All current versions of Christianity can be very conditionally divided into two major groups ”“ traditional and liberal. The abyss that exists today divides not so much the Orthodox from the Catholics or the Catholics from the Protestants as it does the ”˜traditionalists’ from the ”˜liberals’. Some Christian leaders, for example, tell us that marriage between a man and a woman is no longer the only way of building a Christian family: there are other models and the Church should become appropriately ”˜inclusive’ to recognize alternative behavioural standards and give them official blessing. Some try to persuade us that human life is no longer an absolute value; that it can be terminated in a mother’s womb or that one can terminate one’s life at will. Christian ”˜traditionalists’ are being asked to reconsider their views under the slogan of keeping abreast with modernity.
Regrettably, it has to be admitted that the Orthodox Church and many in the Anglican Church have today found themselves on the opposite sides of the abyss that divides traditional Christians from Christians of liberal trend. Certainly, inside the Anglican Community there remain many “traditionalists”, especially in the South and the East, but the liberal trend is also quite noticeable, especially in the West and in the North. Protests against liberalism continue to be heard among Anglicans, as at the 2nd All African Bishops’ Conference held in late August. The Conference’s final document stated in particular, ”˜We affirm the Biblical standard of the family as having marriage between a man and a woman as its foundation. One of the purposes of marriage is procreation of children some of whom grow to become the leaders of tomorrow’.
Among the vivid indications of disagreement within the Anglican Community (I am reluctant to say ”˜schism’) is the fact that almost 200 Anglican bishops refused to attend the 2008 Lambeth Conference. I was there as an observer from the Russian Orthodox Church and could see various manifestations of deep and painful differences among the Anglicans.
AXIOS!
Amen to that, Ad Orientem.
An awesome speech.
This is the kind of witness that ++Rowan Williams needs. I wonder if he squirmed as he was forced to sit and listen to these polite but hard-hitting words?
Thank the Lord for our Orthodox brothers and sisters who are prepared to take a stand for orthodoxy.
“I very much hope that the official position of the Anglican Church on theological, ecclesiological and moral issues will be in tune with the tradition of the Ancient Undivided Church and that the Anglican leadership will not surrender to the pressure coming from liberals”.
I hope not, too–but one big problem here is that the Archbishop of Canterbury is himself a raging liberal, even if he makes effort to cover it up.
And I am, and always have been and will be, in deep agreement with the Metropolitan that it’s the Church’s job to be an EXAMPLE to culture, not to SUBMIT to culture. It is the culture that should die to itself, not the Church.
God bless Metropolitan Hilarion, and thank you.
One important point worth keeping in mind is that when +Hilarion spoke, we may be absolutely assured that he was speaking for his boss Patriarch +Kirill. The Russian Church does not operate like the Vatican where there is a reluctance to pronounce the decaying corpse of the Anglo-Catholic dialogue dead.
+Kirill has already terminated ecumenical dialogue with a number of Protestant bodies including the Lutheran Church of Sweden, Germany’s largest Lutheran church, and TEO just to name the more prominent examples. The Russian Orthodox do not dialogue for dialogue’s sake. Once they conclude that the minimal level of commonality necessary for any hope of a positive outcome of said dialogue is gone, they will end it and move on.
I strongly suspect that +Kirill’s next stroke of the axe will be aimed at the WCC. The Russian Church has been dropping a lot of none too subtle hints that it believes the WCC is a body that has little claim to being Christian in any sense that the Orthodox Church would acknowledge. If Moscow goes I predict that a majority of the other Orthodox jurisdictions will follow them out the door.
ICXC NIKA
John
If I recall correctly, ++Kiril has also sent encouraging messages to ACNA in the past.