To: Exarchate Clergy, Faithful, and Friends
From: Archbishop Chrysostomos
Boetheia mas o Agios Nikolaos.
May St. Nicholas come to our aid.
The following is the latest of Dr. Vladimir's Moss's statements, one sadly marked by contumely, personal enmity, and a truculent tone. It calls for a response only because it has been circulated among some sincere but undiscerning individuals who do not easily recognize the delusive arguments used in these now notorious attacks against almost anyone who disagrees with Dr. Moss's arguments. Thus, I have made some brief comments within the text.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
Subject: THE HERESY OF ECCLESIASTICAL ELITISM
The Cyprianites have published on their website an account of their Hierarchical Council of October 4/17, 2008. It contains interesting and revealing information on their "efforts at union with the Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece" - that is, the GOC headed by Archbishop Chrysostom (Kiousis) of Athens. It reveals that since February five meetings have taken place between the two sides (three Bishops from both sides), which have "now reached a historical turning-point".
Abp. Chrysostomos
This "revealing" information is nothing more than the latest report on union discussions that have been regularly referenced on our website and in our synodal publications.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
Although still striving for unity with the GOC, the Cyprianites reveal that they cannot accept the ten "non-negotiable points" laid down by the GOC on September 9/22. Since the Cyprianites regard these points as "inappropriate for publication", and since the GOC have also not published them, we can only guess at what they might be. Nevertheless, from what the Cyprianites write, and from other sources, it is clear what the main stumbling-blocks are the GOC's insistence that Metropolitan Cyprian created a schism in the 1980s, and that the new calendarists must be anathematized.
Abp. Chrysostomos
Our Synod has not been "striving for unity with the G.O.C (sic)," but has for over a year been pleased to engage in informal and friendly discussions about a possible opening of communion with the Church of True Orthodox Christians of Greece (G.O.Ch.), following friendly overtures by Archbishop Chrysostomos (Kiousis) on the heels of Metropolitan Cyprian's collapse into a coma, following a massive stroke almost exactly a year ago.
Our Bishops reacted to this opening of personal contacts with much relief and great enthusiasm, given the animosity and conflict that were in the past displayed by various persons in both groups, leading to the kind of invective and misunderstanding that Dr. Moss's comments simply serve to perpetuate. Efforts towards union began, indeed, with love and requests for forgiveness on both sides -- a truly exemplary Christian thing!
Dr. Vladimir Moss
Regarding these ten points, the Cyprianite Synod came to the following conclusions "after a very protracted discussion":
"In principle, it would be possible for us to agree with several of these points, once various improvements and modifications have been made to the wording thereof.
"However, any final 'convergence' of both sides on these points would be rather artificial and superficial, as long as there remain crucial 'points' on which there is no possibility of concession on our part - that is, on points non-negotiable in terms of a theology of Orthodox resistance.
"These crucial 'points' (the repetition of Chrismation and Baptism - even when simply improperly performed - and the nominal anathematization of New Calendarists), if adopted and explicitly proclaimed by us, would lead to a different interpretation of the other 'points' as well, and to an outright denial of our ecclesiological principles."
Put in less diplomatic terms, this amounts to a more or less complete rejection of the GOC's points. Some points relating to their ecclesiological principles are rejected outright; others require "various improvements". Nothing is accepted unconditionally.
Abp. Chrysostomos
Since I translated the words which Dr. Moss quotes here, and know their tone and, of course, their provenance, I can affirm that what I translated was written with complete sincerity and transparency. It simply states that "nonnegotiable" terms presented by the other party in the dialogue were of the kind that violated what we considered the basic principles of theological discourse on the matters being discussed.
Had this been a "complete" rejection of the points of the G.O.Ch., this is precisely what we would have said. Dr. Moss's conclusions are speculative, and especially since he has presumably never read the points that led to our statement.
It is also in the nature of dialogue that nothing is accepted unconditionally, until unanimity or agreement by two parties is achieved.
Dr. Moss fails, as well, to speak of the fraternal affection and good intentions that prevailed throughout these and other exchanges in the union dialogues, which are, at least at this time. ongoing.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
Since the GOC's points were laid down as "non-negotiable", this looks like the end of the road for the unity talks.
Abp. Chrysostomos
One would hope that Dr. Moss is wrong in this assumption. Does he wish for a cessation of dialogue?
