In the
name
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
"I count all things
but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have
suffered the loss of all things, and do
count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
and be found in Him" ... Philippians 3:8
Dearly beloved in Christ,
For many years our Holy Orthodox Church has
participated in the ecumenical movement, 1
because she has always remembered the prayer
of Christ, "that all may be one" (John
17:21) and the will of God the Father to "gather
together in one all things in Christ, both
which are in heaven, and which are on earth."
(Ephesians 1:10) In the past, the Church has
recognized in the ecumenical movement a
genuine search, however imperfect and
limited, for the unity of all men in Christ.
Today we perceive a grave crisis in the
ecumenical movement. In the first place,
there have appeared in the movement theories
and understandings of its nature, which are
radically different from those upon which it
was founded. In the second place, there have
arisen among the Orthodox positions and even
practices, which are clearly contradictory
to the consensus that formerly guided us in
ecumenical activity.
For these reasons, we, the bishops of the
Orthodox Church in America, consider it our
God-given duty to confess once again the
nature of the unity which Christ has given
to His Church, and to warn all Christians
against those forms of union which are not
given by God and consequently are not
acceptable to the Orthodox Faith. It is our
purpose as well to remind the members of the
Orthodox Church of the principles which have
guided us in our ecumenical activity in the
past.
1. THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH
The Christian
Church is the unity of men with God in Jesus
Christ by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The
center and uniting power of the Church is
Christ. Being God and man, Christ has united
in Himself all that is human and divine. He
is the "alpha and the omega, the
beginning and the end, the first and the
last." (Revelation 22:13) "For in Him
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily." (Colossians 2:9)
The Church lives by Jesus Christ as His true
body and bride. The only head of the Church
is Christ Who is also its only foundation
and cornerstone. Christ is the sole savior,
pastor, teacher and priest of the Church. In
Christ all die to this sinful, evil and
fallen world and rise again in Him as
children of God the Father in the eternal
life of the Kingdom of God.
Man's unity with God in Jesus Christ in the
Church is impossible without the Holy
Spirit. The very existence of the Church
depends on the coming of the Holy Spirit and
the gifts of grace which He brings to men.
In Christ and the Holy Spirit men are given
divine sonship which is the final goal and
perfect realization of human life, the
purpose and goal of the Christian faith.
The essence of the Christian life is union
in and with the Holy Trinity: Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. Every unity not rooted in
God through Christ and the Holy Spirit is
not Christian unity nor the unity of the
Christian Church, for as the Apostle Paul
teaches, "there is one Body and one Spirit,
even as ye are called in one hope of your
calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
one God and Father of all, Who is above all,
and through all, and in you all." (Ephesians
4:4-6)
A. Unity in Truth
Unity in God
the Holy Trinity is unity in Truth, for God
is Truth. The unity of the Christian Church
must be unity in the Truth of God.
Christ is the divine Word of the Father. He
is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life."
(John 14:6) He is "the Light of the world."
(John 8:12) Christ sends the Holy Spirit,
Who is also "the Truth," to men. (I
John 5:6) The Holy Spirit is the "Spirit
of Truth, who proceedeth from the Father"
(John 15:26) Who comes to guide men "into
all truth." (John 16:13)
The Church of Christ is "the Church of
the living God, the pillar and ground of the
truth." (I Timothy 3:15) The Church is
the "chosen generation, the royal
priesthood, the holy nation, the peculiar
people" whom God "hath called ... out
of darkness into His marvelous light."
(I Peter 2:9) The Church is the vessel of
divine truth in and for the world.
There is no Christian unity outside of the
truth, for outside of the truth there is no
Church, no salvation, no eternal life. God
the Father "Who will have all men to be
saved and to come to the knowledge of the
truth" (I Timothy 2:4) has sent His Son
into the world to make Himself known. "Whosoever
transgresseth and abideth not in the
doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that
abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath
both the Father and the Son." (II John
9)
The truth of God is unchanging and eternal.
