This work is not based on empty inferences.
In Italy there are many articles of Zizioulas translated and publicized and also some book.
In Greece there are differents works of Zizioulas publicized. Recently Zizioulas has participated to a conference in Italy and he has spoken in manner absolutely catholic!
All this more the comments of some orthodox teologian from Romania, France and Greece  have pushed us to take this clear position. We must do this because there are orthodox countries where the Zizioulas' theology is beginning to create big problems to the same Orthodoxy creating lacerations and sufferings.
We hope that a day our readership, reading some work of Zizioulas and compares it with the thought of orthodox authors they will see that our writing is real!

Ιn full sincerity, we have to distance ourselves completely from and express our disavowal of the "orthodox" theologian Ioannis Zizioulas. After having studied his recent "theology", we are now utterly convinced his thinking thoroughly distorts and misrepresents Orthodoxy. Here are some points, which clearly vindicate our contentions:

1.          For Zizioulas the true "problem of ecumenicity"" seems to be an issue of structures or functions like, for example, that of the papacy. The fact that there is no papacy in Eastern Christendom pushes Zizioulas to search for substitutes because he presumes the papacy as an unreservedly acceptable and necessary principle underlying the foundations of all Christian Churches. In truth, the absence of the function of the papacy poses no problem to Orthodoxy. For a millennium, the Pope had been the first amongst the orthodox Patriarchs and nobody had felt such a thing was strange or alien to Orthodoxy. The true problem of ecumenicity is quite another: Orthodoxy cannot recognize in any Western form of Church life the Orthodox Way of life. Orthodoxy finds, instead, the single mentality of western Church life that pervades all kinds of Christian activities in Western Christendom to be far away from that Orthodox Way. In such a context, the papacy itself is a mere consequence of the absence of the Orthodox Way of life. Zizioulas appears unable to discern this clear-cut difference.

2.          The Orthodox Way of life does not imply uniformity. We see a legitimate diversity prevailing in customary issues amongst all Orthodox Churches. The Orthodox Way of life appears to have a common base: the common faith, the common life under the uncreated Grace of God and not according to the wisdom of this world, the taste and experience of the uncreated gifts of God which offer true guidelines to human life in all its aspects. All these escape to a great extend western Christianity even to the point to feeling free to substitute typically human sentiments or securities for the uncreated gifts of God! This explains why orthodox people cannot help defining western Christianity as "Arian".

3.          As Zizioulas overlooks this serious problem, his perspective of ecumenicity becomes irreparably defective. His failure is comparable to someone's attempting to join in wedlock a man and a woman with characters so far apart that they cannot stand each other; nevertheless, he imperturbably discusses the organization of their household and their accommodation details, such as where to place their bedroom, etc. Such a discussion is truly illusory and abstract and aims at deceiving its listeners. Such a discussion makes the listeners believe that, in fact, no substantial difference between Western Christianity and Orthodoxy did ever exist! What would Catholics and Protestants think of Zizioulas once they discovered that his account consisted of academic theories without any real and concrete foundations in history?

4.          By doing so, Zizioulas demonstrates a much greater love for himself that for the catholic world because he is obviously trying to gain support and approval of his own importance by choosing to speak the language the Catholics find to be music to their ears. If he did love the catholic world or the Reformed Christians, he would have duly the courage to unmask in front of them the false securities, which surround them. Once upon a time, the prophets did this same thing to the Israelites when the latter would not follow the ways of God, but those stemming from mere human wisdom.

Moreover, one can detect in Zizioulas' s thought some considerable theological anomalies that either verge on or, to some point, identify with heresy. In fact, he is greatly indebted to it, at least in the following instances:

1.          Regarding a supposed correlative between the intimate life of the Trinity and the Church. Zizioulas asserts: "since the Trinity is communion, the Church must be communion too". This and similar parallelisms imply a primordial principle of analogy between created and uncreated reality (analogia entis), which is strictly forbidden in patristic theology. According to the Holy Fathers 's teaching, there is no analogy whatsoever between the created world and the uncreated Trinity! In fact, we can say nothing about the life of the Trinity, save that the Father generates, the Son is generated and the Spirit proceeds from the Father. We cannot "put our nose in the Trinity", as saint Gregory the Theologian said!

