Note: I am copying this paper below from Paradosis as it is important to read these chats.
Not only has HOCNA reached out to the various groups listed above in the title of this thread through their lay theologian, Thomas Deretich, but also they are reaching out to ROAC as documented in Met. Gregory of HOCNA's letter.
cf. http://www.euphrosynoscafe.com/forum/vi ... 856#p68796
From Paradosis August 15, 2016
orthodox-tradition@yahoogroups.com
THE MILAN SYNOD, THE AVLONA SYNOD, METROPOLITAN JOHN LoBUE, AND THE CROATIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH by Thomas Deretich
Part One
The synod of Metropolitan Evloghios Hessler of Milan, the synod of Metropolitan Angelos Anastasiou of Avlona, the synod of Metropolitan John LoBue of North America and the British Isles, and the revived “Croatian Orthodox Church” all claim to derive apostolic succession and “autonomy” through the Portuguese bishops who were consecrated (from 1978 to 1987) by the synod of Archbishop Auxentios of Athens of Blessed Memory. Publicly available documents, however, prove that all of these groups betrayed Archbishop Auxentios, his confession of faith, and his canonical successors. More broadly, these groups betrayed the true Orthodox Churches as a whole (not just Archbishop Auxentios) and allied themselves with ecumenist churches. The Avlona synod, and one its Croatian bishops on NFTU, now claim to be a genuine Orthodox Church without equivocation and to have nothing to do with ecumenist churches whatsoever. I hope that this is now true and that they will have their status regularized canonically by a true Orthodox synod. However, everyone needs to be honest about the past history of these groups, their uncanonical break from Archbishop Auxentios, and their communion with ecumenist churches. It is not enough to confess the true Orthodox faith in print, it is also necessary to back that up by being under obedience to the canonical bishops of the territory in which one resides. At present, the Milan synod, the Avlona synod (and their Croatian bishops), and Metropolitan John LoBue’s synod all have the uncanonical status of episcopi vagantes (wandering bishops). It is my prayer that they enter the true Orthodox Church.
The Milan synod and its offshoot, the synod of Metropolitan John LoBue of North America and the British Isles, have a history of misrepresenting their historical relationship to the Portuguese bishops who were members of Archbishop Auxentios’ synod in Greece. It is necessary, first, to set the historical record straight on this issue.
Code: Select all
In 1978, Father João Eduardo Henrique Pinto da Rocha (1938–1997) was a convert priest in Lisbon, Portugal, under Archbishop Antonii (Andrei Georgievich Bartoshevich) of Geneva and Western Europe, of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). Archbishop Antonii of Geneva was opposed to the Orthodox policies of Saint Philaret, the Primate of ROCOR. In fact, Archbishop Antonii of Geneva supported the ecumenist churches (except Moscow) and opposed the True Orthodox Christians. Father João da Rocha petitioned to be received by the Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece, under Archbishop Auxentios of Athens. Because Father João da Rocha had never been baptized according to the canonical form (triple immersion), it was recommended to Archbishop Auxentios to receive João by baptism and then ordain him to the three degrees of the priesthood (deacon, priest, bishop). This was done openly and publicly by the Greek synod in 1978. The ROCOR Archbishop Antonii of Geneva was in grave error with his ecumenism, but the Auxentian synod was also faulted for not consulting ROCOR before receiving João in the way that it did. The key point here, however, is that João da Rocha knew that the Auxentios Synod had a strict, anti-ecumenist ecclesiology. João da Rocha accepted to be consecrated a bishop by this synod with its strict ecclesiology. He was given the name Metropolitan Gabriel of Lisbon.Between 1978 and 1987, two more Portuguese bishops were consecrated. During the same years, without Archbishop Auxentios knowing all of what was happening in Portugal, Metropolitan John showed himself to be an ecumenist. Archbishop Auxentios gave Metropolitan Gabriel a great deal of trust and Metropolitan Gabriel abused and took advantage of that trust and betrayed Orthodoxy.
