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VoL 5, No 1 |
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VoL 5, No 1 |
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Orthodox Christianity and the Spirit of Contemporary Ecumenism by Father Daniel Degyansky, Orthodox Church in America, for the Centre for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, Etna, California, 1996 |
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In an extraordinary series of meetings from May 10 to June 8, 1923, the
Ecumenical Patriarch, Meletios Metaxakis, an active Freemason, set out
the program by which change and modernization in the Church were to be
implemented. Though these meetings were styled a "Pan-Orthodox" Council,
only five bishops were in attendance! Among those absent from the Council
were representatives of the Patriarchates of Jerusalem and Alexandria,
and from the Church of Cyprus. Since he was a political appointee and not
duly elected, many of Metaxakis' own metropolitans did not recognize him
as a canonical Patriarch and therefore did not attend the meetings.
During the assemblies which Metaxakis convened, the following proposals for changes in the Orthodox Church were made:
In 1952, the "Metropolia," precursor of the O.C.A. (Orthodox Church in America), joined the World Council of Churches. Among the official delegates of the Metropolia was Protopresbyter Georges Florovsky who later left the jurisdiction of the Orthodox Church in America.
At the Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches held in New Delhi,
India in 1961, the representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate and the American
Metropolia (O.C.A.), the latter having become increasingly beset by a spirit
of modernization and apostasy, unofficially -- and with the tacit approval
and encouragement of the KGB and its dupes among the Russian representatives
to the World Council of Churches -- reestablished contacts and communications.
Another result of the Third Assembly in New Delhi, where Roman Catholic
observers were active in many deliberations, was the establishment of contacts
between the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox
Church -- greatly facilitated by the participation of the Metropolia (O.C.A.),
a church comprised of many church leaders from families that a generation
earlier had been part of the unia (union of former Orthodox Christians
with Rome).
At the Fourth General Assembly of the World Council of Churches held in
Uppsala, Sweden in 1968, the delegation representing the Russian Orthodox
Church under the leadership of Metropolitan Nikodem of Leningrad (now known
to be a KGB agent) met with representatives of the Metropolia. These unofficial
meetings produced a platform and procedure for negotiating the eventual
granting of autocephaly by the Russian Orthodox Church to the newly formed
O.C.A. (2)
The Seventh Assembly of the World Council of Churches met in February 1991 in Australia. Among those in attendance were Archbishop Peter of the O.C.A. and Archpriest Leonid Kihkovskv of the O.C.A., president of the National Council of Churches, USA. This assembly was virtually an assault on Christianity itself. Delegates openly equated paganism with Christianity; took part in services conducted by pagan witch doctors; and declared that Christianity was but one of many paths to God. The representatives of the O.C.A. and other modernist groups have been relatively quiet about the blasphemous acts of the assembly, which clearly demonstrated the depravity of the modem ecumenical movement. (3) The late Archpriest John Meyendorff, a well known spokesman for Orthodoxy in America, dismisses the Canons which forbid joint prayer with heretics as archaic and no longer applicable to the Church. Thus individual responsibility for wrong belief becomes an inessential part of Christian confession a novel idea indeed! One wonders how the author of the above is able to remain in the Orthodox Church in America!
Sincerely,
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