2.           Zizioulas associates the concept of "communion" with that of "relation". Hence, for Zizioulas, a person in relation is a person in communion. This principle is born from personalistic philosophy and is contrary to the definition of the person the Fathers repeatedly cite in their writings. For them the Persons of the Trinity represent three "distinctions" within the Trinity, not three "relations" of the Trinity with Its own Self! Zizioulas does not consider this and he applies his philosophical principle of the person equally to both: the Trinity and all created human beings! Thus, his absolute philosophical principle renders incomprehensible and anomalous every human person, who is not in constant communion with other persons such as hermits, precisely because they are not "in relation" with the world! Consequently, Zizioulas promulgates a philosophical and sociological concept of the Church whereby each traditional element is reshaped according to this mentality or, if it cannot be reshaped, then it is abolished! Because of his Procrustean theological method, authorities such as saint Gregory Palamas or saint Maximos the Confessor create serious problems to his "theological system" and, therefore, he never quotes the former and the latter is quoted rarely!

3.           On the other hand, Zizioulas owes his theological formation to authors like Henry De Lubac. There are very many similarities between the two, there is even an Oxford thesis examining their striking similarities, a sign that Zizioulas has assumed many theological elements from the catholic theologian De Lubac, and assimilated them to his thinking thus becoming himself a thoroughly catholic theologian. The same concept of "Church - Eucharist" is also found in the Russian theologian Afanasieff, but it is typically western. As the East emphasizes the life in the Spirit and the acquisition of the Holy Spirit (see saint Seraphim of Sarov) so the West emphasizes the Eucharist. Between the two emphases lies the huge difference in theological mentalities, which separate the two traditions. In the case of Orthodoxy, one discerns the freedom of man and the prominence of the Presence of God; in Western Christianity prominent is the human initiative in "achieving", "possessing" and "consuming" the Eucharist. As the Romanian theologian Dumitru Popescu has noticed: "By emphasizing the Eucharist in the typical manner pertaining to catholic theologians, Zizioulas has removed the vertical dimension of the Church and rendered the Eucharist from a means into an end in itself". No wonder then, in the light of such startling similarities, that a profound sympathy has developed between Zizioulas and the catholic world, wherein, out of mutual responsiveness, Zizioulas' s writings are constantly published and celebrated as expressive of the true spirit of Catholicism, as perceived by an "orthodox", recently rehabilitated into the catholic faith!

These remarks are meant to inform our readership. We are not against dialogue, nor against sincere and open comparisons. We believe, however, that comparisons must only show respectively the real positions of what orthodox and catholic Christians truly believe or experience. Only by doing so theologians are truly representative of their traditions; otherwise, they end up to representing only their own individuality of thought and they speak only for the sake of pleasing their friends' ears.

But in the present case, our "theologian" has betrayed his listeners twice: a) by denying them understanding of what his tradition truly stands for and b) by snatching from them unjustifiable esteem and honours for improper "services" he has falsely rendered to them ...;

In addition, out of respect for the Catholic and the Reformed world we must state that Zizioulas' s theological style and argumentation can be proven deceitful, as he often stands too far from the truth. This man' s individual thinking in no way represents the orthodox traditional theology but only personal and, at times, peculiar theological aspects having nothing to do with the common experience shared and faithfully practised by the great majority of orthodox believers down the Christian centuries.

