nothing of how they are actually applied, then your looking in the wrong domain of human knowledge and experience. You would be better off with mathematics, or perhaps chemistry.
When it comes to the ecclesiastical history of the Ukraine (or the Church in general), there is a very real human messiness.
To answer your question, I am not looking for a neat and tidy solution - a final and definitive verdict from the Supreme Court of Canonicity and Church Boundaries.
By the way, its a safe bet its going to get even murkier in the next months and years...we might even start to hear bout "apostates", "judas kissers", and "father rapers" soon...
More importantly, the doors of the Church have been open to these two groups since they initiated the schism.
DeleteWe should recall that when a bishop is ordained he pledges faithfulness & obedience to the synod that he is now a part of as long as the synod is not violating the Orthodox faith & the canons. This is literally right in the service books & I've been present to witness this with my own eyes & ears on one occasion.
So how can we recognize these two groups as anything other than schismatics since they went into schism over issues of secular politics & ecclesiastical administration?
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DeleteJake, without repentance & reconciliation they will never be in full communion with the Orthodox Church around the world. It has never happened & it never will happen. If this condition was met, which is absolutely essential, then I would have no problem whatsoever with them. The ball is in their court...it always has been. They left the Church & they must return. There isn't another way to heal a schism.
DeleteBeing of Polish descent myself I am familiar with the messy history of the region of modern-day Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania & Russia and it all speaks of the unity of this metropolitan district of the Church. No doubt real human messiness is evident here. But that is beside the point.
I think you've got the wrong number if you've labeled me a legalist playing the tidy logical card. Fr. George Florovsky nicely described how the canons are not hard & fast "laws" but rather efforts to incarnate the theology into practical pastoral standards that safeguard the salvation of peoples souls. I couldn't agree more!
However, this takes us back to the fact that these schismatics rebelled against & left the Church of their own free will for reasons of secular politics & ecclesiastical administration violating their oath as bishops & the most fundamental principle of love which is the basis of Orthodox ecclesiology.
Repentance is an essential condition for communion. It really is that simple.
Timmy, are you even a real person - you reason like a forensic Russian bot! ;)
DeleteEver heard of the Holodomor? Are you aware of *any* Ukrainian, or for that matter human history at all?
If Moscow (or Bulgaria, or Poland, or fill_in_the_blank) have their own national church, their own ecclesia based on language and culture (which according you are mere "secular politics & administration") why do they have their own synod and not Ukraine? Just who is being faithful to the service books, again? If language and culture is not de facto canon (i.e. "rule") of the Church since the collapse of the empire, exactly what is?
Jake, yes I'm a real human being : )
DeleteI see the point you are defending, but I respectfully & completely disagree. Pastoral economia can only legitimately go so far before it makes itself illegitimate. There are inherent boundaries or limits to economia.
" No doubt real human messiness is evident here. But that is beside the point."
DeleteNope, it is exactly the point.
"Repentance is an essential condition for communion. It really is that simple."
Thank God you (or me, or any man) does not get to define what that looks like. Besides, you talk of repentance but what you really mean is a "canonical" formalism and the Law. You dismiss humanity and sin and look for an almost technocratic "repentance", one just happens to be exactly what Moscow (as a religious, cultural, and political entity) wants.
Providentially, your so called repentance is not even in the cards. Even if Russian tanks roll over Ukraine a forced and unnatural ecclesia will not happen, just as it has not happened for the last 1000 years.
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Delete"...Pastoral economia can only legitimately go so far before it makes itself illegitimate. There are inherent boundaries or limits to economia."
DeleteThe Kingdom of Heaven is like, A certain man had two sons...
Your whole paradigm of "legitimacy", of law and rules, and of "economia" is exploded by both the Gospel AND the actual history of the Church. Not only that, you have been manipulated into this thinking...
Jake, where did you come by your supernatural powers of reading people's hearts & minds?
DeleteAnyway, I hope you enjoy yourself in the Episcopalian church. I'm joking...kind of.
I'm signing off since comment threads like this are not conducive to effectively resolving perspectives as different as ours seem to be.
It's a good thing threads like this are not good places for pro MP propaganda either 😲
DeleteI’m actually in the EP, really : )
DeleteI appreciate the quirkiness of the Internet where everyone can air out their thoughts & do so with some good humor.
We’ll have to agree to disagree, in love, of course.
I wish you a good Lent & Pascha, my brother.
It seems to me that by erasing laws, you do not gain love. You move one step closer to erasing people (calling them inhuman bots, for instance).
DeleteSlavs vs. Greeks I understand. Wanting to be first in line (primacy) I understand. NATO/US vs Russia I understand.
ReplyDeleteWhat I can't understand is how anyone can ignore EPB rubber stamping men who made themselves "priests" and "bishops", outside the Church, and pretending it's a simple matter of granting autocephaly to "heal" a schism.
