An Orthodox Celebration of the 1700th Anniversary of the Edict of Milan

Led by the Holy Spirit and with the blessing of His Grace Artemije, Ph. D., Bishop of Ras-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija in exile, а multitude of clerics and right believing  Orthodox lay faithful gathered here, on the eve of the feast of Saints Constantine the Emperor and Helen, in this consecrated place called Loznica near Čačak, in the Monastery of Saint Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, in numbers so great that the gathering assumed the proportions of  a majestic Synaxis of the Church and the People come together to celebrate in the true Orthodox manner the 1700^th anniversary of the Edict of Milan which was proclaimed in 313 AD.

There were many reasons for holding a Synaxis of the Church and the People of these dimensions—reasons  which go well beyond the celebration of this anniversary—two foremost of these being our concern about the numerous and alarmingly rapid proliferation of deviations from right belief in the areas of church canons and liturgical practices—which proliferation in recent times has reached alarming proportions within the Serbian Orthodox Church—and our concern about the painful question of the usurpation of Serbia’s Holy Land—Kosovo-Metohija.

The right believers present at this Synaxis were not surprised by the apostasy within their Church, the result of which will be the ultimate perdition, because they are familiar with the prophetic words of Saint Paul among others: “Now the Holy Spirit speaketh expressly that, in the latter time, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons.” (1.Tim. 4:1). But these believers are also familiar with the following commandment given us, again, by Saint Paul: “Watch, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” He particularly commands us to uphold tradition: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught whether by our word or our epistle.”(2. Thess. 2:15).

Led by all these considerations, this Synaxis of the Church and the People does hereby formulate and announce this

EPISTLE

OF THE SYNAXIS OF THE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE

We are more than somewhat concerned by the proliferation within our Church of violations against the traditions, handed down to us by the Fathers of the Church, against the order, established by canonical rules, and, alas, against our Church’s very foundations which are firmly grounded in Orthodox dogma. When confirming the disciples in the knowledge of the faith, Christ said: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you.” (Jn. 14:27). He introduced us to the knowledge of faith so that no one of us would be in conflict with the dogmas concerning sanctity and godliness, but, to the contrary, so that we can preach to all the Truth and so that we can understand that without adherence to the true faith there will be no peace within the Church. Because “churches are not just buildings and ornamentation of shrines, but the plenitude of Orthodox faithful who are in them and who serve God by singing hymns of praise and doxologies.”[1] This is why, before doing anything else, here and now we shall raise our voices and exclaim in prophetic glorification of Our Lord:  “Who is as great a God as our God?/Thou art the God who doest wonders.”(Ps. 76[77]:13-14)

In the words of Saint Sava of Serbia, “This is why, my brethren and my spiritual children, the first thing I would ask of you is to hold on to God’s true faith placing all your hopes in Him. Because, as the Apostle said, ‘no man can lay other foundation than that which was laid’ by the Holy Spirit through the holy apostles and our God-bearing Fathers of the Church. And that faith is the true faith as confirmed and preached by the seven Ecumenical Councils. So that is why upon this foundation of our holy faith we must build with gold and silver and precious stones, that is to say: with good deeds. For neither a righteous life without the true and enlightened faith in God, nor right belief without good deeds shall bring us before the face of God: one must have both for a man to be ‘a perfect man of God’. We must not allow our life to be wanting for the lack of one or the other of these two. As Saint Paul said: ‘Faith is salvific when it acts through love’.”[2]

Prompted by our caring for the Church of Christ, His immaculate Bride “who is without spot or wrinkle” (Eph. 5:27) and, at the same time, mindful of these words of Saint Paul: “One Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph. 4:5, we adhere to the infallible teaching of the Fathers of the Church in as much as we all, with one mind, confess our faith in ONE, HOLY, CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH as it was taught us by Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself through His apostles and the great Fathers of the Church.

“We believe that the Catholic Church is taught by the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is that true Comforter whom Christ has sent us from God the Father to teach the Church through the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Catholic Church.”[3] That is precisely why the teaching of the Church is perfect and infallible. We believe that members of the Catholic Church are only those who believe, that is to say, who confess without any doubt the pure faith of Our Savior Jesus Christ, the faith which we have received from Christ Himself, from His Apostles and from the Holy Ecumenical Councils“[4], and who have been baptized according to the Orthodox rite of the Church of God. “The Church alone possesses and speaks the essential Truth of all worlds. Everything that is outside of the Church, however pleasing and sweet, is nothing but deceit.”[5]

Any other teaching, which maintains that the Church is not One, but can be joined by heretical communities, such as the Roman Catholics and Protestants, as some sort of “sisters” or “another lobe of the lungs,” any teaching which contains the fallacious “branch theory,” according to which One Church cannot alone have the plenitude of Truth, as it is only a single branch of the tree which is some sort of  “universal super church,” any teaching which contains any one of those theological theories which support the contemporary heresy known as ecumenism, or are parts of its structure—any of the above—we reject, condemn, curse and anathematize as foreign to the Holy Tradition of the Church.

