Archbishop Averky of Syracuse
of Blessed Memory
Few people today
know that the Orthodox Church is nothing less than that Church which has
preserved untainted the genuine teachings of Jesus Christ, the very teachings
delivered to every subsequent generation of believers. These teachings came
down the centuries, from the Holy Apostles, explicated and carefully
interpreted by their legitimate successors (their disciples and the holy Fathers),
traditioned and conserved unaltered by our Eastern Church which is alone able
to prove her right to be called "the Orthodox Church."
The divine Founder of the Church, our Lord
Jesus Christ, said clearly, "I will build my Church and the gates of Hell
will not prevail against Her" (St. Matt xvi, 18). To the Church, He sent
the Holy Spirit. The Spirit descended upon the Apostles, the Spirit of Truth
(St. John xv, 16f) Who "manifests all things" to Her and guides Her
(St. John xvi, 13), protecting Her from error. Indeed, it was to declare this
Truth to men that the Lord came into the cosmos, according to His own words
(St. John xviii, 31). And Saint Paul confirms this fact in his letter to his
pupil, the bishop Timothy, saying that, "the Church of the living God is
the ground and pillar of the Truth" (I Tim iii, 15).
Because She is "the ground and pillar
of the Truth," "the gates of Hell cannot prevail against Her."
It follows, then, that the true Christian Church—palpably unique since Christ
established but one Church—has always existed on earth and will exist to the
end of time. She has received the promise of Christ, "I will be with you
even unto the end of the age." Can there be the slightest doubt that the
Lord refers here to the Church? Any honest and sane judgment, any act of good
conscience, anyone familiar with the history of the Christian Church, the pure
and unaltered moral and theological teachings of the Christian religion, must
confess that there was but one true Church founded by our Lord, Jesus Christ,
and that She has preserved His Truth holy and unchanged. History reveals,
moreover, a traceable link of grace from the holy Apostles to their successors and to the holy Fathers.
In contrast to what others have done, the Orthodox Church has never introduced
novelties into Her teachings in order to "keep up with the times", to
be "progressive", "not to be left at the side of the road,"
or to accommodate current exigencies and fashions which are always suffused with
evil. The Church never conforms to the world.
Indeed not, for the Lord has said to
his disciples at the Last Supper, "You are not of this world." We
must hold to these words if we are to remain faithful to true Christianity—the
true Church of Christ has always been, is and will always be a stranger to this
world. Separated from it, she is able to transmit the divine teachings of the
Lord unchanged, because that separation has kept Her unchanged, that is, like
the immutable God Himself. That which the learned call "conservativism"
is a principal and, perhaps, most characteristic index of the true Church.
Since the TRUTH is given to us once and for
all, our task is to assimilate rather than to discover it. We are commanded to
confirm ourselves and others in the Truth and thereby bring everyone to the
true Faith, Orthodoxy.
Unfortunately, there have appeared in the
very bosom of the Church, even among the hierarchy, opinions expressed by
well-known individuals which are detrimental to Her. The desire to "march
with the times" makes them fear that they will not be recognized as
"cultured", "liberal" and "progressive." These
modern apostates to Orthodoxy are "ashamed" to confess that our
Orthodox church is precisely the Church which was founded by our Lord Jesus
Christ, the Church to which appertains the great promise that "the gates
of Hell will not prevail against Her," and to which He confided the plenum
of divine Truth. By their deceit and false humility, by their blasphemy against
the Lord, these false shepherds and those with them have been estranged from
the true Church. They have given tacit expression to the idea that "the
gates of Hell" have "prevailed" against the Church. In other
words, these apostates say that our holy Orthodox Church is equally "at
fault" for the "division of the churches" and ought now to
"repent" her sins and enter into union with other "Christian
churches" by means of certain concessions to them, the result being a new,
indivisible church of Christ.
This is the ideology of the religious
movement which has become so fashionable in our times: "The ecumenical
movement" among whose number one may count Orthodox, even our clergy. For
a long time, we have heard that they belong to this movement in order "to
witness to the peoples of other confessions the truth of holy Orthodoxy,"
but it is difficult for us to believe that this statement is anything more than
"throwing powder in our eyes." Their frequent theological
declarations in the international press can lead us to no other conclusion than
that they are traitors to the holy Truth.
As a matter of historical fact, the
"ecumenical movement"—of which the WCC is the supreme organ—is an
organization. of purely Protestant origin. Nearly all the Orthodox Churches
have joined, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia being the most
notable exception. Even those churches behind the "iron curtain" have
joined. For some time the Russian Patriarchate resisted, flattering herself
with the purity of her Orthodoxy and quite naturally viewing this movement as hostile
to Orthodoxy. She has since become a member.