God is eternal and in Him is "no
variableness, neither shadow or turning."
(James 1:17) He is the "King eternal."
(I Timothy 1:17) Jesus Christ is the "true
God and eternal life." (I John 5:20) He
is "the same yesterday, and today, and
forever." (Hebrews 13:8)
he Lord Jesus Christ has said that His
teachings will never change. "Heaven and
earth shall pass away, but my words shall
not pass away." (Mark 13:31) Jesus has
promised that the Holy Spirit will take what
belongs to Him and the Father and show it to
those who believe, guiding them into all
truth. "He shall not speak of Himself ...
He shall glorify me; for He shall take of
mine, and shall show it unto you." (John
16:13-14)
The Holy Spirit came to the apostles of
Christ, so that they could make disciples of
all nations and teach all men that which
Jesus Himself had taught them. "Go ye
therefore and teach all nations . . .
teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you . . ."
(Matthew 28:19-20) The teaching of the
apostles is the teaching of Christ, which is
the teaching of God.
The apostles did not fashion their own
doctrines, but proclaimed "that which was
from the beginning, which we have heard,
which we have seen with our eyes, which we
have looked upon, and our hands have
handled, of the Word of life . . ." (I
John 1:1) The Apostle Paul witnesses in the
same way, when he says "the gospel which
was preached of me is not after man, for I
neither received it of man, neither was I
taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus
Christ." (Galatians 1:11-12)
The apostles urged all Christians to "teach
no other doctrine" (I Timothy 1:3) and
to "contend earnestly for the faith which
was once delivered unto the saints."
(Jude 1:3)
No apostle, no saint, no father of the
Church, no martyr, confessor or inspired
Church council ever claimed to have another
teaching than that of Christ Himself. The
doctrinal truth of the apostolic Church is
the eternal and unchanging Truth of God
Himself, made known in Christ and the Holy
Spirit. This truth is always the same. It
never changes. It abides in the Church in
every age and generation, handed down from
time to time and from place to place in the
Holy Tradition of the Church. The task of
Christians always and everywhere is to
receive, to express, to explain, and to pass
on the true Christian Gospel, changing
nothing in it, adding nothing to it, and
taking nothing from it.
For the Orthodox Church, therefore, the only
possible unity for Christians and for the
Christian Church is the unity of faith to
which the apostles, saints and councils of
the Church have witnessed, the faith to
which they call all men for the sake of
their salvation.
The meaning of Holy Tradition in the Church
is that the entire spiritual treasury given
to men by God in Christ and the Spirit is
given over wholly and perfectly to all
believers in all times and places. The
creative task of individual Christians and
Christian communities is to realize the
Christian Faith with all possible depth and
fullness, and to transmit this same Faith to
all persons now living and to those yet to
be born.
The apostles severely condemned any form of
Christianity other than that which they
received from the Lord. The Apostle Paul
said "anathema" to
any man-made religion, claiming that those
who distorted the Gospel and fashioned their
own doctrines are "self-condemned."
(Galatians 1:9 and Titus 3:11)
The apostles forbade communion with those
who distorted the Gospel and removed them
from the Church. Such serious action was
taken because in every case the mutations of
the Christian Faith threaten man's salvation
and destroy unity, since they are merely "human
doctrines" having only "an appearance
of wisdom." (Colossians 2:22-23)
Holy Scripture tells us that the Church will
always suffer from false prophets and false
teachers, but that the faithful Church will
exist to the end of the world, until the
glorious coming of Christ. For Christians,
therefore, there is no greater sin than the
betrayal of the Gospel of Christ and the
distortion of the apostolic teaching. To be
guilty of this sin is to be guilty of
betraying God Himself and the entire life of
the Church. Christian unity and the unity of
the Christian Church can be only in the
perfect unity of those doctrines which our
fathers in the faith have called divine. Woe
to us if we betray Christ, Who is our Truth!
