Chapter 5  //  Contents  //  Chapter 7

 

Ecumenism

CHAPTER 6.

What do the Orthodox Ecumenists have to tell us?


An Orthodox hierarch had proclaimed that “the Holy Spirit prevails during each and every Christian baptism” and that the re-baptizing of heterodox Christians by the Orthodox is inspired by “narrow-mindedness, fanaticism and religious intolerance….it is an injustice towards the Christian baptism and indeed a blaspheming of the Holy Spirit”[i]!

            Another hierarch had claimed to certain heterodox that:  “We are all members of Christ; the one and only body, the one and only “new creation”, since our common baptism has freed us from death”[ii].

            Ecumenist ecclesiology was also expressed by Orthodox lips, in the following way:  “It is our duty to be prepared to acknowledge the presence of the Church, even beyond our own canonical boundaries, to which we attribute the one, holy, catholic (overall) and apostolic Church.[iii].

            But there are some other, even bolder ones, who have envisioned the “re-founding” of the Church, through the unification of all Christians.  An Orthodox hierarch asserted that: “we are in need of a new Christianity, which will be based entirely on new perceptions and terms. We cannot preach the religion that we received, to the coming generations”[iv].



[i] Mag. «Illuminator», Summer 1995, Pittsburgh, USA.

[ii] Mag. «Åðßóêåøéò», No. 370, p. 9, Geneva 1987.

[iii] Mag. «Åðßóêåøéò», No. 260, ó. 13-14, Geneva 1981.

[iv] News Paper of Athens «Åóôßá», 5-10-1967.

 

Chapter 5  //  Contents  //  Chapter 7

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Last update: 16-3-2006.

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