AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH

Introduction by Dr. Kalomiros

This open letter appeared in the Greek religious periodical “The Three Hierarchs,” December, 1965, issue No.1 228, as an editorial. It was written especially for this issue by one of the most erudite of Greek churchmen, [Blessed] Archimandrite Epiphanios Theodoropoulos.

Your All-Holiness: For some years now the body of the Orthodox Church, the con­sciously religious body, stands as an anxious spectator before the Faith-endangering acrobatics of the First Bishop of Orthodoxy. In short, in order that we might avoid another kind of acrobatics, the behavior of you and some of your representatives toward the Pope and Papism casts the truly Orthodox children of the Church not only into unspeakable sorrow, but also into a terrible spiritual trial. You correspond with the Pope in every ecclesiastical matter as if we lived in the fifth century after Christ.

You subject yourself to the distresses of long journeys to meet him. You exchange with him tender embraces and brotherly kisses. You call him “First Bishop of Christendom,” and yourself second. You proclaim urbi et orbi that “no difference separates the two churches.” You pray with his representatives and conduct yourself toward them almost as you do toward Orthodox bishops.

You lift from the midst century-long excommunications which, even if they had been laid under the force of impressions from momentary events of unprecedented sharpness as a reaction to such events, nonetheless express the universal catholic mind of blameless and God-bearing Orthodoxy and they constituted nothing but a plain application, indeed much delayed, of the ordinances of the Canon Law of the Church which impose the expulsion from the God-constructed Fold of the “in­curable and diseased unto death” 1 sheep-that is, the heretics and corrupters of the Faith.

Your All-Holiness: Which of these things has happened? Has the Pope joined Ortho­doxy, or you the Papacy? If it is the first, proclaim it so that we may all joyfully celebrate and dance with one another. If the second, speak with sincerity and directness in order that we might make certain that along with the old, the new Rome is destroyed and has sunk into heresy. If none of these things has happened, but both you and the Pope remain each in his boundaries, then how are your actions to be explained? How is it possible for the heretical Pope to be the First Bishop of Christendom and you the second? When did our Church ever number the bishops of the heretics with Orthodox bishops? Are you using the language of dogmatic and canonical exactness, or of dissembling diplomatic hypocrisy? Are you a bishop or a diplomat? And further, how is it possible for the canonical penalties of the Church to be lifted when their object (heresy) not only continues to exist, but prosperously increases and is enlarged and exults in itself? Even if there existed no excom­munications against the Papists for their rash changes in the Faith, these would have to be pronounced today by common consent of all the Orthodox Churches, in compliance with the stated and clear orders of the Sacred Canons. How then and why, since they do exist, are they lifted?

Your All-Holiness: It is said that you act as you do in order that by befriending the worldly-powerful Vatican you might oppose to the Turkish threats, the splendor and power gained from its alliance, and thus be able to strengthen the violently threatened and shaken throne of the one-time reigning city. If this is true, you are both deceived and toil in vain. Do we have the alliance of God, your All-Holiness, yes or no? If yes, then “one shall pursue a thousand and two shall turn back ten thousand”; then even if billows should arise, or high seas, or the anger of the Turkish savages, they shall be for us less than a spider’s web; then “the desert places of Jordan shall blossom and rejoice in trees and be glad” [Is 35:2] and “the lame man shall leap as a hart and the tongue of the mute shall speak plainly,” [Is 35:6] then “know ye nations and be defeated, for God is with us.” [Is. 8:10] If no, then to what purpose do we “trust in princes, in the sons of men in whom there is no salvation”? [Ps. 145:3] Then, Your All-Holiness, the words of the prophet are applicable to us:

Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, who trust in horses and chariots because they are many, and in horses which are a great multitude; and have not trusted in the Holy One of Israel and have not sought the Lord. Therefore, He has wisely brought evils upon them, and His word shall not be set at naught; and He shall rise up against the houses of wicked men, and against their vain hope: which is the Egyptian, a man and not God, and in the flesh of horses in whom there is no help. But the Lord shall bring His hand upon them, and the helpers shall fail and shall perish together. (Isaiah 31: 1-3)