B. Unity in Love and
Holiness
Together with
divine truth, divine holiness is the
fundamental basis for genuine Christian
unity, the unity of the Church. "Be ye
holy, for I am holy," says the Lord.
(Leviticus 11:44 and I Peter 1:16)
The highest and most perfect expression of
divine holiness is love. Love is the
greatest and most powerful force of unity
that exists: "For God is love." (I
John 4:8) Genuine love and holiness are
rooted in divine truth, in all virtues, and
in the commandments of Christ.
Love and holiness are the living expressions
and perfections of truth. "Being obedient
to the truth through the Spirit" is the
foundation of love. (I Peter 1:22) Without
love for the truth there is no salvation.
The wicked perish "because they received
not the love of the truth that they might be
saved." (II Thessalonians 2:10) "Being
knit together in love" gives us "the
full assurance of understanding, to the
acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and
of the Father, and of Christ, in whom are
hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge." (Colossians 2:2-3)
Love is inseparable from all the
commandments of God, for it is the "bond
of perfection" (Colossians 3:14) and the
"fulfillment of the law." (Romans
13:10) "If you keep my commandments,"
says Christ, "you will abide in my love,
just as I have kept my Father's commandments
and abide in His love." (John 15:10)
The commandments of God which are given by
Christ and fulfilled in love include all
virtues and all fruits of the Holy Spirit.
These commandments remain forever as the
ideal and goal of man's life, as the law of
human existence. Like all words of the Lord,
His ethical, moral and spiritual precepts
which are recorded in the New Testament
scriptures may never be changed but abide
forever as the unchanging law of Christian
perfection.
The unity of Christians and the unity of the
Christian Church are rooted and grounded in
the unity of all Christian commandments
perfected in love, and the unity of
Christian virtue and holiness testified to
in the scriptures.
C. The Orthodox Church
is the True Church
Genuine
Christian unity is possible only where men
are one in Christ and the Holy Spirit, fully
united in the truth, love and holiness of
God. This unity is possible only in the one
Church which Christ founded, against which "the
gates of hell shall not prevail."
(Matthew 16:18) This unity is possible only
in that Church which has preserved whole and
unchanged the teachings of Christ and His
apostles, prophets, martyrs and saints. This
unity is possible only in that Church which
continues to proclaim the revelation of God
in its fullness, not only in its doctrines
and morals, but also in the whole order of
spiritual, sacramental and hierarchal church
life as established in the apostolic
Christian community.
Where truth is not mixed with falsehood and
where the ideals of Christian perfection are
not mixed with false principles of human
behavior; where men in perfect awareness of
their weaknesses and sins commune with God
in the fullness of His divine
self-manifestation in grace, there is the
one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church,
which is the presence and power of the
Kingdom of God on earth. Only in this Church
is genuine Christian unity, the unity of all
men, given by God.
Dearly beloved brothers and sisters, it is
our duty as bishops of the Church and
guardians of the apostolic faith to confess
that the Orthodox Church is the one Church
of Christ. We make our confession because it
is our conviction that from the time of our
Lord Jesus Christ and His apostles, the
Orthodox Church has accepted no wrong
doctrines and no false ideals of life,
despite the corporate and personal failings
of the members of the Church - "If we say
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us." (I John 1:8)
The Orthodox Church is the one, indivisible
Church of Christ, not because of the works
of men, but because by the grace of God
expressed in the blood of the martyrs and
the witness of the saints, the Orthodox
Church has preserved to this day its
God-given mission to be for the world "the
Church which is His Body, the fullness of
Him who filleth all in all." (Ephesians
1:23)
There can be only one Church, for Christ
founded but one Church. It is into this one
Church that all must enter to live in
perfect communion with God, with each other,
and with all of creation.
As we make our "good confession" (I
Timothy 6:13) we sincerely desire that the
Orthodox Church be understood by all people,
and especially by all the members of the
Orthodox Church herself, not as an eastern
church or as a national church necessarily
bound to certain human cultures and
traditions, but as the Church of Christ
founded by God in the Holy Spirit for the
salvation of all men and the whole of
creation. Let us Orthodox Christians never
forget that our own nationalism and
ethnicism often obscure and betray this
divine mission of the Church. We will have
to answer before God for the great gift of
Orthodoxy which He has given to our care.