The editorial staff of the Magazine "Italia Ortodossa"

(θα ακολυθήσει και ελληνική μετάφραση του κειμένους)

Το 1998,δυό χρόνια αφότου έγινε ορθόδοξος (από επισκοπαλιανός) και ένα χρόνο μετά το διαζύγιο του από την ελληνικής καταγωγής σύζυγο του. ο Μichael Huffington   ανακοίνωσε δημοσίως την αμφιφυλοφιλία του.

Από το 2005 χρηματοδοτεί ένα πρόγραμμα για LGBT  (Lesbian,Gay,Bisexual,Transgender)  φοιτητές στο πανεπιστήμιο τού Στάνφορντ.

Aπό το 2007 (μετά το συλλείτουργο Πατριάρχη Πάπα στο Φανάρι,τον Νοέμβριο του 2006)  χρηματοδοτεί ειδικό ινστιτούτο  που φέρει το όνομα του ,  στο Ιησουιτικό Loyola Marymount University, και το οποίο προωθεί την μεταμοντέρνα ψευδένωση Φαναρίου -Βατικανού.

Tην πενταετία 2007-2012 διέθεσε 5 εκτομμυρια δολλάρια για την προώθηση του οικουμενισμού μέσω του συγκεκριμένου ιδρύματος.

Έίναι ο παραγωγός του ντοκυμαντέρ Bi the way τo 2008

Άξιος ο μισθός του !Να τον χαίρεται η αρχιεπισκοπή Αμερικής και οι Φαναριώτες προϊστάμενοι της.

Audiobooks:

