Will Somebody Please Get the Story Straight?

Monomakhos - August 9, 2019

Often I get asked why this blog criticizes the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Believe me, it’s not because I want to. It violates every fiber of my kum-ba-ya being.

You see, I’ve long thought that the Orthodox Church is the Church of Christ. Now mind you, I’m not antithetical to the other Christian confessions. It’s not for me to judge. But being a blogger now for almost a decade I get around.

I’m particularly fascinated by “Trad-Catholic” and Evangelical websites and YouTubers. It’s easy to pick up a lot of beneficial stuff there. Some of it finds its way onto this blog. (Same with certain esoteric Jewish and Islamic sites.) Getting back to the Catholic and Evangelical sites though, I can honestly say that there is so much wreckage out there that I’ve come to the realization that, for all our faults, the Orthodox Church is the remnant.

Hence the sadness I feel whenever I read something questionable coming out of Istanbul.

Sometimes the assertions that are promulgated are merely cloying, other times they sound like special pleading. Then there’s the really questionable (read: heretical) stuff that flunks the smell test. The whole “first-without-equals” doctrine would fall into this category.

This byzanto-papalist stuff mars the face of Orthodox evangelism, of this there can be no doubt. But what is especially cloying to me at least is the small stuff that the Phanar can’t get right.
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Things like this: http://orthochristian.com/119616.html

This interview with Fr Alex Karloutsos was given just three short years ago on the island of Crete, during the so-called Great and Holy Council. Now we know that this turned out to be a flop. Having said that, there was no mention before, during or after this Council that there were different degrees of autocephaly. Nor was there any mention of Mother-Daughter relationships between the various Orthodox Churches. We were all “sisters” and the Phanar pulled out all the stops to make sure that every Church that attended would be reassured that this was indeed the case.

So what happened? Did Patriarch Bartholomew get a new insight or revelation? Did some monk in some remote monastery unearth a forgotten text which upended centuries of accepted Orthodox ecclesiology? Was there a previously unknown canon which stated that the Patriarch of Constantinople could unilaterally walk into another autocephalous church’s territory and rip up its charter?

Something tells me no.

It’s sad really to see things like this happen. It’s so unnecessary. Worse, it’s obvious; everybody knows what Bartholomew is trying to do and nobody is fooled. It’s just bad form. We wouldn’t allow it in our personal and business relationships so why are we allowing it to happen in our church?
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It’s just not right. And it makes eminent functionaries like Fr Karloutsos look foolish. Really, they got to get their act together.

P.S. You, Gentle Reader will note that I uploaded this video from orthochristian.com, a very fine site if you ask me. I encourage everyone to visit that blogsite frequently, it’s that good. Say what you will about the Russians, they ain’t the Keystone Kops. (Remember Fancy Bear? Something tells me that the Russians have a whole lot more coming down the pike.)

[ Monomakhos
www.monomakhos.com/will-somebody-please-get-the-story-straight/
August 9, 2019 ]