Your All-Holiness: It is ten thousand times more preferable for the historical throne of Constantinople to be uprooted and replanted on a barren island of the sea, or even to be sunk to the depths of the Bosphorus, rather than to deviate even the slightest from the golden way of the Fathers who with one voice cry: “There is no room for compromise in matters of the Orthodox Faith.” The seven lampstands of the Apo­calypse have been quenched from long before on account of our sins. Seven Apostolic churches, churches having the highest honor of receiving, these in particular, letters from heaven through the God­-inspired Seer of Patmos, have vanished from the face of the earth.2 And there where once were performed the awesome Mysteries and the Trinitarian hymn was chanted, today perhaps owls are hooting or “monsters dance there.” However, the Bride of the Lord has not died. The Church of Christ has not vanished. She continues her passage through the ages, wounded and bloody like her Founder, but ever-living and indomitable, enlightening, shedding warmth and life, and saving souls. She shall never die, therefore, even if the Ecumenical Throne should be moved or destroyed. Not a single Orthodox prays for the transfer or the destruction of the Ecumenical Throne. God forbid! But again not one will sacrifice for its sake one “jot or tittle” [Mt. 5:18; Lk. 16:17] from the Orthodox Faith.

Struggle for it with all your strength. You do not simply have the right; you are required to make secure your throne. Sacrifice for its sake anything whatsoever: money, possessions, honor, glory, valuable treasures, deacons, presbyters, bishops, and even Patriarch Athenagoras! One thing only retain, one thing guard, one thing spare, one thing sacrifice not: the Orthodox Faith. The Ecumenical Throne has value and usefulness only when it sheds abroad upon all the earth the sweet and unsetting light of Orthodoxy. Beacons are useful if and as long as they light the way for those who travel on the sea to avoid the reefs. When their light is extinguished, then they are not only useless, but harmful, for they are themselves transformed into hazards.

Your All-Holiness: Already you have advanced very far. Your feet have dipped in the Rubicon.3 The patience of thousands of pious souls, of clergy and laity, is progressively being exhausted. For the love of the Lord, turn back! Do not will to create schisms and divisions in the Church. You are attempting to unite the separated, and the only thing that you will accomplish will be to divide the united and to open fissures in grounds until today firm and solid. Come to your senses and awake! But alas, you have traveled far. Already “it is toward even­ing and the day is far spent.” [Lk. 24:29] How will you see the yawning abysses to which the path you are travelling soon leads? Might it be, O might it be, that He Who once “made the sun stand over against Gabaon and the moon over against the valley of Alion” [Joshua 10:12] would repeat the miracle and once again lengthen the day, would strengthen yet more its light and open your eyes, in order that you might see, un­derstand, and return.

With the deepest respect, THE THREE HIERARCHS

1. See also the Pentecostarion for the Sunday of the Holy Fathers, Matins, 4th of the Ainoi:When the holy Shepherds brought together all their pastoral science,
   and when they had stirred their most righteous anger now, justifiably,
   they drove out with the sling of the Holy Spirit the offensive and corruptive wolves,
   and from the complement of the Church of Christ they expelled them all,
   as having fallen mortally and as being ill and incurable.
   Thus they demonstrated themselves to be true servants of the Lord,
   and sacred mystics [initiates] of the divine preaching inspired by God.
   (Rendering by Fr. Seraphim Dedes)
2. These are the Apostolic Churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyateira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodieia, which were completely destroyed in the destruc­tion of Asia Minor in 1924, when all the Christians were expelled or massacred.
3. This refers to the incident in the life of Julius Caesar when he marched against Pompey. The Rubicon River was the border of the province he governed. By crossing the Rubicon Julius Caesar disavowed any opportunity he might have had to return to his own rightful province and thus openly declared his decision to march to Rome and there contest for power.