Father Arseny

Gospel Commentary of Blessed Theophylact

Practical Teaching on the Christian Life - Abba Dorotheos

On the Prayer of Jesus - St. Ignatius Brianchaninov

I Confess One Baptism - Fr. George D. Metallinos

The Art of Prayer

IF we separate any of these virtues from Christ they are not only meaningless, they are accursed. Love without Christ is meaningless, Faith without Christ is Godlessness, and Works without Christ, according to Saint Paul, are sinful. Without Truth there is no Love, because both Truth and Love proceed from God. Many people today are searching for love without Christ, for truth without Christ; in other words they have isolated these two uncreated energies of God from their Source. The result is an anthropocentric love: the attempt to promote love among all people regardless of faith, dogma, regardless of religious background. This is a trap, so in our need to avoid conflicts between people of different religions we begin dialogues of love patronizing other faiths compel to show our respect for other peoples' faiths, as some of our Church leaders want to teach us. So very suddenly we find ourselves in the super-heresy of ecumenism, one of the greatest plagues of our Church. This ecumenistic and sick love plagued the church in the 60s when our patriarch was romancing a love without bounds, not in the name of Truth, casting aside dogmas, canons, and Rcumenical synods. This sinister ecumenistic movement, which suggests that not a single one religion has the absolute Truth, but all religions have part of the truth, is a brain child of the "branch theory," a very blasphemous theory. Some day we will devote an entire program to this great menace of the Orthodox Church. The bitter truth is that the ecumenists control most of the posts of the Orthodox Church of the West. My friends I read a great deal of books on the Orthodox faith in both languages, and the differences are tremendous. The writers and publishers of Orthodox America, most of them Greek Orthodox are, singing a different tune than the contemporary fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Romania, Greece, Serbia and Russia. The other day I was visiting a Sunday school class and I happened to glance at the textbook that the teacher was using. The writer and publisher is a highly revered priest of Orthodoxy in America, and what I read on page 75 of this red book made me grieve deeply. So I quote, "So we respect the non-Christian religions, in essence Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, etc., for the truth we find in themfor whenever there is truth, it has come from God. And the father quotes E. Stanley, Jones: "I am convinced that while there are truths in all faiths, only Jesus is the Truth." My friends, these teachings are treacherous, having been derived by Protestant ecumenistic thought. The publisher makes every effect to include a barrage of examples and role models in his red book from the Protestant world and from time to time he will quote from Church fathers and saints. The Jones, and Kings, and Dobsons, and the Eckharts are probably very nice people, but they are not Orthodox and certainly not saints. Traditional Orthodox theologians quote from St. John the Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Gregory Palamas, St. Anthony, Arethas, St. Ephraim the Syrian, St. Isaac the Syrian, the apostles and our Lord. So let's see what our contemporary Church fathers and our holy apostles say about this type of thing. St. John in his second epistle teaches that anyone that goes ahead and does not abide in Christ has no God. St. Paul had to exercise the demonic spirit in the slave girl, in the medium girl of Thessalonica (Acts 16:16) even though, the evil spirit was telling the truth. The evil spirit, though the medium girl, was constantly repeating, "These men are servants of the most high." St. Paul did not respect his true teaching because its source was evil. St. James in his epistle reinforces that, and he says the demons believe in the true God and they tremble. But we certainly do not respect some of the "truths" that are found in the satanic cults and devil worshippers because their source is not from God. We do not respect any of the other religions because their father is the devil. We simply respect people as creations of God and we love them and we pray for them and we pray that they come to the Truth. And before I get many of our listeners upset, let me quote our Lord Jesus Christ in the second chapter of the book of the Revelation. "I know the slander of those that say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan," which would mean that these people did not accept the truth about Christ. See how much respect our Lord shows for them? Christ actually loves the people but does not respect their religion. And now, I quote one of the contemporary pillars of Orthodoxy, a highly revered father in the Orthodox Eastern bloc, who reached great levels of holiness: Father Justino Popovi . And I translate, "Wherever Christ is absent, everything turns into a curse, bitterness, and terror."He uses this verse from the Psalms. "I only want you, my sweetest Christ, I don't want death without you, and I don't want life without You. The truth, if it is not Christ, it is useless to me, it is only hell. Even God without Christ is hell. I don't want the truth without Christ; I don't righteousness without Christ, nor love without Christ, nor God without Christ."The holy father is simply quoting scripture! His writings have been condemned as being harsh, but he is simply quoting Saint John and Saint Paul. My friends I know that a lot of our listeners may not accept some of these teachings, but this is the gospel truth. Ecumenists will find our message harsh, narrow-minded, and possibly judgmental. The ecumenistic movement has flourished here in the west in the last fifty to sixty years thanks to certain Church leaders. Just a simple observation: where are the saints of our modern day ecumenistic Orthodox American Church? Where are all the holy ones of America? The holy ones are to be found in the older countries of Orthodoxy who have fought ecumenism tooth and nail. Holy fathers such as Justino Popovi of Serbia, St. John of Romania at the monastery of St. George the Chozibite , with his body intact in Jerusalem; father Cleopa Elia, father Demetrius Staniloa, and father Chrysostom Apostolaki, father Paisios Olarou of Romania, Saint Savas of Calimnos, Saint Arsenios of Farissa, father Nicholas Planas, father Gervasios Paraskavopolous, father Philotheos Zervakos, father Joel Gianakopoulos, father Amphilochios Makris, father Demetrios Gagasthasis, father Porphyrios of Soulati, and father Iakavos of Osseos David, father Haralambos Vasilopolous, father Paisios of the Holy Mountain, and father Epiphanios Theodoropolous, and many more that only God knows. I must confess, and I know that I'm speaking like a fool, but having spent quite some time with their writings and life stories, they generally disagreed and disagreed sharply and fought heavily against the ecumenical movement looking at it as the greatest threat to the Truth and a forerunner of the antichrist. And they are known by the Truth Himself. All of our above saints reached holiness reached holiness by fearing and loving God at the same time. They also loved the Church of God and they had the wisdom to follow the Church and leave its traditions and canons intactleave them the way they found them. They truly believed that the eternal Orthodox Church had the power to change them into saints where the modern ecumenists believe that it is up to them to change the Church in order to save it and preserve it making it comparable to the other denominationsa crime that will not go unnoticed on that day. The Orthodox Church is the only true Body of Christ, and since there is no truth or love or righteousness outside of Christ, true holiness and true theosis can only be attained by the true believers of the Orthodox Church who hold on to the traditions that were past down either by scripture or by word of mouth.