Dr. Vladimir Moss
However, the Cyprianites,
Abp. Chrysostomos
I should clarify a point: by this depersonalizing and derogatory epithet, Dr. Moss means the "Holy Synod in Resistance" and its Bishops and faithful. It is especially shameful, given the condition of Metropolitan Cyprian and the tremendous sadness that overcame those of us who love him.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
still desperately cling on to the hope of unity through a vague kind of doctrinal compromise:
Abp. Chrysostomos
We have never shown any desperation in agreeing to informal dialogue with the Church of G.O.Ch. In fact, our brothers in that Church have been even more enthusiastic in their desire for unity, which is something that commends them and which has inspired those of us, such as myself, who were more cautious and slow in seeking rapprochement at the moment -- even though I surely consider eventual unity, in synergy with God's Will and in love, wonderful and sacred.
Needless to say, were we working in a spirit of compromise, it would seem rather curious to accuse us of sabotaging unity, as Dr. Moss suggests above.
Dr.Vladimir Moss
"There arises the question of the extent to which, for the sake of the supreme good of unity, we can without absolute ecclesiological uniformity on both sides - as was the case at least up until 1984 - achieve oneness with the Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece on the basis of fundamental points of agreement, leading to a General, Pan-Orthodox, or Oecumenical Synod for decisive adjudication and resolution of those points still in dispute." In other words: let's agree to disagree on certain things, and just get together on the basis of what we do agree on - a truly Anglican solution!
In fact, the Cyprianite ecclesiology is reminiscent of the Anglican Church's "High", "Middle" and "Low" structure. As is well-known, the Cyprianites believe that the Church is composed of "healthy" members (the Orthodox) and "sick" members (the heretics) until and unless a "Unifying Ecumenical" Council decides to expel the heretics. We might call this the division of the Church into "High" and "Low". But now, through their suggestion of a compromise union with the GOC, they are also adding a "Middle" layer - the GOC itself. So the Greek Church, in their understanding, is composed of three levels: a "High", or supremely healthy level, composed of the Cyprianites, who alone hold the true ecclesiology; a "Middle" level, composed of Old Calendarists who reject ecumenism but are unfortunately tainted with the illness of an over-zealous ecclesiology; and a "Low" level, composed of the new calendarists, who are sick with the still worse illness of the pan-heresy of ecumenism.
Abp. Chrysostomos
Dr. Moss's "analysis" here is bizarre: a contrived mental construct. Metropolitan Cyprian, when received into the Old Calendar movement from the New Calendar State Church of Greece, made it clear that he would not accept re-Ordination and did not believe that the State Church of Greece was without Grace. His statements to that effect were published many decades ago even in such American source as "The Orthodox Word," as we have repeatedly shown.
Dr. Moss's "reminiscences" aside, Metropolitan Cyprian's ecclesiology has always been the same; we have always realized that many with whom we have entered into communion did not hold exactly to our ecclesiology; and have, with them, maintained, in agreeing to disagree on minor points, that the final adjudication of such matters belongs to a future Oecumenical or General Synod.
Dr. Moss can violate, restate, and re-create these facts as he likes. but they remain facts. Our present position is that if we can enter into communion with Archbishop Chrysostomos (Kiousis) and his Bishops without violating our principles by the imposition of their views on us, we can work together in the pursuit of resisting ecumenism, which binds all of the Greek Old Calendarists together in a single family. Otherwise, our Synod will gain NOTHING, from a merely human standpoint, by union. We need no such union, since we are in communion with the Romanian and Bulgarian Old Calendarists and with the ROCA under Metropolitan Agafangel: the vast majority of anti-ecumenist Orthodox.
While we advocate, as we always have and always will, the Patristic tradition which Dr. Moss so rudely calls "Cyprianitism" and a heresy, it speaks for itself that we have never condemned the extremist Old Calendarists (who also officially call New Calendarists and ecumenists heretics and without Grace) as "heretics," even though we believe their views to be incorrect in this respect. We have always acknowledged that many extremists are simply that in public, whereas in private they agree with us. In fact that was the case when all of us Old Calendarists were in communion.
Dr. Moss would do well to remember Archbishop Peter of Astoria, who was my own guide for a time when I was at university and whose brother Baptized my assistant Bishop. He joined with Archbishop Chrysostomos (Kiousis), even though he did not personally believe that the New Calendarists and ecumenists were without Grace. He taught us what we now believe (which Metropolitan Cyprian also believes) and, just before his death, when he visited our monastery (as he did Phyle, I should note), confessed to us that our ecclesiology was correct but that, to quote him, "his hands were tied" by personal issues and Church politics.
Was he (a man whom we loved and admired, even when he disappointed us with the human weaknesses that we all have) a hypocrite, insincere, and wrong? Or is it only the "Cyprianites" who are evil when, without tied hands, they seek to find some way to effect unity among the Old Calendarists? Is a broader way open only to others, but not to us?