Finally, we make our appeal that all persons
may partake freely of the truth and love and
holiness of God Himself, and commune most
fully and perfectly with the divine life of
the Kingdom of God, which Christ has brought
to the world.
II. THE ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT TODAY
The
fundamental self-understanding of the
Orthodox Church, which has been described
above, has always served as the basis for
Orthodox participation in the ecumenical
movement. It has been clearly expressed by
many Orthodox hierarchs and theologians, and
it motivated several separate declarations
adopted unanimously by Orthodox delegations
at ecumenical gatherings. The other
participants in the ecumenical movement did
not, of course, share these Orthodox
convictions, but they respected them in a
brotherly spirit. It is obvious that the
Orthodox were able to take part in the
ecumenical movement only on the condition
that all participants were free to defend
and promote their own understanding of the
nature, purpose, and goal of ecumenical
activity.
In recent years the ecumenical situation has
changed considerably, and the movement as a
whole, and Orthodox participation in it, is
facing a grave crisis. This crisis is not,
as many may think, one of constitution or
organization. It is first of all a crisis of
spirit and orientation. It is a crisis of
the fundamental understanding of ecumenism
itself, which has forced us to restate the
position which has always been that of the
Orthodox Church, a position which
unfortunately even some of our Orthodox
brethren have ignored or forgotten.
It is our conviction that the ecumenical
movement today is being confronted with the
following most obvious dangers.
A. The Danger of
Relativism
Following
philosophical and theological
presuppositions foreign to the Orthodox
Christian Tradition, a powerful trend in
contemporary ecumenism rejects the very
notions of truth, church order, visible
ecclesial and doctrinal agreement, as if
they were obstacles to Christian unity. In
fact, this trend amounts to a consistent,
confessional, doctrinal, and historical
relativism.
In this relativistic view, the Church is
considered to be simply a human society, an
institution of men inevitably sinful and in
error. No distinction is made between the
dignity of the Church and the indignity of
its human members. Thus, every form of
Christian faith and life, every Christian
community and confession, is considered to
be relative and partial, possessing no right
in any way to claim perfection in anything,
especially in the knowledge of the truth.
Therefore, there could be no such thing as a
perfect Church, and this is not understood
to mean a Church with perfectly sinless,
omniscient members, which obviously cannot
and does not exist. It means rather that
there is no Church which can claim that it
teaches no false doctrines or moral
principles, and so that within its
membership one can come to fullness of life
without fear of error or deceit, a claim
which we Orthodox make about the Orthodox
Church.
Further, in this concept, each and every
Christian communion is merely a society of
like-minded believers who are trying more or
less successfully to realize the Christian
Faith as they understand it, according to
their own subjective doctrines and their own
quite limited human customs and traditions.
Everything, then, essentially changes in
history, even concepts of God, Christ, and
the Church; and the Holy Spirit Himself is
said to inspire the alteration of the
Christian Faith to suit the conditions of
life in each given time and place. It is not
merely the case here that the Faith remains
essentially the same and that its accidental
forms are different. It is the position that
the very Faith itself can take overtly
contradictory forms in different times and
places, and that each generation of
Christians in different parts of the world
is called to refashion the faith and
practices of the Church to meet the "spirit
of the times."
The very Church of Christ's apostles, it is
asserted, created a form of Christian
doctrine and life different from that of
Jesus, in order to meet the needs and
aspirations of the first generation of
Jewish and Greek believers. Still more, in
the later ages, as the Church spread out to
encounter different peoples and cultures,
was the Christian Faith changed, and
necessarily and properly so, in order to be
relevant to the new and different conditions
and needs.