-Constantine Zalalas

Περισσότερα

Eulogy in Memory of the Blessed Fr. Justin

by Hieromonk [now Metropolitan] Amfilohije (Radovic)

‘His repute as a universal Father and Teacher of the Church, who cleaved unremittingly to the Cross of his witness and who bore the marks of Christ, transcended the boundaries of Serbia and spread to the whole world’; ‘Fr. Justin did not speak as an individual, but as the mouth of the Church; he expressed the conscience of the Church, the Faith of the Church’; ‘The preaching of Fr. Justin is a continuation of the preaching of the Holy Fathers of our Church and especially of the last great Father, St. Gregory Palamas.’*

Recently writing an article, a famous contemporary writer and monk from Mt. Athos began with the following words:."A man was sent by God. His name was Justin." And here, that man who was sent by God, who was sent to this holy place, who was sent to our nation, who was sent to the Orthodox Church, that holy man now lies before us. He was born in 1894, on the Feast of the Annunciation. on a Friday at twelve o'clockhe told me that at midnight before his death. He died on the Feast of the Annunciation, two days ago, a little more than an hour after the hour of his birth. Like a prayer rope, the days of his life were told between the Archangel's greeting: "Rejoice, thou that art full of grace, the Lord is with thee!" And again, within that same Archangel's greeting "Rejoice, thou that art full of grace, the Lord is with thee!"

This holy man who lies before us in death spent eighty-five years on earth. All of those eighty-five years of his life he gave as a gift to the last; he really was a glad tiding, a glad tiding eternally new, which is heard and has lasted already for thousands of years. He was one of the numerous, true witnesses to the Annunciation. He bore witness in his word, in his life, and even in his birth; and he bore witness also in his death.

Father Justin was a descendant of a clerical family, the last offspring of a clerical root which has provided us with priests through the generations. Holy fruits sprout from a holy root. Blessed are the generations and the roots which end bearing such fruit as was Father Justin! He was born in Vranje, at the crossroads of nations and spiritual influences. From his childhood he was imbued with reverence and piety, thanks to his mother, Anastasija, and his father, Spiridon. By the recollection of his schoolmates, he also was deeply committed to religion and piety from his early childhood. That this really was so, is testified by the fact of his acceptance into the holy monastic ranks during the most difficult days of Serbian history. When the Serbian King was passing through Albania with his army and climbed Golgotha, when an entire nation climbed Golgotha, at that time, young Blagoje, as he was named, took his monastic vows somewhere around Skadar (Scutari). From there, Metropolitan Dimitrije of Serbia sent him with a group of gifted young men to study in Russia. The wise and far-sighted Dimitrije considered the future of the nation and Church. The young and gifted monk Justin was inspired in Russia by the great piety of the Russian people. Although he spent a short time in Russia, that sojourn left a deep imprint on his entire life. Dark clouds gathered over the vast Russian land at that time and the bloody Revolution began a demonic game over the body of the suffering Russian people. Therefore, he had to leave Russia and went to England, where he continued his studies. He completed his studies at the University of Athens, where he received a doctorate in theology on the subject of the Holy Fathers, authoring one of the best studies on St. Macarius of Egypt.

Father Justin, already teaching at the time at the Seminary of Karlovac, left a profound impression through his presence. And not only at the Seminary of Karlovac, but at every place where Father Justin appeared, lived and worked, he created waves; his straightforward stand and fiery nature stirred up the sea of bleak, everyday events. This happened in Karlovac, and the same happened when he was moved to Prizren, then to the Seminary of Bitolj, and when he was sent to Carpatho-Russia; this happened also when he became a professor at the School of Theology in Belgrade, and when, in 1945, he was forced to wander through Serbian monasteries. All of these stormy events of his life, which were filled with his exceptional accomplishments and untiring labors, were used by God for His purposes and the realization of His intentions, in spite of men's shortsighted malice and petty passions. Finally, Father Justin found rest in this holy family, Celije Monastery. He did so, intending not to leave it again.