Opinions held and statements made by those who, deeming that the heretical head of the state of Vatican—the Roman Catholic Pope—was chosen by the Holy Spirit to be the leader of the Roman Catholics and call him “Holy Father, or those who recognize the presence of Divine Grace in baptism and other rites conducted by Roman Catholics and other heretics and who, thereby, recognize the Roman Catholic Apostolic Succession, as well as opinions held and statements made by those members of the Orthodox Church who proudly wear popish rings and popish pectoral crosses, we condemn and reject as alien to  the infallible teachings of the Holy Fathers of the Church.

Actions performed and positions adopted by those who participate in the ecumenical movement—the heresy of all heresies—and who are part of the so-called World Council of Churches, or those who publicly declare themselves to be ecumenists and pray together with heretics bringing upon themselves the curse of the Holy Apostles and the Holy Ecumenical Councils, which strictly forbid praying with heretics even in private, because by doing so they bring confusion among the weaker faithful, and those who, by participating in false dialogues of love, relativize and reject dogmas of the Orthodox Church,  all of the above we condemn and reject as alien to the teaching of the Church of Christ. Because “Her position as regards the heretics—and heretics are all those who are not Orthodox—the Church of Christ has defined once and for all through the Holy Apostles and the Holy Fathers of the Church, through the Theanthropologic Tradition which itself is one and immutable. And according to this position, the Orthodox faithful are forbidden to pray or associate with heretics.“For what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? And what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?” (2 Cоr: 6:14-15). Canon XLV of the Holy Apostles dictates that “A bishop, or a presbyter, or a deacon who merely prays with heretics shall be excommunicated; should a bishop allow them to act as clerics, let him be deposed.[6]

The reformist activity and protestant attitudes and spirit of those who think that the Holy Mysteries, particularly the Eucharist, have not been preserved by the Orthodox Church in their original form and are, consequently, moved by their self-will  and the absence of the fear of God to “add finishing touches to” and make alterations in the offices for the performance of these mysteries, rejecting the liturgical tradition which we have received from our predecessors, as well as their efforts to introduce the new calendar in church practices and shorten or do away with fasts—all these we condemn and reject as entirely alien to the faith of the Prophets, the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church, the faith which we have received from Christ Himself acting through them.

This is why we say as the Fathers of the Church used to say: “As the Prophets saw it, as the Apostles were taught it, as the Church received it, as the Teachers defined it in dogmas, as the Universe accepted it, as the Grace illumined it, as the Truth was proved by it, as the lie was banished by it, as the Wisdom was daringly manifested by it,”[7], as Christ confirmed it with abundant grace, that is how we think, speak and preach that there exists only ONE HOLY, CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH, just as there is only One Christ, who is the Head of the Church, and that outside the Church, “which is the pillar and ground of the truth,” there is  no salvific grace of God, there is  no true faith, there is no salvation. Because, as Saint Justin of Ćelije said: “There is no Christianity outside the Church.”[8] That is why, with one heart and one voice we confess, confirm and say: “This is the faith of the Apostles. This is the faith of the Holy Fathers. This is the Orthodox faith. This is the faith which established the Universe.”[9]

We “accept also all Holy Councils which by the grace of God met from time to time and in different places in order to establish the Orthodox teaching of the Gospels as accepted by the Catholic Church. While those teachings which the Holy Fathers rejected we also reject; and those which they anathematized, we also anathematize.”[10]

After this exposition, prepared with extreme care and propriety, this prayerful Synaxis of the Church and the People decided not to permit anyone to enunciate, write, compose, devise or surreptitiously introduce another faith or preach or philosophize about the Church of Christ in a different manner. And as for those who dare to invent another faith or incorrectly preach, teach and present another Symbol of Faith to those who wish to turn away from faithlessness or some heresy and enter the knowledge of Truth, be they patriarchs, bishop, clerics or monks, or lay people, if they do not repent but stubbornly persist in their heretical delusion, let them be alien and foreign to the Church and to salvation, for they are already alien and cut away from Her, since they do not confess the Orthodox faith as they should.

Now that we have confessed our faith and condemned heresies and heretical endeavors, we call upon the leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church and on all those, who have by their actions or words besmirched themselves with the heresy of ecumenism, to take our words seriously and repent publicly, to withdraw from the World Council of Churches, the gathering place of those who belong to that heresy of all heresies called ecumenism, to turn back from their Uniate and papist aspirations and from their godless liturgical reforms and every kind of transgression against the Holy Tradition. So as to avoid further incriminating themselves by continuing to transgress against all seven Ecumenical Councils, so as to stop widening the distance between themselves and the plenitude of the Church by continuing to proclaim their adherence to the heresy of ecumenism, we call upon them to repent and thereby allow peace to rule again within the Serbian Orthodox Church and beyond,  and let love and oneness of mind blossom in the Catholic co-celebration and confession of our unchanged Orthodox faith which remains as it was when we received it from the Holy Apostles and  Fathers of our Church through Saint Sava.

