“WATERLOO” for the Ecumenists in dialogue with the Catholics at Vienna

Republished and translated by blog’ author from  “Orthodox Typos”, October 1st, 2010  

(one of the Orthodox publication of Greece) 

 

Heated disagreement at Vienna between the representatives of the Orthodox Church, as reflected in the statements of Metropolitan Ioannupol of Pergamon, the representative of the Moscow Patriarchate: Bishop Hilarion and the Vatican representative for the „unity” of the Christian Churches.  

Orthodox Typos: the dialogue with the heretics has to stop permanently, “here and now”, in order to stop the harm/deceit of the faithful and the clergy.  Alive is our Lord God, Who protects His Orthodox Church. 

  

Our Lord is a Living God! This was seen at Vienna, where the Theological Dialogue was held between the Orthodox and the Catholics over the Pope’s primacy in the first millennium. The dialogue ended in failure, to the great disappointment of the Ecumenist’ bishops of the Church  of Greece, who constantly deceit/slander the faithful (that worrie to keep the tradition and the Holy Canons) and distort the thinking and the Orthodox faith by recognizing as canonical  the heresy of Papism. The dialogue has ended in failure because the papal representatives did not step back and have remained steadfast in supporting the papal supremacy. The dialog was also led to failure due to the heated disagreements between the representatives of the Orthodox Churches. Each Orthodox representative exposed issues that brought hardship to the Dialogue. The Orthodox have exposed different views regarding of how the unity is to be understood. This arise from the official statements of both Ecumenist Metropolitan of Pergamon: Kir Ioannis Zizioulas, the Vatican official on „unity “: “Archbishop” and reformer – Mr. Koch, the Metropolitan and Foreign Minister of the Moscow Patriarchate: Bishop Hilarion, but also of Metropolitan Seraphim of Ioannupol, who in his interview, labeled those opposed to dialogue with the Catholics as mentally ill people.  :(  

It doesn’t means that if some people are crazy, they have the right to question our Orthodox thinking (Amen.gr, 09/26/2010 ) 

The Metropolitan of Ioannupol was the first of the participants, who made public in an interview, the failure of the Dialogue. 

Seraphim of Ioannupol had declared: “At Vienna we continued the debate over text analysis that  began in Cyprus and we had not yet completed the final form of this text. The Committees have the responsibility to edit this text based on the points made in the debate and to prepare us a working/text document with the additions and comments of the  members from the Joint Commission. This text refers to the first millennium and analyzes the role of the bishop in the life of the Church at the local, regional and wider level. The text of this publication is not currently available, because does not have a final form . The Roman Catholics have their views on how they understand the role of the bishop of Rome in the first millennium, and the Orthodox are referring to the place that the historical Patriarchs had in the old historical Patriarchates of the East: in Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem …  

NP (the interviewer): Your Eminence, lets insist a bit on the question of primacy … 

Metropolitan of Ioannupol: As I already mentioned, the theme of primacy (in general, and not as something pertaining to the Pope, transl note) is something that appears as a pastoral need in the life of the Church, and pertains to the bishops of the Church, first in a diocese, and later in a larger region with several Dioceses,  

–          to convene to chair and to coordinate the synaxes of the bishops who act together, by invoking the descent of the  Holy Spirit on the basis of Scripture and the Holy Tradition of the Church,  

–          for keeping the faith and the order of the Church which the heretics or schismatics were  distorting.  

It is a way to defend the soteriological path of the faithful.

In this context we refer to the bishop’s place in the life of the church during the first millennium and, of course of the bishops at Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Salamis, and other important religious centers that were developed in the first millennium, which we referred to.
It doesn’t mean that because the Roman Catholics presented points – as they desire to see the place of the bishop of Rome, the Orthodox have to accept them, nor that the Roman Catholics are obliged to accept the points that are presented by the Orthodox regarding the role of the bishops in the life of the Orthodox Church of the first millennium. We are just in the beginning of the dialogue, to prepare proposals for a later stage to be sent to our Holy Synods for decisions.