Since Christianity is considered to be
merely the assemblage of its many different
and contradictory historical and cultural
forms, the ecumenical movement is no longer
considered to be the common search for
truth, the long and patient attempt to
discover the human origins of division and
the divine means of union, making the
painful decision at each step of the
dialogue between what is
right, i.e. in
conformity with divine revelation and
Catholic Tradition, and what is
wrong, i.e. in
contradiction to the revelation of God and
the witness of the communion of the saints.
The ecumenical movement, then, becomes
rather an attempt to discover and to
manifest the minimum of Christian belief,
sometimes merely the non-denial of Christ on
the most superficial level, and to establish
this minimum agreement as the unity of the
Christian Church regardless of the many
differences and contradictions in doctrine
and practice of those who are considered to
be members of the Church. Thus the singular
task of ecumenism is to manifest the minimum
of unity which already exists among
Christians rather than to recover the
fullness of unity in God beyond all
contradictions which, according to the
Orthodox, has been lost.
In the present atmosphere of the ecumenical
movement, any discussion of the differences
which divide Christians and in fact disunite
them in their relationships with each other
and with the secular world, is considered to
be almost an anti-ecumenical action. All
essential differences must be passed over,
as if they were merely accidental variations
or harmless and inconsequential and even
enriching traditional diversities which have
always been welcome in the catholic
consciousness and character of the Church.
Thus, the defenders of the relativistic view
of ecumenism are very willing to allow any
Christian group or confession to retain its
own customs and traditions, its own
doctrines and practices, and even urge it to
do so, with the strict condition, however,
that its peculiarities are not given
universal value and are not set up as
conditions for Christian unity with those
outside of the given confession. Thus, for
example, the ecumenical relativists would be
the firm defenders of the right of the
Orthodox to preserve their Orthodoxy as long
as they do not make it an obstacle to
Christian unity, as the former understand
it.
B. The Danger of
Secularism
One major
root of the doctrinal relativism defined in
the preceding paragraphs is a tendency
prevailing in the thought of many Western
Christians during the past decade, which can
be described as secularism.
Secularistic Christianity and contemporary
ecumenism define themselves in terms of
unity through common activity in the affairs
of this world, in unified effort to
establish a "better world" of social
justice, prosperity and peace. Here it is
not merely the case that the defenders of
the secularist position consider that the
primary and essential task of the Christian
Church is to improve secular life through
direct political, social and economic
action, but that this very secular activity
will bring about the unity of Christians and
manifest the unity of the Church to the
world.
We reject the secularist view of ecumenism,
because any attempt on the part of the
Church to unite men in secularist policies
and actions is impossible, and from the
viewpoint of Orthodox Christianity,
unnecessary for Christian unity and the
unity of the Christian Church.
The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world
to unite all things in Himself and in His
eternal Kingdom. The Lord did not come to
the world to unite men in one or another
political or social ideology. He did not
take upon Himself the sins of the world,
being born of the Virgin and being crucified
upon the Cross, in order to unite men on any
secular basis, which is always and of
necessity bound to the fallen conditions of
this world, always and of necessity subject
in some measure to imperfection, falsehood
and sin.
To unite men in secular ideologies is to
unite them in the confusion and mixture of
good and evil, for everything that is of
this world is necessarily relative and
inevitably imperfect.
The Lord Jesus Christ has brought to the
world the Kingdom of God, which is "not of
this world." (John 18:36) The proclamation
of this Kingdom is the good news of the
Christian Gospel. Participation in this
Kingdom is the gift of God to His Church.
The Church of Christ exists in this world as
the witness and manifestation of the Kingdom
of God on earth, the Kingdom which is not of
this world. In the one Church of Christ
there is no imperfection, falsehood or sin.
To be united in the one Church of Christ is
to be one in God, one in that perfect,
divine reality, which is always and of
necessity absolutely and completely true,
holy, beautiful and good.
The Church of Christ exists in this world as
the presence of the Kingdom of God yet to
come, and does not exist in this world for
its relative improvement. It does not exist
to promote or defend one or another social,
political or economic ideology, policy or
program.