It follows, therefore, that we consider that the celebration of the jubilee of the Edict of Milan, as planned and organized by the officials of the Serbian Orthodox Church, is in fact, an abuse of that edict. The Edict of Milan brought freedom to the Christians and peace to the Church, and that was a great feat performed by Saint Constantine the Equal-to-the-Apostles. However, the Edict of Milan was not then, nor is it now, a call for the unification of the Orthodox Church with those who are outside Her, i.e. with the heretics and the unbelievers, as the top echelons of the Serbian Orthodox Church administration, eager to serve their Vatican and globalist masters rather than Christ and His Divine Science, wish to imply and surreptitiously introduce as such in their continuing efforts to promote their ecumenist aspirations. Using this form of celebrating the jubilee of the Edict of Milan, the top echelons of the Church administration have distorted and falsified the Edict itself by ascribing to it a false ecumenist dimension: they are calling for a false unification of Orthodox believers with heretics.  At the same time, the administrative top of the Serbian Orthodox Church, in its ecumenist euphoria, is engaged in the persecution of the right believing clerics and their flock who refuse to accept ecumenist heretical strivings. For this reason we must warn the officials of the Serbian Orthodox Church to stop these practices forthwith. Because, by engaging in them, they are returning the Church to a period anterior to the Edict of Milan taking upon themselves the shameful role of the persecutors of Christians, whereas the Edict was promulgated precisely in order to combat them. The most eloquent illustration of the mockery that the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Serbian government have made of Edict of Milan is the unison in which they mercilessly persecute defenseless right believing clerics and their flock who refuse to accept the heretical aspirations of ecumenists. The latter are being forcibly expelled from their places of worship because they resist distortions of their faith and deviations from the liturgical order and the church canons in general.

In this connection, in a perfect meeting of minds, united as one body, we demand that the Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church officially abrogate its decisions and accusations—invalid anyway as they are in conflict with church canons and tradition—brought against Bishop Artemije and other clerics and lay persons, as well as make null and void all measures taken against such clerics and lay persons in a similarly uncanonical manner.

We also call on the hierarchy of the Serbian Orthodox Church to take an unequivocal position regarding Kosovo and Metohija by clearly and publicly condemning all actions and signed agreements by which Serbia is robbed of Kosovo and Metohija while the church heritage is now gradually handed over to non-Christians. Sad to say, but through a series of concessions and wrong decisions the Church herself was complicit in this. Kosovo and Metohija, the spiritual cradle of the Serbian nation, part of the genealogy of every Orthodox Serb, one fifth of our fatherland, is under foreign occupation; it is occupied by Euro-American aggressors. According to our Constitution, no one person has the right to sign the document of the capitulation of the country. Because by signing such a document that person would renounce the sovereignty of our country and her territorial integrity. No Serb, born and bred, should ever, by any means, in any place, in any circumstances or manner, participate in the breaking up, dismembering, pillaging of Kosovo and Metohija or in its severance from our fatherland. This applies particularly to the fate of the multitude of churches and cemeteries in Kosovo and Metohija. For this reason officials of the Serbian Orthodox Church are under an obligation to demand of the Serbian government and the Assembly of Serbia to proclaim unambiguously that the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija is under foreign occupation.

Gathered here at this Synaxis of the Church and the People, we call on all of you godly Orthodox Christians to stay with what you have been taught, stay in the faith in which you were born and bred—the immutable Orthodox faith—and when the time comes and the circumstances demand, shed your very blood for the faith you have received from the Holy Fathers[11]. Because you must not forget the words of Our Savior: “Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on earth?” (Lk. 18:8). That is precisely why the Apostles continually preached the Gospel. “And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch,/Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith and that we must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God. (Acts 14: 21-22).

Our sacrifice for the true faith must be made unconditionally, for it is said that “the just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17; comp. Gal. 3:11) “but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” (Heb. 10:38). “But,” according to Saint Paul again, “we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” (Heb. 10:39). This is why this apostle concludes to universal joy that: “Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through Our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:1).

Superior of the Synaxis of the Church and the People,

His Grace Artemije, Ph. D.

 Bishop of Ras-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija

in exile

Monastery of Saint Nicholas of Myra and Lycia

 in Loznica near Čačak,

 on the Eve of the Feast of Saints Constantine the Emperor and Helen

in the year of Our Lord 2013.