 

Those participating in the dialogue have no power to take decisions, our role is to highlight a common way of the church of the first millennium and to see how the  faith was guarded in unity. The responsibility in making decisions belongs to the Holy Synods of the local Orthodox Churches, and if a final stage is reached, of course, to a Pan – Orthodox Synod. The dialogue is still in its early stage, and only the Holy Spirit knows how much of this will bear fruit … “

 

The Statements of the Representative of the Moscow Patriarchate  

The Foreign Minister of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion, according to “Romfea.gr ” had also made a declaration. The Metropolitan made it clear that some statements had been scheduled for debate while others have been debated, because there were serious disagreements over the Pope’s jurisdiction in the first millennium, something which the Metropolitan Ioannupol also reported. (…) 

Bishop Hilarion noted that “the work (text) of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, which was made public by some mass-media does not reflect the position of the orthodox side in the issue over the primacy of the Bishop of Rome and can be treated only as an auxiliary material for future work.”
‘Despite media allegations, there was no openness in the meetings of the Commission for Theological dialog between the Orthodox and Roman Catholics in Vienna, ” Kir Hilarion added.

Kir Hilarion further  added that:

 “The meeting from Vienna was held to debate the role of the Bishop of Rome in the first millennium. On this basis of discussion a document was prepared last year in Cyprus by the Coordinating Committee. This axilliary text circulated in the mass media without approval for that. It has been assumed that at Vienna this text will be finalized and end the debate. However, things turned out to be different. Much time was spent debating this text status.” 

 Also, Kir Hilarion noted that

“The Orthodox representatives had insisted from the beginning that this text proposal cannot be formally published by the Commission nor that it can be signed by its members .”
‘ Our view is that this text requires an essential review in what follows, and only after that it can receive the status of an ‘ auxiliary text  material’ ( instrumentum laboris ), which will be used to prepare future texts, but it will have no official status “, said Kir Hilarion added.

 

Referring to the role of Bishop of Rome, he stressed that:

 

“The text has purely a historical meaning, because it speaks only about the role of the Bishop of Rome and, does not cover nearly any of the bishops of other local Churches of the first millennium, thus giving a false impression of how the Old Christian Church was administrated at that time.” 

 

“Furthermore – he added – the text lacks a clear and obvious finding that the jurisdiction of bishop of Rome in the first millennium did not include the Church in the East (the actual Orthodox Church, transl note).”  

He also noted:

“We hope that these goals and gaps will be filled properly once the text is processed. After a debate, the Commission has decided that this text requires further processing and that the final decision on its status will be postponed for the next meeting of the Committee, that is in the next two years. Until then we will prepare a new text, which will deal with the same problem, but from a theological prospective.”

“For it is very evident for the Orthodox members that in the first millennium, the Bishop of Rome in the West  did not exert exclusive jurisdiction over the Christian Church in the East, because in the East, the Church  was divided territorial between the four patriarchs of the Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, ” he stressed.

He concluded that:

„The Bishop of Rome had no direct jurisdiction in the East, although in some historical cases resorted to the Eastern bishops in theological disputes by arbitration”.
‘But these appeals were not systematic and can not in any way be interpreted as meaning that the Bishop of Rome in the East was seen as holder of supreme dominion over the Ecumenical Church”.

„I hope that at the next meeting of the Commission, the Roman Catholic Church will accept this position, which is based on countless historical evidence, ” the president for External Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate added.   

 

The Metropolitan of Pergamum 

The Ecumenist Metropolitan of Pergamon: Ioannis Zizioulas, admitted there are issues and agreed with the Vatican representatives for the „unity”, that this model of  unity is deemed for the future. 

He therefore requested that the Orthodox Church needs to strengthen its universal unity, a concluding fact for the sharp disagreements between the Orthodox representatives in the Dialogue. Because it resulted that the papacy has not taken any step back in the dialogue, Kir Ioannis  also called out to the Catholic representatives to stress more the conciliatory dimension. He stated that “if these two things will happen, then the result will come quickly.” 

Next, by referring to an Pan – Orthodox Synod he said (according to Romfea.gr) :
‘ Of course we must be united in faith a lot. Regarding an Pan – Orthodox  Synod, we worry – and we admit it  – that the autocephaly is a problem mainly when it is linked to nationalist themes. But I ‘m happy to say that we made a satisfactory progress towards a Pan -Orthodox Synod. 

 

Orthodox Typos: “The Dialogues need to Stop!” 

The Ecumenist bishops, the Phanar (Ecumenical Patriarchate) and the Church of  Hellas (Greece) must stop these kind of theological dialogues, for they expose and scandalize the faithful people. The Papists have demonstrated once more at Vienna that are unrepentant and inflexible in their heretical theories such as the primacy and infallibility. They had demonstrated that they refuse the synodalicity. And, it is finally shown, that the representatives of the Orthodox Churches do not have a common position or vision on the ‘unity’, and that they do not consider papacy, “a sister Church”. To continue the Dialogue means a real provocation for the people of faith.