THE MILAN SYNOD, THE AVLONA SYNOD, AND ECUMENISM
Neither the Portuguese bishops nor the Milan Synod were ever given a “Tomos of Autonomy” by Archbishop Auxentios of Athens, as the Milan Synod and its offshoots falsely claim. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the Greek document that is put forward online is authentic — I do not claim to know one way or the other — and let us look at what it actually does and does not say: https://web.archive.org/web/20160719233 ... g/history/. The document does not say “Milan Synod” or “Milan” at all. The only “synod” if refers to is the one that meets in Athens; and the West European bishops are told that they are obligated to attend in October every year. Strictly speaking, the document does not say “autonomy” and it does not say “tomos.” (Some English speakers seem to believe, mistakenly, that “tomos” refers exclusively to a formal proclamation that a church is autonomous or autocephalous. This is not true. In the usage of the Orthodox Church, a “tomos” can sometimes refer to an ecclesiastical decree of various kinds [on dogma, on autocephaly, etc.]; but “tomos” can also mean simply “book” or “volume.” It is not a grandiose word, but a very basic one.) Yet the Milan Synod and its offshoots claim they received a “Tomos of Autonomy.” They have deceived people with this false claim.
The document that is reproduced online is handwritten in Greek, allegedly by Archbishop Auxentios himself, dated September 14, 1984. It is titled simply “Apóphasis,” which means “Decision.” It states that the archbishop “decided to grant self-governance [autodioíkēsis] to the Metropolitanate of Portugal, Spain, and Western Europe, having as their principal headquarters the God-protected metropolitan city of Lisbon.… This metropolitanate will be under the governance [exartâtai dioikētikôs] of the Church of the True Orthodox Christians of Greece.… The above metropolitan, with his vicar bishops, is obliged to present himself to the Hierarchical Synod each October [in Athens, Greece].” So, there is a combination of local self-governance and over-all governance by the greater synod. The bishops of Western Europe are obligated to attend the full synod meetings every year in Greece.
The legitimate purpose of Archbishop Auxentios in granting this partial self-governance was so the West Europeans could spread the Orthodox faith through missionary efforts. As we will see below, the West Europeans, however, misused this “autonomy” to violate the Orthodox faith. Most importantly, the document did not give permission for the bishops in Western Europe to abandon true Orthodoxy and join the ecumenist heresy. No document could legitimize that. That, however, is what these bishops did.
The metropolitan to whom the document refers is Metropolitan Gabriel of Lisbon, Portugal. It did not take Metropolitan Gabriel long to betray Archbishop Auxentios and the Orthodox Christian faith. As of 1987 (possibly earlier), Metropolitan Gabriel and his two bishops had an ecclesiastical relationship with a bizarre and fraudulent Roman Catholic “seer” and “healer” who supposedly had Latin (unleavened) Eucharistic hosts that bled. Her name was Maria da Conceição Mendes Horta, but she was also widely known in Portugal as the Santa da Ladeira do Pinheiro. When she was not recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, she started to tell people about Metropolitan Gabriel’s church. He accepted this endorsement. Metropolitan Gabriel received converts from Roman Catholicism into the Orthodox Church by baptism (it was the official policy of ROCOR and all Greek old calendarists to do so). However, at the same time, the French mission in ROCOR under Father Ambroise (Achilles Fontrier, 1917–1992) observed the Portuguese giving Holy Communion to Roman Catholics (who had not converted) and reported this to Archbishop Auxentios’s synod. The Portuguese bishops refused to answer to the synod or to correct this un-Orthodox practice. For this reason, Archbishop Auxentios’s synod expelled the errant bishops from the synod. The archbishop informed the Portuguese bishops in a letter, Protocol Number 2671, of November 23, 1988, https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ort ... sages/8805. The French mission, seeing the inconsistencies of ROCOR’s Metropolitan Vitaly and the ecumenism of Archbishop Antonii of Geneva, left ROCOR and went under Archbishop Auxentios, because of his Orthodox confession of faith.
The Portuguese bishops and those consecrated by them (in Italy and France) officially entered into communion with ecumenists. In 1990, Metropolitan Gabriel, and his bishops, submitted themselves to the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Poland, which was and is enmeshed in the heresy of ecumenism.
