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APPEAL
to His Beatitude Kyrill Athenagoras of Constantinople
New Rome and the Ecumenical Patriarch
15 December1965
Your All-Holiness!
From the Holy Fathers we inherited the testament that in the
Church of God, all must follow a lawful order, in unity of
mind and in concordance with ancient traditions. If any of
the bishops or even the leaders of autocephalous Churches
commits an act in discord with that which the Church teaches,
then each of Her members may declare his objection. The 15th
Rule of the Double Council of Constantinople of 861 recognizes
as worthy “of honor suited to Orthodoxy” those bishops
or clergymen who depart from communion from even their own
Patriarch, if he publicly preach heresy or teach it openly
in Church. In this way, we all are guardians of the Church’s
truth, Which always protected Herself with care that nothing
having general ecclesiastical significance occured without
the agreement of all.
For this reason, our attitude towards various divisions beyond
the divisions of the Local Churches was determined by nothing
more than the consent of all the Churches involved. If our
division with Rome was first given its direction by Constantinople,
it was still subsequently accepted by all. The Orthodox Church
became the business of the entire Orthodox world. Not one
Local Church alone, nor even the Church of Constantinople,
which we had esteemed from olden days, from which our Russian
Orthodox Church received the treasure of Orthodoxy, cannot
change anything in Orthodoxy without the consent of all. Moreover,
we, the ruling bishops, cannot carry out decisions which would
be in discord with the teachings of the Holy Fathers who lived
before us, specifically, when it comes to the West—of
SS Photios of Constantinople and Mark of Ephesus.
In light of these principles, although we are the youngest
of the leaders of the Church, for we head the autonomous,
free part of the Russian Church, we deem it our obligation
to decisively object to the act of Your All-Holiness in connection
with the ceremonial declaration together with the Pope of
Rome on the removal of the excommunications decreed by Patriarch
Michael Cerularius in 1054.
We heard many expressions of indignation when Your All-Holiness,
before the entire world, did something new, something unheard-of
by Your predecessors and against the 10th Apostolic rule in
meeting with the Roman Pope Paul VI in Jerusalem. We will
state outright and without mincing words: the temptation was
great. We heard that as a result, many monasteries on the
Holy Mountain of Athos have refused to commemorate the name
of Your All-Holiness at services. Now You go further, when
by the decision made by You and the bishops of Your Synod,
You rescind the decision of Patriarch Mikhail Cerularius,
which was confirmed and accepted by the entire Orthodox East.
In doing so, Your All-Holiness acts in discord with the attitude
assumed by our entire Church with regard to Roman Catholicism.
This is not a matter of one evaluation or another of the behavior
of Cardinal Humbert, it is not a matter of some personal conflict
between the Pope and the Patriarch, which could easily be
healed through mutual Christian forgiveness; no—the essence
of the question is the departure from Orthodoxy, which has
taken root in the Roman Church over the course of centuries,
beginning with the teaching of the infallibility of the Pope,
which was finally formulated during the First Vatican Council.
Your All-Holiness’ and the Pope’s Declaration fairly
recognizes that the act of “mutual forgiveness”
is insufficient for the cessation of both former and more
recent divergences. But this is not enough: this act erects
a symbol of equality between heresy and Truth. Over the course
of centuries, the entire Orthodox Church fairly believed that
She in no way departed from the teachings of the Holy Ecumenical
Councils, while the Roman Church accepted a series of novelties
in its dogmatic teachings which contradict Orthodoxy. The
more novelties introduced, the deeper the division between
the East and West became. The dogmatic deviations of Rome
in the end of the 11th century did not contain those errors
that were introduced later. For this reason the dismissal
of the mutual censures of 1054 would have meaning at that
time, but now--it serves witness to the dismissal of the most
important and essential, to wit, the new teachings declared,
unfamiliar to the ancient Church, of which some, exposed by
St. Mark of Ephesus, caused the Holy Church to reject the
Florentine Union. We declare decisively and categorically:
No union with the Roman Church is possible for us, as long
as it does not reject its new dogmas, and reestablishing prayerful
communion with it is impossible without the agreement of the
entire Church, which, at the same time, does not seem to us
to be possible until the Church of Russia is emancipated,
for it is now forced to live in the catacombs. The hierarchy
now led by Patriarch Alexei cannot express the true voice
of the Russian Church, for it is under complete subjugation
to the atheist state, obeying its will. Shackled are also
the heads of some other Churches which are found in communist
countries.
Since the Vatican is not only a religious center, but also
a center of government, and, as the recent visit of the Pope
to the United Nations has clearly shown, relations with it
also carry political significance, it is impossible to ignore
the possibility that the captive Churches are swayed in one
direction or another by the atheistic authorities in the matter
of the Roman Church. History has shown us that negotiations
with the heterodox under political duress never brought the
Church any benefit, only troubles and divisions. For this
reason we feel obligated to state that our Russian Church
Abroad is, as is, undoubtedly, the Church in Russia, now in
the "catacombs," cannot agree to any "dialogues"
on dogma with other faiths, and in advance rejects any accords
with them, for accepting the possibility of the reestablishment
of unity is possible only if they fully accept Orthodox teaching
in the form that it has been preserved to this day by the
Holy, Conciliar and Apostolic Church. Until such a time--the
excommunication of Patriarch Michael Cerularius retains its
full force, and the removal of such by Your All-Holiness is
an unlawful and invalid act. Of course, we are not against
amicable relations with the representatives of other faiths,
since this does not betray the truth of Orthodoxy. For this
reason our Church at one time accepted the friendly invitation
to send an observer to the Second Vatican Council, just as
it had sent an observer to the Protestant conference of the
World Council of Churches in order to have a first-hand account
of the work of these meetings yet without any participation
in their decisions. We value the kindly attitude towards our
observers, and study their detailed reports with interest,
which witness the advent of significant changes in the Roman
church. We would thank God if these changes serve to draw
them closer to Orthodoxy. Yet if Rome must change a great
deal in order to return to "the expression of the faith
of the apostles," then the Orthodox Church, preserving
this faith whole until now, must change nothing.
Church tradition and the example of the Holy Fathers teach
us that there must be no dialogue with those who have fallen
away from the Orthodox Church. Rather, a monologue of preaching
is addressed to them, in which the Church calls them to return
to Her bosom through the rejection of any teaching inconsistent
with Her. Genuine dialogue necessitates the exchange of opinions,
allowing the possibility of winning over its participants
in order to reach agreement. As the encyclical "Ecclesiam
Suam" shows, Paul VI sees dialogue as a scheme for our
union with Rome or the reestablishment of relations with them
through some sort of formula, leaving untouched, however,
its teaching of the faith, and, in part, its dogmatic teaching
of the role of the Pope in the Church.
But all concord with heresy is alien to the entire history
of the Orthodox Church and Her essence. It would lead not
to the profession of faith in unity of mind, but to a phantom,
external union, similar to the agreement of discordant Protestant
unions in the Ecumenical Movement.
May such betrayal of Orthodoxy not invade our midst.
We earnestly ask Your All-Holiness to put an end to such temptation,
for the path chosen by You, if it did lead You to union with
the Roman Catholics, would cause division within the Orthodox
world, for, without a doubt, many of Your spiritual children
prefer loyalty to Orthodoxy to the ecumenical idea of a union
of compromise with heterodox without their full concord in
truth.
Asking for Your holy prayers, I remain Your All-Holiness'
humble servant,
+Metropolitan Philaret
President of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox
Church Outside of Russia
15 December 1965
The First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside
of Russia, Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky)
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