Epistle

To His Excellency, Francis,
Head of State of the Vatican City
Vatican City, Rome

Your Excellency,
With due respect and sincere love, we send you this Episcopal letter,
the purpose of which doesn’t come from any selfish motive, but from
pure, sincere and selfless Christian love, from Christian duty, from an
essential commandment of our Saviour Christ, Who “desires all men
to be saved and to come to a full knowledge of the truth”1 and finally
from a warm and ardent desire for your salvation. Because of this we
feel it to be our holy and mandatory duty, as the least of the members of
the All-holy and All-pure Body of Christ, and especially as Orthodox
Bishops, who belong as such to the Holy Synod of the Holy Autoceph-
alous Church of Greece, which is our highest ecclesiastical authority,
as to the whole and Undivided One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic
Orthodox Church, to endeavour with all our might to restore you to
the Mother Orthodox Catholic Church, from which you left and from
which you were cut off, a work which we hope, the Uncreated Divine
Grace of the Lord cooperating, shall be achieved. This holy obligation
of the return of heretics to the Orthodox Church has, of course, holy
canonical grounds and basis and is supported by the 131st, 132nd, and
133rd holy Canons of the Local Council of Carthage (418 or 419 A.D.).2
From the outset we must clarify that we Orthodox, not taking part
in the politically correct spirit of western and especially ecumenist
“Christianity,” do not refer to those religious communities who have,
sadly, been separated from the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic
Orthodox Church as “Churches.” But, following the example of our
Holy Fathers throughout the ages, refer to them as heretics, and you,
Your Excellency, and your followers, we denominate as “Papists” and
your heresy as “Papism.” These terms are, for us, not derogatory, nei-
ther are they slurs, but they are theological and even technical terms
which best describe the spiritual and ecclesiastical delusion and error
in which you find yourselves. We, in fact use them with love, for when
one loves his brother he tells him the truth hoping to bring him back
to his senses.
It should also be made clear that the following words are written
with pain of heart and not from some personal bitterness or hatred
towards your respectable personage. Our purpose is not to offend
you, but to reveal, rebuke, admonish and to refute your deluded and
heretical ideas, theories and actions. Our basic rule is that we should
love the heretics but rebuke and hate their heresy and delusions. Our
only interest is our Holy Orthodoxy, the only place in which humans
have salvation. We unceasingly pray that our Lord Jesus Christ gather
together the deluded “Pope” and his followers, through repentance
and the renunciation of your delusion and heresy, into the One, Holy,
Catholic and Apostolic, Orthodox Church and to assume as an Ortho-
dox Pope, according to seniority of honour of the Pentarchy and in
agreement with the Divine and Holy Canons, the Chairmanship of
honour of the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches as “primus inter
pares.”
An additional reason, which shows the timeliness and import-
ance of our present Episcopal epistle, are the intrigues in the realm
of the modern heretical Ecumenical Movement with its ecumenist
theological dialogues between Orthodox and Papists, where the repre-
sentatives from the Orthodox side, animated unfortunately by the pan
heretical spirit of inter-Christian and inter-religious syncretistic ecu-
menism, and employing the false ecumenist love, a “love” without true
love and unity in the Orthodox faith, deceive you, Your Excellency,
claiming that Papism is a so called “Church,” and moreover a “sister
Church,” with valid Mysteries (Sacraments), Baptism, the Priesthood
and Grace, that Papism and Orthodoxy make up the so-called, “two
lungs,” with which the Church of Christ breaths, that you, the heretical
“Pope,” are a canonical bishop, successor of the Apostle Peter and Vicar
of Christ on earth, who possess the Apostolically, Scripturally and
Patristically groundless and non-existent “Petrine” primacy of power
over all the Church, and the blasphemous “Papal Infallibility,” instead
of the true primacy of honor (διά τό εἶναι τήν Ρώμην πρωτεύουσα) as
is commanded by the Holy Canons of the undivided Church of the
first millennium to which the Orthodox Pope of Rome and Patriarch
of the West is entitled, doctrines that are totally unknown and without
foundation or witness in the general Tradition of the Catholic Ortho-
dox Church of the first ten centuries and of the eight Holy Ecumenical
Councils, doctrines which are a clear blasphemy against the All-Holy
Spirit and which show your theological departure and the satanic
pride of which you are possessed. Clear proof of the absurdity of the
Orthodox Ecumenists is that, while they attribute to you ecclesiastical
titles, you who are obviously heretical and erroneous in belief, they do
not dare, even though it would be in keeping with their declarations,
to come into sacramental communion with you, because they know
from that moment they will immediately lose their own ecclesiastical
identity. Does this not make up the most blatant proof of the false doc-
trines of Ecumenism? If they indeed believe their unacceptable and
provocative declarations, then let them dare to take the step into sac-
ramental communion, because otherwise they prove by their actions
the emptiness of the ecclesiastical titles which they give to you false
bishops of the false believers. Clear conformation of the above was the
last-minute cancellation of your personal attendance at the celebra-
tions of the 1700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan in Niš, Serbia, on
June 10th, 2013,3 and the cancellation of your visit to the Holy Mountain
of Athos the same month,4 as rumour has it.
In communicating with you through this present Episcopal letter,
we desire that it be made known to you that, according to the dia-
chronic Holy Scriptural, Canonical and Patristic Tradition and ac-
cording to the infallible conscience of the fullness of the Eastern
Orthodox Catholic Church, Papism, of which you are the leader, Your
Excellency, is not a “Church,” but a religious community, a parasyna-
gogue, a heresy, an alteration, a demolishing and a total perversion of
the Truth, namely, of the very God-man, Christ. Hosts of Orthodox
Councils have condemned Papism as a heresy. We will cite some sig-
nificant examples: The Council of 879-880 in Constantinople, under
the Ecumenical Patriarch, Archbishop of Constantinople and New
Rome, Saint Photios the Great, Equal to the Apostles, which con-
demned as heretical the teaching of the Filioque, and is considered
by the consciousness of the Church to be the 8th Ecumenical Council,
because in it were representatives of all the Patriarchates, including
the then Orthodox Pope of Rome, John the 8th, and because the de-
cisions of this council were universally accepted. Unfortunately, this
heterodox belief has prevailed as your official teaching, from the be-
ginning of the 11th century (1014) until today. Papism adopted after
more than a millennium, a heretical teaching, which Rome had al-
ready condemned along with the other Orthodox Patriarchates, refut-
ing and condemning itself as a heresy. Besides that, all the subsequent
Orthodox Councils, like the Constantinopolitan Councils of 1170,
1341, 1450, 1722, 1838, and 1895 unequivocally condemned Papism as a
heresy.5 What is more, all of the Saints who lived after the schism of
1054, such as St. Germanos Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Gregory
Palamas, St. Mark of Ephesus, St Simeon of Thessalonica, St. Nicode-
mus the Hagiorite, St. Cosmas of Aetolia, St Nektarios of Pentapolis,
Saint Justin Popović and others,6 with one voice, condemn Papism as
a heresy. Papism is not a “Church” but a State – the Vatican, a worldly
organization, with a government, with you, the “Pope,” as leader, with
the Cardinals as Ministers and Secretaries and with the “Bank of the
Holy Spirit.” Neither is Papism a “Roman Catholic Church,” because it
is neither Roman, nor Catholic, nor a Church. It has no relation with
Romiosini or with Romania. It isn’t Catholic since it separated of its