Not to mention you've traded the millions of canonical Ukrainian Orthodox believers, for a handful of self-consecrated frauds. Oh and apparently we're going to ignore blackmailing monastics and putting them under so much pressure that they have a heart attack.
In spite of all this and more, we're apparently supposed to buy the "The Slavs are just jealous, primacy belongs to hellenism, you have to cause a schism to heal a schism" line.
Sadly as obvious as the corruption is, it will undoubtedly still fall along ethnic lines, Greeks vs Slavs, albeit with some notable exceptions.
I absolutely agree. "Metropolitan" Epiphaniy, for example, may have been baptized in the canonical Church, but that is as far as it goes. His ordination as a priest, tonsure as a monk, everything else — all outside the Church!
DeleteOne could speak of American money along with Poroshenko chocolates gifted to the EP.
ReplyDeleteI’m sorry but no amount of time can make self consecrated frauds “okay” or canonical. When defrocked priests declare themselves bishops, and an excommunicated bishop declares himself patriarch, no amount of time can make that acceptable.
DeleteThere are millions of Orthodox Christians in Ukraine, they showed up in droves for Metropolitan Onuphry’s enthronement, meanwhile the false tomos was (according to pro-schismatic sources) attended by less than 1000 people. Doesn’t that tell you anything?
There has been no exodus from the canonical Church to this schismatic rabble.
Meanwhile, the so called granting of autocephaly has left the schismatics with less independence than the canonical Church under Onuphry. They can’t do anything without EPB’s involvement. This is yet another land grab by Constantinople, but for once someone is able to stand up against it.
Almost every branch of the Church has called for a council to decide how to fix this catastrophe. For now they are waiting to see if EPB will repent, giving him time to turn back, but if he doesn’t, they’re allowing him enough rope to hang himself.
A council will be the final say on this. Unfortunately its very clear that EPB is charting a course away from the tradition of the Church, making himself “first without equal”, and he will no doubt drag many Greeks with him in the name of “Hellenism”.
David, it is not "complicated" at all. That excuse is used as a smokescreen to obfuscate the facts so the agenda of the EP can be unilaterally pursued at all costs.
ReplyDeleteIf it's so "complicated" why wasn't there a single other Orthodox Church present at Epiphany's "enthronement"?
Apparently, it's so "complicated" that Constantinople is the only one in the 300 million strong body of the Church who can figure this out...
It just doesn't pass the straight face test, my brother.
Yes David, deep deep cultural (and thus personal) understandings about "Mother Russia" and the like are at the bottom.
ReplyDeleteFor those interested in going deeper than the EP/MP propaganda, one can take a look at several papers from the recent Romanian conference that will be available on Ancient Faith in the coming weeks/months.
Sorry David. I don't think it will work out as you predict. The OCU is a schismatic body and it will always be schismatic unless they sincerely repent. Those who come into communion with them will be schismatics (like Bartholomew is at this time). The other local autocephalous Churches have an opportunity to walk in the footsteps of great saints such as St. Mark of Ephesus, St Gregory Palamas, and St Photios the Great. I believe most of them will do the right thing. One of Istanbul's main talking points continues to reiterate how "time" will heal this massive division and all will accept this abomination in the end. Time will most certainly clarify the situation....it will take away the gray areas so that we can discern the goats from the sheep.
ReplyDeleteYou keep repeating the same BS about "Russky Mir" and "Holy Rus'" ad naseum. Are you even Ukrainian, Mr. White? I suspect not, otherwise you would know that Ukrainians prefer "Ukraine" to "the Ukraine." Only old timers in the Ukrainian community still use the article.
DeleteMy own ancestry includes Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian. My father grew up in Eastern Ukraine. I speak the language and know the history. Sometimes, the Cossacks would fight with the Turks against the Russians and Poles. Sometimes, with the Poles against the Russians and the Turks. Ultimately, the alliance with Russia came about because of Orthodoxy. It may be that a desperate people are forced to side with Russia. So many Russians sided with Hitler, not because they supported Nazism, but because Stalin was so evil, that they would support ANYBODY who was against him. They also naively believed that after WW II, that the West would free them from Stalin. We all know this didn't happen. Please read Solzhenitsyn. He lived and saw it all.
Indeed,God will not be mocked dear David. I see most of the shameful propaganda coming from Istanbul as they attempt to justify their created schism. The MP is not enraged. They are quite calm. They have tradition and the canons on their side. The other local Churches know it. I believe you will see many others fall out of communion with Istanbul as this progresses. The CP has been in a constant decline for the past 100 years...from Metaxakis...to Athenagoras...to the present day Bartholomew. It is time for the dead branch to be pruned.
ReplyDeleteBe watchful.