Last Things

The popularity of Freemasonry amongst the clergy, and even bishops, archbishops and patriarchs was stunning. According to Brill's Handbooks on Contemporary Religion, Vol 8 entitled 'Handbook of Freemasonry' by J.F. Var, chapter 10 entitled 'Freemasonry and the Orthodox Churches,' we find listed amongst the documented names such leading lights of the Church as Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow (declared a saint by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1994), Patriarch Athenagoras of the Ecumenical Patriarchate; Meletius Metaxakis Archbishop of Athens, Patriarch of Constantinople and Patriarch of Alexandria; Basil III Patriarch of Constantinople and Iakovos Koukouzis, Archbishop of what is now the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.

Every mainline Orthodox Church is a member of this ecumenical organization, and the documents signed by members, as well as the ceremonies and rites organized by this group are truly bizarre. When our leaders participate in this stuff and sign these documents they're doing so on behalf of the Church, on behalf of us since we are the Church. And yet in the mainline Churches nobody seems to have any problem with this, from the bishops on down. How is this possible? Because the leadership, from the Holy Synod to the Holy Priesthood to the Ladies Philoptochos are on board with it, that's why. No one who genuinely believes that the Orthodox Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church could possibly be ok with this. Heck, even the Roman Catholic Church only sends observers and does not have full membership in this demonic organization.

In 1965 Patriarch Athenagoras of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in a visit to Milan affirmed his adherence to the so-called branch theory saying,  '...The Catholics and the Orthodox do not belong to two different Churches, but to two branches of the same Church.' Later that year he and Pope Paul VI simultaneously “lifted the Anathema of 1054.” The Anathema was placed on the papal heresy to protect the Orthodox from blasphemous doctrines which lead to perdition. By “lifting” the Anathema, Athenagoras officially proclaimed that the Pope and his followers were unjustly excommunicated, that the Church wrongly held the doctrines of papism to be false, and that in truth the Latin Papacy is part of Orthodoxy.

I converted in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and at no point was this little gem mentioned. Kind of important though don't you think? 

This topic is treated more fully in the talk linked above, but to discover that the Church of Antioch has been in complete communion with Monophysites for over three decades now? Totally blew my mind. Now they don't commemorate each other's Patriarchs, true enough, but they share absolutely everything else - Divine Liturgy, Holy Matrimony, burial and education - they have even agreed not to accept converts from each other. The Alexandrian Patriarchate will only marry, bury and provide the Sacraments for mixed couples . So for all that I was told, evidently the Fathers of the Councils don't know as much as a bunch of scholars in Switzerland. Many of the Council Fathers would have known St. Cyril and shared correspondence with him, but these scholars are special, they alone know what the Saint really meant when he condemned the Monophysites and labeled them so - obviously he and the Fathers were wrong. They just didn't understand the subtlety of language the way today's academics do. Wow. Just wow.