It’s Dejavu All Over Again

Read until the end.

From "A Canonical Justification of Those Who Have Separated from the Rocor:"

"For fifty years the Synod of Bishops has consistently taught against the heresy of Ecumenism. They understood that churches participating in the World Council of Churches necessarily participate in the heresy of Ecumenism and by their actions openly proclaim this heresy to the whole world. (Metropolitan Vitaly's 1969 report to the Sobor of Bishops on the dangers of Ecumenism). In 1983 the Synod of Bishops anathematized the heresy of Ecumenism and those who communicate with ecumenist heretics.... Since the enthronement of [the Metropolitan]...we have seen and heard some remarkable things:

1. Synod bishops [sic] freely concelebrate with clergy and bishops of the Serbian Patriarchate who are organic members of the World Council of Churches and whose Patriarch was ten years a president of the WCC.

2. Communion is indiscriminately given to lay people of the New Calendar churches whose bishops are all members of the WCC.

3. An Archbishops of the Russian Church Abroad regularly communicates with clergy of the Jerusalem Patriarchate who are organic members of the WCC and in communion with the Moscow Patriarchate.

4. [The Metropolitan] openly teaches that the Moscow Patriarchate, which was previously know as the illegal church, the uncanonical church, and the church of lies, is the Mother Church of which the Synod Abroad is the free part. In contradistinction, the Synod's past Metropolitans and confessors taught that the Catacomb Church was the Mother Church.

5. Again, [the Metropolitan] teaches that the Catacomb or True Church no longer exists underground, but is now an organic part of the official Moscow Patriarchate, distinguished only by the fact that its members resist...oppression.

6. Further, [the Metropolitan] now teaches that the Serbian Church, which he said...had accepted the heresy of Ecumenism, is not ecumenical and does not fall under the heresy of Ecumenism, is not ecumenical and does not fall under the ban of the 1983 Anathema

against Ecumenism...

7. Finally, [the Metropolitan] now teaches that when we pray in our litanies for the "orthodox episcopate of the persecuted Russian Church" we are not praying for the bishops of the Catacomb Church, but rather we are praying for the faithful bishops of the Official Church...

From this brief review we must conclude that [the Metropolitan], First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad, is preaching heresy. That is, he is openly preaching and teaching opinions that are under the ban of anathema pronounced by valid synod [sic] meetings of both the True Catacomb Church of Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.

In addition, [the Metropolitan], his brother hierarchs, and his clergy throughout the world pray

with heretics and allow heretics to perform liturgical services in flagrant violation of the 1983 anathema

against the heresy of Ecumenism...

Finally, whenever the clergy of [the Metropolitan's] diocese have addressed these matters to him, he universally fails to respond in violation of the XXVII Canon of Carthage which requires written response within thirty days, with the possibility of a thirty day extension, making sixty days. If the bishop fails to respond after sixty days, according to the Canon he is to be suspended.

...In review, we have shown...[that] [the Metropolitan] has openly preached a heretical

understanding of the anathematized and heretical Moscow Patriarchate...that [the Metropolitan] and his brother bishops and clergy have falsely and heretically proclaimed the ecumenist Serbian

Patriarchate to be free from the heresy of Ecumenism...that [the Metropolitan] and his brother

bishops and clergy have placed themselves under their own anathema...that [the Metropolitan] and his brother bishops and clergy...have suspended and deposed themselves...by refusing to answer the just and rightful inquiries of their clergy...

Fr. Spiridon Schneider, Priest"

WHO is the Metropolitan Fr. Spiridon writes of?...

Why, Metropolitan Vitaly. This was written 15 years ago!

[Incidentally, Fr. Spiridon, the one who is now receiving donations for "Met. Vitaly's Defense Fund,"

then repented and was ultimately received back into the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. Will he repent again?]

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Nicholas Ohotin