The clergy of the Church, according to the
Orthodox Tradition, are forbidden direct
action in the secular affairs of this world.
As persons consecrated to the Church and
wholly identified with its mission in the
world, the clergy renounce all participation
in the necessarily relative actions of this
fallen world. Where Christian clergy have
participated and continue to participate in
direct secular activity, they fall under the
judgment of the canons of the Church and the
witness of its prophets and saints.
Christian laymen who have secular
professions and responsibilities are obliged
by their Christian profession in baptism to
bear witness in the world to the perfection
of Christ and the Kingdom of God. They must
try by every possible means at their
disposal to build a better world and to
incarnate as fully as possible the things of
the Kingdom of heaven in the life of this
world. They must be fully aware of the
difficulties of their task, the inevitable
sufferings which they will endure, the
relative success they will achieve, and the
unavoidable differences which they will have
even among themselves concerning the best
possible policy and actions for Christians
to take in any given concrete situation.
We see in many ecumenical activities today,
not excluding those undertaken by official
ecumenical organizations and agencies, a
total violation of the traditional
principles of Christian involvement in the
life of the secular world. Not only is there
an attempt to unite Christians and to
manifest the unity of the Church through
secular actions, but there is also a
conscious choice of certain social,
political and economic policies and actions,
which, it is claimed, are the only ones
consistent with the Christian Faith. Not
only is this choice partisan and one-sided,
and inevitably so, but it is also not seldom
inspired much more by purely secular
ideologies, usually of a radical, leftist
variety, than by the Gospel of Christ and
the complete doctrine of the apostles and
prophets of the Christian scriptural
tradition.
This serious and alarming shift from the
Church and its unity to the world and its
problems constitutes in our eyes one of the
central elements of the crisis of the
ecumenical movement in our time. It is a
shift which we are compelled to judge and
reject as totally incompatible with the true
nature of Christian ecumenism, and indeed,
of the Christian Faith itself.
C. The Danger of False
Methods of Union
The
relativistic and secularistic trends
described above inevitably lead to improper
methods of ecumenical action and unity. In
both instances the conviction is expressed
that Church structures, as well as its
doctrines and moral ideals, are relative and
may be changed for any practical purpose,
since the sacramental, hierarchal order of
the Church dating from apostolic times is
not essential to the Christian Faith and the
unity of the Church. Thus, different
Christian confessions may be merged into
one, or may be considered as one without
formal organizational merger, with the
result of the creation of a new Church order
unknown to traditional Christianity. In this
view, the sacraments, and particularly the
Holy Eucharist, are not expressions of the
very being of the Church with a deep and
necessary relationship to the essential
order and structure of the Church, but are
simply devotional rituals or psychological
symbols which can create the impression of
unity, where it does not exist in reality.
We consider it our divine mission to reject
all false methods of Church union and to
insist that all doctrinal, ethical and
sacramental compromises which alter the
hierarchal order of the Church in and
through which the continuity and identity of
the Church of Christ is realized in space
and time, cannot possibly lead to the unity
of all men in Christ and cannot possibly
unite Christians in the one Church of God.
We further deny the possibility of fusing
the hierarchal and sacramental structure of
the Orthodox Church with a contradictory
form of Christian confession, and we
categorically reject the use of eucharistic
communion and sacramental "intercommunion"
as a means of achieving Christian unity.
According to the Orthodox Faith, the
sacraments and the liturgy of the Church,
most specifically the Holy Eucharist, cannot
be separated from the very being of the
Church, which they exist to manifest. The
sacraments are not devotions or
psychological symbols. They are the
manifestations of the essence of the Church
as the Kingdom of God on earth. Outside the
unity of faith in the one Church of Christ,
which cannot be divided, there can be no
sacramental communion and no liturgical
concelebration.
