Chapter 14  //  Contents

 

Ecumenism

CHAPTER 15.

Our duty


            We are undoubtedly living in a time of world-shaping changes. Events –which are now being directed– are racing along at an incredible rate. Ecumenism is evolving, within the levelling plans of the Globalization that is being imposed by powerful socio-political centers.  Nobody really believes any more that Ecumenism can offer a visible solution to the hope for Christian unity.

            As Orthodox Christians, we should neither float in the clouds, nor should we lack apprehension.  If we truly have a respect for peoples’ lives, if we truly ache for the people of the West, who have been tortured by their religious traditions, as well as for the people of the Orient, who are entrapped in demonic beliefs, we have a duty to remain focused in our Holy Church.  We have an obligation to preserve our paternal faith unadulterated, living it authentically in our daily struggle for personal sanctification and theosis.  The proper faith and a meticulous way of life will render us worthy witnesses of Orthodoxy and –why not?– worthy of martyrdom, if and when circumstances may demand it…

            The persistence in Orthodoxy - or in other words the veridicality of life - and the persistence in the Truth that liberates and saves, is not a form of egoism, fanaticism, or religious intolerance; it is an expression of the universal quality, the love and the philanthropy of the Orthodox Church. And it also comprises the ultimate potential that Orthodoxy can offer, for both a radical spiritual turnabout in the West, but also an outlet for the Orient, to escape from its captivity by false gods.

 

Chapter 14  //  Contents

Page created: 16-3-2006.

Last update: 16-3-2006.

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