Russian Orthodox Martyr In Union With Rome
The Russian Orthodox Church in Communion with Rome was a rather small body that existed openly for only a few decades just before and after the Bloshevik Revolution. Totally drive underground, there are today just a handful of Russian Orthodox parishes that have made their desire for communion with Rome known, and gone under the omophor of the Latin ordinaries in Russia.
I for one would very much like to see the restoration of an exarch (bishop) for them, but at this time the Vaticak Ostpolitik is such that appeasing the Patriarch of Moscow is the order of the day. The Patriarch who rails against the presence of Latin bishops who serve diocese that serve the 600,000 Latin Catholics who are descendents of the 3 million Catholics found in the Russian empire before the Revolution.
(My thoughts on +++ALEKSY II another day – for now it will suffice to say he would do well to remember who built St. Catherines RC Church in Moscow…)
Blessed Leonid, pray for us.
March 8, 2008 at 3:38 am |
Hey SS. Sorry but the last link is broken. So, am dying to know, who DID built the St. Catherine RC Church in Russia?
How’s the six pack, take your walk yet?
March 8, 2008 at 4:20 am |
Try again…
Give you a little hint, think Saint Catherine…
Now that you mention it…
March 8, 2008 at 4:34 am |
4th paragraph below the word “Danger” in red names builder of church.
August 9, 2008 at 12:19 am |
There is no such thing as a Russian Orthodox Church “in communion” with Rome. By necessity, if it is “in communion” with Rome, it cannot be an Orthodox Church, as belief in the heresies of Rome remove one from the saving enclosure of the Orthodox Church. Saint Mark of Ephesus (Mark of Ephesus (Eugenikos – “the courteous”, Greek: Μάρκος Ευγενικός), a 15th century bishop of Ephesus, is famous for his defense of Eastern Orthodoxy at the Council of Florence (1438-1445 A.D.) in spite of Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaeologus and Pope Eugene IV. He held Rome to be in schism and heresy for its acceptance of the Filioque clause added to the Nicene Creed and for the claims of the papacy to universal jurisdiction over the Church, and was thus the only Eastern bishop to refuse to sign the decrees of the council. Therefore Orthodox and Catholic scholars hold him responsible for the termination of the Union of Florence, which Mark regarded as a false union to begin with.-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mark_of_Ephesus), after the Council of Florence, speaking of the Latins, St. Mark stated: “…they have departed from the Faith, regarding the theology of the Holy Spirit, to Whom to blaspheme is the greatest of all perils, clearly, they are heretics,and we have cut them off as heretics.”-The Lives of the Pillars of Orthodoxy, p. 488 St mark of Ephesus also noted: “We have cut the Latins off from us for no other reason than that they are not only schismatics, but heretics. For this reason it is wholly improper to unite with them…. The Latins are not only schismatics but heretics as well.” /www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/prot_rc_heresy.aspx
The Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs of 1848 reiterated the heretical natue of the Filioque, as well as other heretical dogmas adopted by the Latins. “The heresies cited in this Patriarchal Encyclical have not been renounced by the Roman Catholic Church. Moreover, the dogmas of Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception have been added. The chasm only widens.” (The Non-Orthodox: The Orthodox Teaching on Christians Outside of the Church) The Patriarchal Encyclical of 1895 states: “But, as has been said before, the Western Church, from the tenth century downwards, has privily brought into herself through the papacy various and strange and heretical doctrines and innovations, and so she has been torn away and removed far from the true and orthodox Church of Christ.”
Various Saints of the Holy Orthodox Church, as well as various gatherings of Patriarchs, Patriarchal Synods, and Councils of Bishops have decreed the heresies of the Roman Catholics. As the Papacy in its entirety (both as possessing Universal Jurisdiction as well as Infallibility) has been denounced as a heresy, how could it be that a Russian Orthodox Church, which holds to a deifnition of the Papacy as HERESY, would be “in communion” with Rome, ruled by the heretical Papacy, and home to the various other heresies enumerated by the HolyFathers of Orthodoxy?
Those in Russia who declared their “communion” with Rome were, indeed, NOT Russian Orthodox, and indeed, could not be Russian Orthodox, but could only be Roman Catholic.
For what other reason than the confusion of the Orthodox faithful could pronouncements such as this possibly be made? For no other reason-no other reason than to deceive the Orthodox faithful into believing the Roman heresies were Orthodox! And the Roman Catholics to this day wonder why the Orthodox do not want union with them, and wonder why the Orthodox continue to condemn the cruel deception of the Unia. The Papacy even deceives its own faithful, into accepting that the Orthodox do want Union, and are accepting of the deceit of the Unia.
Read about the Martyrs of Mount Athos, those who refused to accept the Union of Florence, and were subsequently sold into slavery, drowned, beheaded, and burned to death by the Latins. Perhaps then the reticence for closeness to Ronme on part of the Orthodox may begin to be understood by the faithful of Rome.
August 9, 2008 at 12:08 pm |
I have read all of this before from polemicists such as yourself.
Show me the defining documents of Orthodoxy which declare anathema these so-called problems of the Roman Church. You can’t because although the Orthodox give lip service to being a “Church of councils” they are in fact a communion of nation-state churches which form an autocephalous polyarchy. They have no ecumenical councils and cannot convene any.
The wide, wide, WIDE latitude in Orthodoxy today leaves great allowance for speculation and adherence to pet schools of theology which is demonstrated in how Catholic clergy are recieved into their national churches.
In the reception of Roman clergy into the EO, there has been at least three different canonical realities. (1) Some Byzantines, (like the Johnstown Greek Catholics, the liquidated Ukrainian Catholic Church, etc.) have been recieved into communion en masse perhaps with simple chrismation or an oath of allegiance to an Orthodox patriarch.
(2) SOME roman clergy who married post ordination were NOT recieved as priests or re-ordained because it was the perception of the hierach that the petitioned that there Roman orders were valid, and that it would be uncanonical for them to serve as Orthodox priests, having entered marriage after ordination. (3) Others have roundly ignored this idea and accepted and incardinated ex-non-Orthodox clergy who contracted marriage after ordination, recognizing the ordination as valid but not recognizing the post-ordination marriage as an impediment….
(4) Some have been re-ordained (or in the eyes of some EO, ordained for the first time!) in the same mannner certain ex-Anglicans who have come to Rome have been. While it seems to be a minority opinion among what we recognize as mainstream EO (in the US) today, some pozit that the original Roman ordination was graceless. I believe this would be the likely view of the majority of “Old Calendar” Orthodox – some of whom are in communion with SOME national churches, some of whom are not.
So come here with all of your stories told in the tone of “is outrage!” that obfuscate and are intended to vitriolically get the blood boiling.You can recount with near tears in your eyes all you wish the stories of the great martyrs of Orthodoxy at Athos… I will see YOUR martyr stories and raise you the Martyrs of Pratulin and the 20th century victims of the Robber Council of L’viv if that is REALLY the route you want to take. What would it prove? So why bring it up… So it goes, eh?
But when it comes to the teachings of Orthodoxy on the Catholic Church… I would be very interested in seeing your citations of councils that are definatively held to be authoratative.