A harsh criticism of the Vatican and the person of the Pope was expressed by the Archbishop of Australia, fr. Stylianos, on account of a recent announcement by the Vatican, according to which, “the Catholic Church ensures the salvation of the faithful, because she is the one that was founded by Jesus Christ”.

 

    “To the recent, exceptionally unexpected and gravely offensive statements of the Vatican, regarding both the Orthodox as well as the other, non-Roman Catholic Christians, it may behoove my humble person to not respond, except with an eloquent silence”, said the Archbishop of Australia, who is also the Dean of the Apostle Andrew’s School of Theology.

 

    Of course, according to the Vatican the Orthodox Church may be an “authentic Church”, however it has a serious “imperfection”:  that it does not recognize “the primacy of Rome”; in other words, the Pope as “the representative of Christ on Earth”.  As for the Protestants, the text states that “they aren’t even a Church”, but merely a “religious community”.

 

Fr. Stylianos, who has served as head of the Orthodox delegation in the dialogue for the re-unification of the churches, stated:

 

“But because - following my 20-year, trying Chairmanship in the “Official Theological Dialogue” between Orthodox and Roman Catholics - I decided to voluntarily resign, in order to no longer have anything to do with such an ‘unsavory game’, I am obliged today to supplement whatever has been published up until recently, by stating only this, in brief:

“I would never have imagined that my humble judgments would be justified so quickly and so revealingly, regarding the person and the overall opus of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, both before his elevation to the Papal Throne, but also after his thereafter ‘metamorphosis’ into the most unreserved ‘Herald’ of Papism’s Medieval ‘inventions’.

I shall maintain my reservations, until after the fabled “Resumption of the Official Theological Dialogue”, at which time I shall revert more extensively on the rapidly developing ‘underground’ activities which – with supreme hypocrisy [support] the "hope-filled" endeavors of the 2^nd Vatican Synod on Ecclesiology and Ecumenism”.

           

    Journalist reports have mentioned that the Ecumenical Patriarchate has expressed concern over the timing of the Vatican’s text, given that the combined committee of Catholics and Orthodox is scheduled to convene in Ravenna, Italy, in the presence of the Ecumenical Patriarch, on precisely the controversial issue of the Pope’s primacy.

 

    The same sources mention that there are some in the Vatican who have hastened to predetermine the conclusions of the committee, thus seriously undermining the very dialogue itself.  And they did in fact do this, by using a theological text, the “Dominus Jesus” (Lord Jesus), which had been elaborated by Joseph Ratzinger in the year 2000, before his election as Pope.

 

    The announcement by the Archbishop of Australia contains trenchant innuendoes towards the Ecumenical Patriarchate as well, with regard to the ardor which it displayed towards the new Pope, when Stylianos himself was expressing his judgments…