Father Justin was and will remain an exceptional personality, and his uniqueness is evident in his entire life and work. He was a poet. One has only to read his essay, "The Doe in Paradise Lost," to feel that this work, as many other similar works, belong to the the best of Serbian literature. The manner and style in which he wrote his works on Dogmatic Theology, honoring his beloved John Chrysostom, St. Sava and St. Peter of Cetinje, the language of his many translations,all of these attest and demonstrate that with his work he continued the marvelous and elevated, divinely inspired poetry; of the Orthodox Church initiated by Cosmas of Maiuma, St. John Damascene and completed by another great son of this place and region, the holy Bishop Nikolai (Velimirovich).

Father Justin was a philosopher in the true sense of the word. That is why he probably chose the name of Justin the Philosopher, a martyr, and strived all his life to emulate him, both in philosophy and martyrdom. He was one of the founders of the Serbian Philosophical Society (193, together with Misa Djuric, Brana Petronijevic, Slankamenac and others of our contemporary and most eminent thinkers. However, his philosophy was not philosophy according to human understanding. That is what makes the peculiarity of Father Justin’s personality still more exceptional. .Nobody in the history of this people so deeply felt, sang and described the wondrous Divine Word of God, the God-man Christ, who was incarnate of the most holy Mother and Holy Spirit for the salvation of mankind. In all of his works, in all of his prayers, in all of his sighs, in a wordwith his entire life, Father Justin strove to sing, to express, to describe with words the indescribable image of Christ, to express his own volcanic love for the God-man Christ. Every one of his thoughts began and ended with the God-man Christ. And not only words and thoughts, but for Father Justin every flower had the fragrance of the God-man Christ, and the eternal Word of God. Each heavenly star was a wondrous witness and some wondrous expression of that immemorial, eternal Word of God, Who became the Word by accepting a human body. Every ripple of a brook and whisper of a leaf were a testimony and some secret symbol of the wondrous presence of the Word of God in the world. From such feeling and divinely inspired knowledge was born his profound concept of the wisdom of all creation, a concept based on the teachings of the ancient apologists. Everything that exists is also a reflection, a wondrous icon of the Word of God. The entire creation did not sprout from illogic, it does not lead to illogic, it is not based on unintelligence and illogic. It sprouted forth from eternal logic and is based and proceeds towards eternal logic, eternal literacy, the eternal Word of God Who, when the fullness of time had come, received a human body from His most holy Mother Mary.

Somebody might say that Father Justin repeats himself when talking about Christ in his works. Yet, his repetition is the talk of a baby to its beloved mother; his repetition is the repetition of love: as much as we love someone, we repeat more often the words of our love, and it will never bore us to repeat at every moment and continuously the same words. Thus, for Father Justin it did not become boring to repeat the name of the Lord God and his and our salvation, to pour forth before Him his own sorrow and his joy, to offer his love as a fragrant sacrifice, and through it, his entire being.

Why did Father Justin emphasize so often the personality of the God-man Christ? Because more than anybody else in our time, except for his teacher Bishop Nikolai, he felt that all of European culture is rushing into a horrible blind alley; that it is returning to ancient polytheism and idolatry simply by overlooking, forgetting and banning from this universe and from the human heart, human culture and history, from the life of human society, the only true God and true man, the only true Lord and Savior, the only eternal Word of God. He felt and attested, as nobody before him among us, that the Word of God, through His creative act and His incarnation, united in Himself the divine and human; that He is the true God and true man; that He united within Himself all worlds; that He is the First and the Last; that everything leads and rushes toward Him, and that everything grows toward Him until it grows to the heights of Christuntil everything that exists reaches its fullness, until everything achieves its fullness in Christ the God-man. Sensing that frightening danger which overshadows all of European civilization because of the fight against Christ's Spirit, he continuously put forward and underscored the importance of Christ's image for the history of man, for the past, for the present, for the future.