The Russian Synod almost stands alone in
her opposition to the "ecumenical movement." How can we explain her
isolation from the rest of "global Orthodoxy"? We must understand the
situation in terms of the words that "this Must take place" (St. Luke
xxi, 9), that is, the "great apostasy" clearly predicted by the Lord
(Sol ii, 3-12). "it is permitted by God," as [St.] Ignatius
Brianchaninoff said almost a century ago. (Another spiritual father, Theophan
the Recluse, announced with grief that the horrendous apostasy would begin
within Russia.) [St.] Ignatius wrote: "We are helpless to arrest this
apostasy. Impotent hands will have no power against it and nothing more will be
required than the attempt to withold it. The spirit of the age will reveal the
apostasy. Study it, if you wish to avoid it, if you wish to escape this age and
the temptation of its spirits. One can suppose, too, that the institution of
the Church which has been tottering for so long will fall terribly and
suddenly. Indeed, no one is able to stop or prevent it. The present means to
sustain the institutional Church are borrowed from the elements of the world,
things inimical to the Church, and the consequence will be only to accelerate its
fall. Nevertheless, the Lord protects the elect and their limited number will
be filled."
The Enemy of humanity makes every effort
and uses all means to confound it. Aid comes to him through the total
co-operation of all the secret and invisible heterodox, especially those
priests and bishops who betray their high calling and oath, the true faith and
the true Church.
Repudiation of and preservation from the
apostasy which has made such enormous progress demands that we stand apart from
the spirit of the age (which bears the seeds of its own destruction). If we
expect to withstand the world, it is first necessary to understand it and keep
sensitively in mind that in this present age all that which carries the most
holy and dear name of Orthodoxy is not in fact Orthodox. Rather, it is often
"A fraudulent and usurped Orthodoxy" which we must fear and eschew as
if it were fire. Unlike this spurious faith, true Orthodoxy was given and must
be received without novelty and nothing must be accepted as a teaching or
practice of the Church which is contrary to the Holy Scriptures and the dogma
of the Universal Church. True Orthodoxy thinks only to serve god and to save
souls and is not preoccupied with the secular and ephemeral welfare of men.
True Orthodoxy is spiritual and not physical or psychological or earthly. In
order to protect ourselves from "the spirit of the age" and preserve
our fidelity to the true Orthodoxy, we ought firstly and with all our strength
live blamelessly: A total and rigorous commitment to Christ, without deviation
from the commandments of God or the laws of His holy Church. At the same time,
we must have no common prayer or spiritual liaison with the modern apostasy or
with anything which "soils" our holy Faith, even those dissidents who
call themselves "Orthodox." They will go their way and we will go
ours. We must be honorable and tenacious, following the right way, never
deviating in order to please men or from fear that we might lose some personal
advantage.
The sure path to perdition is indifference
and the lack of principles which is euphemistically called "the larger
view." In opposition to this "larger view" we put the
"rigor of ideas" which, in modernity, it is fashionable to label
"narrow" and "fanatical." To be sure, if one adopts the
"modern mentality," one must consider the holy martyrs—whose blood is
"the cement of the Church"—and the Church Fathers—who struggled all
their lives against heretics—as nothing less than "narrow" and
"fanatical." In truth, there is little difference between "the
broad way" against which the Lord warned and the modern "larger
view." He condemned the "broad way" as the way to
"gehenna."
Of course, the idea of "gehenna"
holds no fear for those "liberals" and avant-garde theologians. They
may smugly "theologize" about it, but in rashly and wantonly
discussing "the new ways of Orthodox theology" and acquiring a number
of disciples, they give evidence that they no longer believe in the existence
of Hell. This new breed of "Orthodox" are really no more than modern
"scholastics."
In other words, the way of these
"progressivists" is not our way. Their way is deceptive, and it is
unfortunate that it is not evident to everyone. The "broader" or
"larger view" alienates us from the Lord and His true Church. It is
the road away from Orthodoxy. This view is sinister, maliciously invented by
the Devil in order to deny us salvation. For us, however, we accept no
innovations, but choose the ancient, proven way, the way in which true
Christians have chosen to serve God for 2,000 years.
We choose the way of fidelity to the true
Faith and not the "modern way." We choose faithfulness to the true
Church with all Her canons and dogmas which have been received and confirmed by
the local and universal Councils. We choose the holy customs and traditions,
the spiritual riches of that faith transmitted complete and entire to us from
the Holy Apostles, the Holy Fathers of the Church, and the Christian heritage
of our venerable ancestors. This alone is the faith of the true Orthodox,
distinct from the counterfeit "orthodoxy" invented
by the Adversary. We receive only the Apostolic Faith, the Faith of the
Fathers, the Orthodox Faith.
Source: From Orthodox
Christian Witness, wherein it appeared translated from the French in La Foi
Transmise (Nov. 1968), pp. 19-22.
* The article was written in the time when Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia was not a member of the ecumenist movement and was not in communion with the apostate Moscow Patriarchate.
