The divine Founder of the Church, our Lord Jesus
Christ, said clearly,
"I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not
prevail against Her" (Matthew 16:18).
To the Church, He sent the Holy
Spirit. The Spirit descended upon the Apostles, the Spirit of Truth (St.
John xv, 16f) Who "manifests all things" to Her and guides Her (St. John
xvi, 13), protecting Her from error. Indeed, it was to declare this Truth to
men that the Lord came into the cosmos, according to His own words (St. John
18: 31). And Saint Paul confirms this fact in his letter to his pupil, the
bishop Timothy, saying that,
"the Church of the living God is the
ground and pillar of the Truth" (1 Timothy 03:15).
Because She is "the ground and pillar of the
Truth," "the gates of Hell cannot prevail against Her." It follows, then,
that the true Christian Church—palpably unique since Christ established but
one Church—has always existed on earth and will exist to the end of time.
She has received the promise of Christ, "I will be with you even unto the
end of the age." Can there be the slightest doubt that the Lord refers here
to the Church? Any honest and sane judgment, any act of good conscience,
anyone familiar with the history of the Christian Church, the pure and
unaltered moral and theological teachings of the Christian religion, must
confess that there was but one true Church founded by our Lord, Jesus
Christ, and that She has preserved His Truth holy and unchanged. History
reveals, moreover, a traceable link of grace from the holy Apostles to their
successors and to the holy Fathers. In contrast to what others have done,
the Orthodox Church has never introduced novelties into Her teachings in
order to "keep up with the times", to be "progressive", "not to be left at
the side of the road," or to accommodate current exigencies and fashions
which are always suffused with evil. The Church never conforms to the world.
Indeed not, for the Lord has said to his disciples
at the Last Supper,
"You are not of this world."
We must hold to these words if we are to remain
faithful to true Christianity—the true Church of Christ has always been, is
and will always be a stranger to this world. Separated from it, she is able
to transmit the divine teachings of the Lord unchanged, because that
separation has kept Her unchanged, that is, like the immutable God Himself.
That which the learned call "conservativism" is a principal and, perhaps,
most characteristic index of the true Church.
Since the TRUTH is given to us once and for all,
our task is to assimilate rather than to discover it. We are commanded to
confirm ourselves and others in the Truth and thereby bring everyone to the
true Faith, Orthodoxy.
Unfortunately, there have appeared in the very
bosom of the Church, even among the hierarchy, opinions expressed by
well-known individuals which are detrimental to Her. The desire to "march
with the times" makes them fear that they will not be recognized as
"cultured", "liberal" and "progressive." These modern apostates to Orthodoxy
are "ashamed" to confess that our Orthodox church is precisely the Church
which was founded by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church to which appertains
the great promise that "the gates of Hell will not prevail against Her," and
to which He confided the plenum of divine Truth. By their deceit and false
humility, by their blasphemy against the Lord, these false shepherds and
those with them have been estranged from the true Church. They have given
tacit expression to the idea that "the gates of Hell" have "prevailed"
against the Church. In other words, these apostates say that our holy
Orthodox Church is equally "at fault" for the "division of the churches" and
ought now to "repent" her sins and enter into union with other "Christian
churches" by means of certain concessions to them, the result being a new,
indivisible church of Christ.
This is the ideology of the religious movement
which has become so fashionable in our times: "The ecumenical movement"
among whose number one may count Orthodox, even our clergy. For a long time,
we have heard that they belong to this movement in order "to witness to the
peoples of other confessions the truth of holy Orthodoxy," but it is
difficult for us to believe that this statement is anything more than
"throwing powder in our eyes." Their frequent theological declarations in
the international press can lead us to no other conclusion than that they
are traitors to the holy Truth.
As a matter of historical fact, the "ecumenical
movement"—of which the WCC is the supreme organ—is an organization. of
purely Protestant origin. Nearly all the Orthodox Churches have joined, the
Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia being the most notable exception.
Even those churches behind the "iron curtain" have joined. For some time the
Russian Patriarchate resisted, flattering herself with the purity of her
Orthodoxy and quite naturally viewing this movement as hostile to Orthodoxy.
She has since become a member.