From this place where I am standing, Father Justin, like a new prophet Jeremiah, for thirty years sent messages to his people, and not to his people only. Perhaps what he told them and what he preached here was not always sufficiently clear to the nuns who lived here. This is no wonder. For while Father Justin was speaking to them, he was speaking to the entire nation, all of Europe, and the entire contemporary world. His word was never an empty word, nor was his idea a consumptive one. This is also one of the great gifts which he has bequeathed to our theological thought, animating it again; this is the gift with which he endowed the School of Theology, in whose name I am bidding him farewell at this moment. Father Justin was not an ice-cold man, neither in word, or thought, or life. Everything in him was fiery. This is why he named the Dogmatics "The Orthodox Philosophy of Truth." Truth was for him the same as life; this is why, when he started a periodical (and he published one of the best which existed among us before the war), he named it Christian Life.

Thus, Father Justin directed his fiery and God-inspired word from this place to the nation to which he belonged and to the world in which he lived. And I am asking you who here are gathered to pay your last respects to this holy deceased man, and you who are listening to me: have we heard his word and shall we hear and obey his message? Haven't we remained deaf to his message and won't we remain deaf and non-receptive toward his glad tidings? Will it perhaps befall us to be likened unto those who killed the prophets and then erected monuments to them? Will that which happened to the Lord, whom he announced during his entire life, be repeated in turn on him; that which happened to the Lord's disciples and martyrs; that which happened to St. John Chrysostom, whom Father Justin did not love by accident?

Have we heard his word and shall we obey his message and emulate his holy example? If we do not want to hear and understand it, he will forgive us with the great love which adorned him; but history and the future will not forgive us. If we do not open our ears and hearts on time to the message of this holy man, of this holy messenger of glad tidings of the eternal truth of Christ the God-man, then not only shall we not be worthy of Father Justin, but also not worthy of the greatest bearers and creators of the history of the people we belong to.

Dear Father Justin, we are sending you today to eternal rest. here on this earth, it seems you were that "Doe in Paradise Lost," the doe which you said was the sense of the sorrow of the universe. We are bidding you farewell and we remain poorer for the loss of a saint. But you are leaving and enriching Serbia in Heaven, you are going where your Lord is, Whom you served faithfully, where His apostles and all of the holy scions of our people are, and where all the saints are. Seeing you off to Heaven, in our sorrow for you and for us, we beg of you: Greet the elder Simeon the Myrrh-Streamer, and beg of him to forgive us for not guarding the holy borders of the Serbian lands, their spiritual borders and spiritual foundations. Greet St. Sava, his son, the creator of our nation and culture, and tell him that we are not enlightening ourselves with his enlightenment and that we have not kept the garment of his Church from being torn. The Roman soldiers threw dice in order not to tear the seamless garment of the Lord, while we, it seems, are worse than the Roman soldiers. Give greeting also to the great martyr of Kosovo, Lazar, and tell him that the lamp of the faith is going out on his Kosovo. Give greetings to St. Vasilije, the wonderworker of Ostrog, whom you visited and in front of whom and with whom you wept over your people. Together with him, give greetings also to St. Peter, the martyr of Cetinje. Tell them what they already know: that their people, for whom they sacrificed themselves, are extinguishing the lamp of faith in their Crna Gora [Montenegro]. Tell them also,holy Father, that there are churches which they built and for which they gave their lives that are converted into barns for livestock; that there are even profaned churches! Tell them that there are also tombs of those who fell for the precious Cross and golden freedom, which are desecrated and for which there is no one to light a candle. Tell Holy Serbia in Heaven also that which is most horrible, over which you grieved and suffered deeply, watering this holy ground with you holy tears: tell them that the holy faith is fading in Serbian children! God is being killed in our schools! St. Sava, their creator [of schools] is being cast out of our schools! Greet them all, Father Justin, and together with them ask the Lord to forgive us, for we know not what we do! You have fought the good fight and finished your, course! If any of those who passed and lived on this earth may utter these words of the Apostle, surely you are the one: "I have fought the good fight and finished the course!"