Lock-step dogmatic advocacy based on personal views and interpretations that take on the character of "unquestionable authority" may be appropriate to Papism; however, Orthodox theology does not confess of an inability to accept differences of action and interpretation, until they are resolved by a General Church Synod.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
But this is the broad way of the Broad Church which, as the Lord says, leads so many to destruction! Of course, it is true that differences of opinion have always existed in the One True Church, and there have probably always been hidden heretics within the Church's single organizational structure. But the Church can never be reconciled with differences on dogmatic questions; it must always seek to eradicate them and remove impenitent heretics; it can never say: "You are a heretic, nevertheless you are a member of the True Church and are permitted to receive the Body of Christ". The Cyprianites' elitist, quasi-Anglican model seeks to institutionalize dogmatic differences, making them the norm. It is the dogmatic equivalent of the Tolstoyan moral teaching on the necessity of non-resistance to evil.
Abp. Chrysostomos
A man who has accused us of hypocrisy, heresy, lying, and insincerity over the years is hardly being consistent in calling US elitists. To call us quasi-Anglican and compare our confession of Orthodoxy to Tolstoy's teaching of non-resistance to evil is likewise quite over the line and lamentable.
Dr. Moss deserves our prayers and our pity, since his enmity and hatred for us, most of whom he has never even meant, speak to a spiritual hurt in him that can only prompt in me, along with my shock at his sometimes vicious, unfair, and caustic accusations, a sincere love for him as an injured soul. The more he attacks the more I feel compelled to respond with logical guidance to others, yet with love for him.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
It should be remembered that in 1984 Metropolitan Cyprian broke communion with his first-hierarch, Metropolitan Callistus, and with all the other "Florinite" hierarchs, explicitly for reasons of the faith. He regarded the confession of faith of Metropolitan Callistus, which is identical to the confession of faith of today's GOC, as "without witness, unproven, anti-patristic, and hence un-Orthodox" (Agios Kiprianos, July, 1983, p. 210). In other words, he regarded Metropolitan Callistus' views to be heretical - even if he did not use the word "heretical" for diplomatic reasons.
Abp. Chrysostomos
This is, of course, not a true statement of the historical facts. Metropolitan Kallistos, in returning to a Matthewite viewpoint under the influence of certain individuals and in senescence, actually retired from the Synod. At the time, Metropolitan Cyprian remained in the Synod. Dr. Moss may call me a liar for saying this, but that does not change historical fact.
Moreover, to accuse Metropolitan Cyprian of "diplomacy" in avoiding the word "heretic" in speaking of Metropolitan Kallistos is something worthy of tears. Our love for Metropolitan Kallistos was such that a word like this would have caused all of us incredible pain, and in particular because, though in error in his return to extremism, he was not a heretic.
Metropolitan Kallistos himself, when he was the First Hierarch of our Synod, advised me NEVER to say that I would not bury the New Calendarists in the Greek side of my family. He chastised me severely when I presented him with a view that I had once, in youthful impetuosity, wrongly accepted with regard to the New Calendarists. My "Cyprianitism" was reinforced by none other than Metropolitan Kallistos when he was at our monastery in Ohio.
Dr. Moss I have never met and do not know one another. Metropolitan Kallistos I knew. Dr. Moss is simply off the mark.
Dr. Moss should hang his head in eternal shame for suggesting that Metropolitan Cyprian considered Metropolitan Kallistos a heretic. Rather, he considered him a holy man and lamented his fall, once more, to a Matthewite mentality in senility.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
Now, believing this, it was quite natural for Metropolitan Cyprian to break communion with Callistus and to refuse to enter into communion with any hierarch who thought like him.
Abp. Chysostomos
This is just silliness and a kind of sad projection on Dr. Moss's part.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
But then why are his successors now seeking to re-enter communion with our Church, although our hierarchs have not changed their confession in any way? Either Metropolitan Cyprian was wrong to break communion with Metropolitan Callistus, or the present Cyprianite hierarchs are wrong to seek to enter into communion with the GOC hierarchs who think like Metropolitan Callistus - there is no "third way".
Abp. Chrysostomos
We began by being accused of preventing union with the Church of G.O.Ch. because of our tenacious adherence to our principles, whereas now we are chided for setting our principles aside, llike cheap opportunists, by seeking to join with G.O.Ch. Apparently, we are damned if we do and damned if we do not. Once again, if communion with the Church of G.O.Ch. can occur without our violating our ecclesiological principles, we have no difficulty with this, if it is God's Will. This entails no compromise.