One year earlier, in 1989, Metropolitan Evloghios (Klaus Augustin Hessler, 1935–) of Milan (who had been consecrated by Gabriel) and two other bishops entered into full communion with Metropolitan Mstyslav (Stepan Ivanovych Skrypnyk, 1898–1993) of Philadelphia, the primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the U.S.A. and Diaspora, headquartered in South Bound Brook, New Jersey. Metropolitan Mstyslav Skrypnyk was an ecumenist and was a supporter of ecumenist Patriarchs Demetrios and Bartholomew of Constantinople. Metropolitan Mstyslav was elected “Patriarch of Kyïv” (1990–1993) by one Ukrainian church faction. Patriarch Mstyslav was succeeded by Patriarchs Dymytrii (Volodymyr Vasyl’ovych Iarema, 1993–2000), Volodymyr (Vasyl Omelianovych Romaniuk, 1993–1995), and Filaret (Mikhail Denysenko, 1995–). These “patriarchs” were never recognized by Moscow or Constantinople, but it was not for lack of trying. They all wanted to be recognized by the ecumenist heretics. They made absolutely no effort to condemn the heresy of ecumenism or join with the true Orthodox churches. The Kyïv patriarchs, at various times, maintained communion with the Bulgarian alternative synod and the Montenegrin autocephalists. (There is some precedence for the autocephaly of the Church in Montenegro, and also precedence for it being under the Patriarchate of Serbia. But the current “Autocephalous Church of Montenegro” is not canonical or traditional Orthodox, but ecumenist and secular.) Evloghios’s communion with these Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Montenegrin ecumenists shows that he was not a traditional Orthodox bishop, but an ecumenist.
Evloghios also showed his indifference to Orthodoxy and heresy by his pro-Monophysite and pro-ecumenist encyclical of March 1, 2005. See https://web.archive.org/web/20160317002 ... ites.shtml. He was widely denounced for heresy, but some remained in communion with him, even after they knew of his heresy.
In another document, signed by both Metropolitan Evloghios and Metropolitan John LoBue in June 2001, they indicated that they wanted to be recognized by world Orthodoxy, https://web.archive.org/web/20140212201 ... 2/12/2331/. True Orthodox Christians do not seek such recognition.
Metropolitan Angelos (Nikolaos Anastasiou) of Avlona was a new calendar priest-monk who was received as a clergyman by the old calendar Cyprian synod and in 1996 consecrated a bishop by that synod. He left the Cyprian synod for the Lamia synod (now Makarios synod) in 2002. He then left the Makarios synod. In January 2007, Angelos “established communion with several ecumenical [ecumenist] churches: Italian, Montenegrin, Bulgarian and Patriarchate of Kiev,” according to Vertograd Orthodox Journal, Newsletter No. 59, March 5, 2007. It is unclear if the “Italian” church to which the article refers is the new calendar Italian church under Bishop Antonio De Rosso, or the old calendar Italian church under Metropolitan Evloghios of Milan, or both. (Evloghios may have absorbed Antonio’s parishes.) Clearly, the article is accurate in noting that all of these churches with which Angelos affiliated were ecumenist. In 2008, he petitioned the Cyprian synod for readmission, but, before that synod made a decision, he and Evloghios consecrated Porphyrios Alexandrou, as a vicar bishop, thus creating an “Avlona Synod” for the first time. Thus the origins of the Avlona synod (and its Croatian bishops) are from a schism from the canonical synod of Archbishop Makarios of Athens and communion with heresy through the Milan synod.
The idea—put forward by the followers of the Avlona synod and the synod of Metropolitan John LoBue—that Evloghios magically turned from Orthodox to heretical only in 2010 through negotiations with Moscow is preposterous. Evloghios was officially in communion with ecumenist Ukrainians (and others) since 1979. The Ukrainians were equally ecumenist as Moscow was. Evloghios even advocated a union with the Monophysite heresy even more quickly than “World Orthodoxy” was willing to approve. It was a grave error for Metropolitan Angelos and Metropolitan John LoBue to maintain communion with Milan when Milan was openly ecumenist.
Code: Select all