Therefore, help us with your holy prayers and with your intercession before the Lord s Throne, that we may repent, understand and fulfill your testament and your message, that we may emulate your life, that we may be messengers of your faith and your teachings, that we may return again to the paths of St. Sava and St. Simeon Nemanja, the holy martyr Lazar of Kosovo, St. Peter of Cetinje and Wonderworker Vasilje of Ostrog, and to the roads of all saints and men of God! Pray to the Lord for us! Pray to the Lord for the-entire world and for this nation: to find its road, as you found it; to find its soul again, as you found your soul; to rediscover the heart of its heart, the God-man Christ, as you discovered Him! That then, together with you, we may glorify the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and unto the ages of ages. Amen!

This originally appeared in Orthodox Life, vol. 31, no. 2 (March-April, 1981), pp. 26-30. The opening quote did not appear in this article but is taken "Ecumenism Marches On: The World Council of Churches: A Visible Expression of the Una Sancta?".

Humanistic Ecumenism

Ecumenism is the generic name used for the pseudo-Christianities, the pseudo-churches, of Western Europe. Within it is found the heart of every form of European humanism, with Papism at its head. All of these pseudo-Christianities, all of the pseudo-churches, are nothing else but one heresy after another. The generic Evangelical term for them is panheresy. Why? Because in the course of history the various heresies denied or distorted certain attributes of the God-Man and Lord, Jesus; but these European heresies have wholly removed the God-Man and, in His place, have put the European man. There is here little essential difference between Papism, Protestantism, Ecumenism, and other heresies; their name is Legion.

The Orthodox dogma, indeed the pandogma, concerning the Church is rent asunder and replaced by the Latins with the pandogma of the primacy and infallibility of the Pope, that is, of a man. From this panheresy other heresies were continually conceived and produced: the filioque, the discarding of the Epiklesis [the invocation of the Holy Spirit at the Consecration of the EucharistTr.], unleavened bread [in the EucharistTr.], the notion of created grace, the purgatorial fire, plenary indulgences, mechanistic teachings about salvation and the mechanistic view of life that derives from it, caesaro-papism, the Sacred Inquisition, indulgences, the death of man through sin, Jesuitism, Scholasticism, casuistry, monarchism, social atomism of different kinds....

Protestantism? It is the wholly faithful child of Papism, which through its rationalism and scholasticism has through the ages fallen to one heresy after another and which has been continually beset by the various poisons of its heretical delusions. Moreover, Papist arrogance and the silliness of "infallibility" reigns despotically and ravages the souls of its faithful. In essence, every Protestant is a despotic pope in all matters of faith. This always leads them from one spiritual death to another, there being no end to this "dying," since the number of spiritual deaths to which a man may fall is countless.

Things being as they are, then, for Papo-Protestant Ecumenism, with its pseudo-church and its pseudo-Christianity, there is no way out of its deadlock save wholehearted repentance before Christ the God-Man and His Orthodox Catholic Church. Repentance is the medicine for every sin, a medicine given to man by the only Lover of Mankind.

Without repentance and reception into the True Church of Christ, it is unnatural and ignorant to speak of the union of "the churches," of a dialogue of love, of intercommunio (that is, joint communion). The most important thing of all is that we become "co-corporeal partakers" of the Theanthropic Body of the Church of Christ, and therein communicants of the Soul of the Church, of the Holy Spirit, and inheritors of all of the eternal good things of the God-Man.