Formal liturgical worship which involves the
active participation of clergy and laity of
different confessions is contrary to the
canons of the Orthodox Church. Such
liturgical celebration can only create
confusion and scandal and serve to project a
false impression of the Christian Faith and
the nature of the unity which God has given
to men in His Church, both to the Christian
faithful and to the non-Christians of the
world. According to the Orthodox Faith, such
liturgical celebration is also a false
presentation of men before the heavenly
altar of God.
We repeat our deep and essential
disagreement with the recent trends in the
ecumenical movement mentioned above, which
we view as an attempt to transform ecumenism
itself into a kind of universal church,
uniting persons and groups on the basis of
its own conditions rather than on the basis
of the absolute, eternal and unchanging
conditions of the Gospel of Christ and the
Kingdom of God.
III. ORTHODOX PARTICIPATION IN THE
ECUMENICAL MOVEMENT
Before going
through His voluntary passion, our Lord
Jesus Christ prayed that "all may be one."
What is needed primarily to share in this
divine unity, offered by Christ to His
followers, is the personal conversion of
each man and woman to the Truth and a free
entry into the fold of His Holy Church.
However, it would certainly not be contrary
to the divine will if the various Christian
churches and confessions were to be drawn
gradually closer to each other, if they were
to overcome their estrangement and
eventually, led by the Spirit of Truth, if
they were all to be united in the One, Holy,
Catholic and Apostolic Church, which for us,
of course, is the Orthodox Church.
This progressive rapprochement between
divided Christians is what we properly call
the "ecumenical movement." The Orthodox
Church has taken part in it from the very
beginning, and, in spite of the mistakes
committed and the dangers constantly being
faced, we see no reason to question the
principles which made Orthodox participation
possible and desirable, providing very clear
and definite conditions were met.
A. Conditions for
Ecumenical Activity
We, the
bishops of the Orthodox Church in America,
welcome all positive relations between us,
our pastors and our people and non-Orthodox
Christians, and indeed, all believers and
all men of good will, wherever these
relations do not contradict the Orthodox
Faith.
The possibility of positive collaboration
with non-Orthodox Christians is founded in
the indisputable fact that, despite all the
differences which do exist between the
Orthodox Church and the other Christian
confessions, the non-Orthodox Christians
have preserved some doctrines and practices
which are compatible with those of the
Orthodox Christian Tradition.
We are convinced as well that there are
Christians who share our anxieties about the
trends in contemporary ecumenism, which we
consider to be wrong and dangerous, and who
share with us the conviction that genuine
Christian unity can be achieved only through
union in the truth and love of God in the
one Church of Christ.
In its ecumenical activity, the Orthodox
Church can have no other norm of judgment
than the Orthodox Christian Faith as
revealed by God, lived by the saints, and
recorded and testified to in the Holy
Scriptures and Tradition of the Church. On
this basis, there are at least two
fundamental norms which guide the Orthodox
in our relations with other men. In the
first place, we must deny what is wrong
wherever we find it. This means that we must
refuse to identify ourselves and our Church
with those elements in the non-Orthodox
communions which are contrary to the
Scriptures and Holy Tradition. In the second
place, we must take all that we find in the
non-Orthodox which conforms to the faith and
life of the Orthodox Church as the basis for
our positive meeting and cooperation. We
must recognize all those who have faith in
Christ and who have preserved elements of
Orthodox Christianity as our fellow
Christians and rejoice in that which we
share in common with them.
We do not know if the high and holy ideal of
organic Christian unity can be achieved by
Christians on this earth. This is a mystery
of God's mercy and grace and man's desire
and effort. We see the genuine ecumenical
movement as working toward this goal. We
also see that the achievement of Christian
unity, insofar as it depends on Orthodox
Christians, requires the preservation and
strengthening of the consensus of opinion
and action of the Orthodox in ecumenical
affairs. If we Orthodox Christians do not
maintain and develop the most perfect
unanimity possible in regard to the nature,
methods and goals of the ecumenical
movement, our participation will be
meaningless and fruitless, and will not only
be a grave disservice to Christians outside
the Orthodox Church, but will cause grave
difficulties within the Church as well, for
which we shall have to answer before
Almighty God.