It speaks volumes that it is Dr. Moss who is calling us heretics, not we who are calling him and his Bishops heretics.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
The present Cyprianite hierarchs are trapped by their loyalty to their founder, by their refusal to admit that he made a serious mistake. How different has been the behaviour of the Tikhonites, who in their recent Odessa Council clearly and unambiguously renounced Cyprianism and admitted that the ROCOR hierarchs' entrance into communion with the Cyprianites in 1994 was wrong. This is the way forward: to place the True Confession of Faith as the first value, and to admit honestly and honourably that mistakes can and have been made in relation to it even by the most distinguished of hierarchs - there is no place for man-pleasing or man-worship in the Church of Christ.
Abp. Chrysostomos
What a sad misunderstanding. We are tied to our spiritual Father by love, which never traps one. It is hatred which traps one. Dr. Moss's personal hatred for us is so strong that, while he admits that Hierarchs can be wrong and can ask forgiveness for their errors and still be Orthodox, he calls us heretics for saying the same thing. He is trapped by his hatred for us (or the hatred for us that the Evil One has inspired in him). We believe what he does and apply it to those who have adopted an extremist attitude toward New Calendarists and ecumenists. Yet, we are heretics, since this does not agree with Dr. Moss or fulfill his expectations of hypocrisy, insincerity, and hypocrisy from us. Truly sad.
As for Archbishop Tikhon's group, one can contrast its condemnation of us to the communion that we maintain with Metropolitan Agafangel, who, unlike Archbishop Tikhon, was in fact a member of the ROCA right up to the time that it united with Moscow. He was the sole survivor of the union. Metropolitan Agafangel has not said that the ROCA/MP was wrong (for ten years!) in maintaining communion with us. And he still maintains communion with us. We hope and pray that Archbishop Tikhon and his group will seek unity in Russia, but it will not do so by condemning our Synod and others. Condemnation is not the way to unity.
Again, one can only pity such a thing and lovingly but firmly point out to Dr. Moss that it is HE who is providing the spirit of divisiveness and nastiness that impedes hope for unity.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
Nor is there any place for elitism, for a hierarchy of Orthodox, semi-Orthodox and heretics within the One Church. The Body of Christ is composed solely and exclusively of those who confess the True Orthodox Faith in its entirety, and those who publicly reject any part of that Faith cannot be admitted to the Holy Mysteries. If this were not so, then the Church would not be One, but would actually be an aggregate or confederation or alliance of many sub-churches, differing from each other in one or more articles of the Faith, on the model of the Anglicans or the World Council of Churches.
Abp. Chrysostomos
Again, it curious that a man whose hatred has caused me to find love for him in my soul and whom I do NOT consider a heretic, even if I believe him to be very wrong, should condemn me and those with me as elitists. His truculence, which leads him to claim that we advocate things that we do not and never have, is a true sign of arrogance and elitism: the kind that marks those who refuse to love others, who degrade them, who mock them, and thus who fail to understand that those whom they perceive to be heretics and "terrible enemies" are actually friends.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
At the First Ecumenical Council St. Nicholas of Myra slapped the face of the heretic Arius. He did not wait for the Council to condemn him officially - and the Lord and the Mother of God approved of his act. If the Cyprianites claim to have the same faith and zeal as St. Nicholas, let them (metaphorically) slap the face of the ecumenist heretics and confess that they are outside the One True Church and deprived of the grace of sacraments. Then there will truly be a sound basis for them to re-enter the True Church, having sincerely repented of the schism they created. But if they do not repent, then the True Church, holding fast to the principles of the true ecclesiology, must refuse them entry; for, as the Prophet says, "how can two walk together if they be not agreed?" (Amos 3.3).
Abp. Chrysostomos
Let us not slap one another, but kiss one another with the kiss of peace. Let us not emulate the act of a Saint and man of love whose feet we are unworthy to kiss, but the humble spirit of the prostitute and sinner and, rather than call upon the covenant of the Old Testament, "speak," like those of the New Covenant, "the truth in love," imploring God to join what is separated. What sinner among us dares to raise his hand against a brother or to take solace in disagreement and walking apart from his brother?
All of you who have read Dr. Moss's words: I exhort you to pray for him and to offer him, as do I, a kiss of Christian love. Ask God to show him that we make enemies of people only when we fail to see the good in them and to love them. Our supposed enemies become our friends when we sense, see, and admit that they, too, have the same good that we seek in ourselves; and, indeed, sometimes those whom we hold in enmity, but hold us in love, can move our minds to higher things and join what is at odds. We should all hold Dr. Moss in love, for there is surely much good in him, much tortured affection in him, and even virtuous but misguided zeal, if we see him through the eyes of the Theotokos' love.
Dr. Vladimir Moss
Vladimir Moss
December 6/19, 2008.
St. Nicholas of Myra, the Wonderworker.
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