Posted by George Patsourakos
on 7/23/2009, 5:52 pm
A large group of Orthodox clergy in Greece has published a manifesto, pledging to resist all ecumenical ties with Roman Catholics and Protestants, according to Ecumenical News International.
"The only way our communion with heretics can be restored is if they renounce their fallacy and repent," the group said in a "Confession of Faith against Ecumenism" that they recently circulated.
The document adds, "The Orthodox Church is not merely the true church; she is the only church. She alone has remained faithful to the Gospel, the synods and the fathers, and consequently she alone represents the true catholic church of Christ."
The list of clerics backing this manifesto includes six metropolitans, as well as 49 archimandrites, 22 hieromonks, and 30 nuns and abbesses, in addition to many other priests and church elders.
The document says that the Catholic papacy has become the "womb of heresies and fallacies" by promoting "dogmatic minimalism" and causing "moral deviations such as homosexuality and paedophilia among clergymen."
The manifesto goes on to say that even greater criticism should be directed at Protestantism, which has "inherited many heresies but also added many more," by rejecting tradition, the veneration of saints, monasticism and sacraments, and tolerating women priests and homosexual marriages.
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