Firstly, here is a quote from Asia News, a Roman Catholic source.
Metropolitan Ioannis Zizioulas of Pergamon, an eminent Orthodox theologian, spoke with Asia News about the difficult ecumenical path with the Russian Orthodox Church. This comes just a day after a representative of the Moscow Patriarchate advised Orthodox believers not to pray with members of other Christian confessions.
“In the Eastern Church, especially in the Russian Church, there is a degree of insularity that leads to conservatism. There is an inability to face the challenges of the modern world, with tradition as an excuse”, Metropolitan Ioannis said.
The prelate, who accompanied Patriarch Bartholomew to Rome where he met Benedict XVI today, said that “the true value of tradition is only reached when we can reshape our tradition. Tradition as the Christian Church’s message does not mean doing nothing; instead it contains truth’s momentum and does not fear the challenge of the contemporary world”.
In Ravenna (Italy) last October, the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church resumed its work even though there were no representatives from the Moscow Patriarchate. The latter chose not to attend because of the presence of representatives of the Estonian Orthodox Church which Moscow does not recognise.
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=11703&size=A (in English)
What utter rubbish! It is time for all responsible Orthodox Christians to pour a bucket of ice-cold water over the Romans who are celebrating over such news. The papists truly believe that we are on the verge of a modus vivendi with them, and that we are going to recognise the Pope of Rome as the infallible head of the Church. I advise all Catholics who are expecting such not to hold their breath. I should say at this point that I have no animus towards Roman Catholics, they are what they are, but, they are emphatically NOT Orthodox.
Let us speak some homely truths here to dispel all of the hot air of the intellectuals. The Moscow Patriarchate (MP) alone has some 70 percent of all Orthodox Christians in the world under its omophor. That is, if you do not talk to the MP, you are talking to a definite minority of Orthodox. The Ecumenical Patriarchate only has some 10,000 faithful on its legitimate canonical territory, which today is practically confined to Turkey. In comparison, the MP has over 140 million faithful over the world. All EP “jurisdictions” outside of Turkey are illegitimate intrusions into the canonical territory of one or another local Orthodox church (with the possible exception of the Greek diaspora in Western Europe, which would prefer to be under the Church of Greece instead). The EP lacks faithful, money, and influence in the Orthodox world, and it is looking to the Vatican to boost its efforts to attack the MP wherever it can (one can see this in the EP interference in Latvia, Estonia, and the Ukraine, where EP splinter bodies are in rebellion against the predominant canonical MP churches there).
Asia News does not have the decency to say that it is attacking Fr Vsevolod Chaplin by name. No doubt, I shall see some well-chosen and pointed words from Fr Vsevolod in the Russian press on Monday. I confess! I am ANXIOUS to see how he devastates the popinjay Mr Zizoulas and his Vatican paymasters. All of us with knowledge of the Church in Russia have heard of Fr Vsevolod, and his brilliant wit and talent for mordant and biting satire is well-known (I am thinking of his “The Ten Commandments of Post-Christian Paganism”. They are not only starkly true, they are drop-dead funny!).
Not only is he sneakily attacking Fr Vsevolod using his Roman allies as a shield, one can see that Mr Zizoulas does not even paint a semi-accurate picture of the MP. In the words of Asia News, “There is an inability to face the challenges of the modern world, with tradition as an excuse”, Metropolitan Ioannis said. This is not true. Metropolitan Kirill’s speech to the recent Christmas Readings was an emphatic embrace of the challenges the Church faces in the modern world.
I would mention Fr Sergei Rybko in Bibirovo (near Moscow), who is a great pastor and missionary who runs a popular rock-club as part of his parish outreach. Last Easter, the punk-rockers and bikers were a prominent part of the service (the babas loved it, by the way). There are priests in the Urals who have a rock band with their bishop’s blessing. Another priest is doing outreach work with bikers in Yaroslavl. Yet another priest jumps with the VDV (Airborne Troops). There are clergy running internet sites, others use the latest communications technology, and Archbishop Vikenty of Yekaterinburg bought a TV station.
Last, but certainly not least, is Fr Andrei Kuraev, the greatest contemporary Orthodox preacher (he also teaches at the MTA, by the way), who commonly preaches at rock concerts and other such modern venues. You’ve got to love a deacon who says, “Orthodoxy is fine music made in the conservatoire. Protestantism is low music from the honky-tonk bars. No one who knows the former shall be fooled by the latter”. In short, the accusation of Mr Zizoulas does not stick, for it is false. In fact, it is the EP that refuses to address the REAL contemporary world and its problems.
Mr Zizoulas is a Renovationist who resents the fact that the MP is the fastest-growing body in the Orthodox world; yet, the MP does not water down the faith or compromise its principles to win a shallow popularity. In the words of Mr Zizoulas, “the true value of tradition is only reached when we can reshape our tradition. Tradition as the Christian Church’s message does not mean doing nothing; instead it contains truth’s momentum and does not fear the challenge of the contemporary world”.
How can it be tradition if it is no longer what it was in the past? This is the sort of incoherent nonsense spouted by pseudo-intellectuals with no grounding in the traditional knowledge of the Church. I say, “Look at results”. The MP is growing; it is adding thousands of new parishes and hundreds of monasteries every year to its total. The EP is shrinking; it is not clear whether the EP shall soon have any Orthodox faithful left on its canonical territory. In short, we can discern the good tree from the bad tree. In the worlds of our Lord Christ, For a good tree does not bear bad fruit. The converse is also true. If the EP is shrinking, and the MP is growing, that is a clear sign of who God favours. There are less faithful on the canonical territory of the EP than there is in any single diocese of the MP.
If the so-called Theological Commission continues its work without the MP, it is moot. The Romans could entice all the rest of Orthodoxy into Uniatism (which shall not happen, in any case) and they would have less than one-third of Orthodoxy in subjection to the Pope of Rome. Moscow and the Mountain would stand firm. Serbia shall stand firm. Indeed, I believe that if any Orthodox hierarch dared to submit to Rome, his faithful would decamp in short order, and ask the MP to consecrate new bishops for them, which Moscow would do in an instant (natives, of course, not Russians). The only possible exception would be the EP, for it has no real flock to revolt. I know what one Greek friend of mine said! He said, “If the patriarch kisses the pope’s ***, I go to the Russians!” That is how virtually all real Greeks feel, save for a small group of intellectuals and opportunists.
In short, this may be the opening salvo in the coming war between the EP and MP over leadership in world Orthodoxy. I advise you to bet on the favourite… it does usually win, you know. The end of the EP is only a matter of time. When shall Bartholomew submit to Rome? The sooner, the better, I say (good riddance to bad rubbish, and all that too!).
Vara Drezhlo
Sunday 9 March 2008
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