B. Areas of Ecumenical
Cooperation
On the basis
of that which we hold in common with
non-Orthodox Christians, we offer the
following possibilities for common action.
All who believe in Christ can present a
common witness to faith in God and defend
this wherever it is threatened or denied.
All Christians can support the right of
believers to propagate their faith and to
conduct religious education and mission.
All Christians can coordinate their
possibilities and efforts in the work of
serving those in need of help and
assistance, and can join in with all men who
work for the good of others.
All Christians can be united in the
affirmation of the Christian ideal of the
human person as a creature made in the image
and likeness of God, and so can struggle
together against every inability and
unwillingness of men to distinguish between
right and wrong, defending the Christian
vision of life as witnessed in the New
Testament scriptures.
All Christians can also work together to
support among themselves the desire to
achieve true Christian unity in the truth
and love of God, providing an open
atmosphere in which all positions and
opinions can be freely expressed without
coercion or pressure of any kind.
We have the firm conviction that, as we
define the norms and goals of Orthodox
participation in the ecumenical movement, we
defend as well the proper way of ecumenical
action for all participants in the movement.
We sincerely believe that we fulfill our
ecumenical duty as well as our
responsibility as the episcopate of the
Orthodox Church in America by calling all
men to follow the way toward Christian union
and the unity of the Christian Church which
can be fruitful and can lead, by the grace
of God, to some positive results.
It is our desire to call men to the
authentic way of Christian ecumenism, since
we sincerely believe that the recent trends
in the ecumenical movement are harming all
the churches. Divisions are arising among
those who wish to recover the unity of the
Church through fidelity to the Gospel of
Christ and the Tradition of the saints, and
those who are willing to settle for a kind
of Christian unity in which it is possible
to find only a few impoverished remains of
the original life and teaching of the Church
of Christ. Because of this, we see
frustration and confusion among the
faithful, distrust, suspicions, animosity
and grief.
We call all men to see and to believe that
unity founded on any basis other than
Christ, the prophets, the apostles, the
fathers, the saints, and the councils of the
Church can only be a false union, which
necessarily transforms the "faith once
delivered to the saints" into a
relativistic, temporal phenomenon, one of
the many human philosophies and secular
ideologies destined to pass away with the
image of this world.
We call all men to walk with us the narrow
path of Christ and to follow an ecumenical
plan which, however slow and painful, alone
can draw men into the divine unity given by
God to His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic
Church: the unity of the untreated,
undivided Trinity.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ
Jesus the Lord, with ourselves as your
servants for Jesus' sake. For God Who
commanded the light to shine out of the
darkness, has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of
God in the face of Christ. But we have this
treasure in earthen vessels to show that the
excellency of the power belongs to God and
not to us. (II Corinthians 4:6-7)
To Him be glory always, now and ever, and
unto ages of ages. Amen.
+ IRENEY
Archbishop of New York Metropolitan of All
America and Canada
+ JOHN
Archbishop of Chicago and
Minneapolis
+ NIKON
Archbishop of Brooklyn
+
SYLVESTER
Archbishop of Montreal and Canada
+ VALERIAN
Archbishop of Detroit and Michigan
+ KIPRIAN
Archbishop of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania
+
THEODOSIUS
Bishop of Pittsburgh and West Virginia
+ DMITRI
Bishop of Hartford and New England
+ IOASAPH
Bishop of Edmonton
+ JOSE
Bishop of Mexico
+ HERMAN
Bishop of Wilkes-Barre
Signed in New York City
at the Sessions of the Holy Synod, March
20-31, 1973
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The terms
"ecumenism" and "ecumenical movement" are
used in this letter in their most
comprehensive sense. They refer to all forms
of activity directed to the reunion of
divided Christians in the one Church of
Christ. As such they include, but are not
limited to, the policies and actions of the
official ecumenical organizations such as
the World Council of Churches and the
National Council of the Churches of Christ
in the U.S.A.