The Russian Synod almost stands alone in her
opposition to the "ecumenical movement." How can we explain her isolation
from the rest of "global Orthodoxy"? We must understand the situation in
terms of the words that "this Must take place" (St. Luke xxi, 9), that is,
the "great apostasy" clearly predicted by the Lord (Sol ii, 3-12). "it is
permitted by God," as [St.] Ignatius Brianchaninoff said almost a century
ago. (Another spiritual father, Theophan the Recluse, announced with grief
that the horrendous apostasy would begin within Russia.) [St.] Ignatius
wrote: "We are helpless to arrest this apostasy. Impotent hands will have no
power against it and nothing more will be required than the attempt to
withold it. The spirit of the age will reveal the apostasy. Study it, if you
wish to avoid it, if you wish to escape this age and the temptation of its
spirits. One can suppose, too, that the institution of the Church which has
been tottering for so long will fall terribly and suddenly. Indeed, no one
is able to stop or prevent it. The present means to sustain the
institutional Church are borrowed from the elements of the world, things
inimical to the Church, and the consequence will be only to accelerate its
fall. Nevertheless, the Lord protects the elect and their limited number
will be filled."
The Enemy of humanity makes every effort and uses
all means to confound it. Aid comes to him through the total co-operation of
all the secret and invisible heterodox, especially those priests and bishops
who betray their high calling and oath, the true faith and the true Church.
Repudiation of and preservation from the apostasy
which has made such enormous progress demands that we stand apart from the
spirit of the age (which bears the seeds of its own destruction). If we
expect to withstand the world, it is first necessary to understand it and
keep sensitively in mind that in this present age all that which carries the
most holy and dear name of Orthodoxy is not in fact Orthodox. Rather, it is
often "A fraudulent and usurped Orthodoxy" which we must fear and eschew as
if it were fire. Unlike this spurious faith, true Orthodoxy was given and
must be received without novelty and nothing must be accepted as a teaching
or practice of the Church which is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the
dogma of the Universal Church. True Orthodoxy thinks only to serve god and
to save souls and is not preoccupied with the secular and ephemeral welfare
of men. True Orthodoxy is spiritual and not physical or psychological or
earthly. In order to protect ourselves from "the spirit of the age" and
preserve our fidelity to the true Orthodoxy, we ought firstly and with all
our strength live blamelessly: A total and rigorous commitment to Christ,
without deviation from the commandments of God or the laws of His holy
Church. At the same time, we must have no common prayer or spiritual liaison
with the modern apostasy or with anything which "soils" our holy Faith, even
those dissidents who call themselves "Orthodox." They will go their way and
we will go ours. We must be honorable and tenacious, following the right
way, never deviating in order to please men or from fear that we might lose
some personal advantage.
The sure path to perdition is indifference and the
lack of principles which is euphemistically called "the larger view." In
opposition to this "larger view" we put the "rigor of ideas" which, in
modernity, it is fashionable to label "narrow" and "fanatical." To be sure,
if one adopts the "modern mentality," one must consider the holy
martyrs—whose blood is "the cement of the Church"—and the Church Fathers—who
struggled all their lives against heretics—as nothing less than "narrow" and
"fanatical." In truth, there is little difference between "the broad way"
against which the Lord warned and the modem "larger view." He condemned the
"broad way" as the way to "gehenna."
Of course, the idea of "gehenna" holds no fear for
those "liberals" and avant-garde theologians. They may smugly "theologize"
about it, but in rashly and wantonly discussing "the new ways of Orthodox
theology" and acquiring a number of disciples, they give evidence that they
no longer believe in the existence of Hell. This new breed of "Orthodox" are
really no more than modem "scholastics."
In other words, the way of these "progressivists"
is not our way. Their way is deceptive, and it is unfortunate that it is not
evident to everyone. The "broader" or "larger view" alienates us from the
Lord and His true Church. It is the road away from Orthodoxy. This view is
sinister, maliciously invented by the Devil in order to deny us salvation.
For us, however, we accept no innovations, but choose the ancient, proven
way, the way in which true Christians have chosen to serve God for 2,000
years.
We choose the way of fidelity to the true Faith and
not the "modern way." We choose faithfulness to the true Church with all Her
canons and dogmas which have been received and confirmed by the local and
universal Councils. We choose the holy customs and traditions, the spiritual
riches of that faith transmitted complete and entire to us from the Holy
Apostles, the Holy Fathers of the Church, and the Christian heritage of our
venerable ancestors. This alone is the faith of the true Orthodox, distinct
from the counterfeit "orthodoxy" invented by the Adversary. We receive only
the Apostolic Faith, the Faith of the Fathers, the Orthodox Faith.
True Orthodoxy ...By - Archbishop Abercius (Averky) of Syracuse and Holy Trinity Monastery*Reprinted from Orthodox Christian Witness, wherein
it appeared translated from the French in La Foi Transmise (Nov. 1968), pp.
19-22.
