ON THE FORTHCOMING PAN ORTHODOX COUNCIL

"Holy Father," prays our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ, "keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as we are."  This is the theme of unity that runs like a golden thread throughout the Gospel and is, indeed, the underlying principle of all reality--whether uncreated or created.  God Himself--revealed as a Holy Trinity--is the perfect, incomprehensible and ineffable union of three Persons in one Divine Nature; the Church--Christ's Body--is proclaimed in the Creed as one, holy and catholic; while the human race consists of innumerable persons sharing a  common human nature. 

It was the arch heretic Arius who strove to break asunder the unity of the Holy Trinity, rending the seamless robe of our Lord and thereby sowing division and disharmony within the Church--but Christ assures us that against the Church, the gates of hell shall never prevail.  And so it was that the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council gathered together in the God preserved city of Nicaea in order to refute this pernicious heresy and to cast Arius out of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, declaring with one voice, "Thus it seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit...."

When Christ ascended into the heavens, He sent down upon the Church the Holy and Life Giving Spirit that all men might be drawn together into a unity that reflects that of the Holy Trinity, while the ancient enemy of the human race--Satan--ceaselessly strives to sow the seeds of discord and fragmentation.  And while we hear much nowadays about the necessity of restoring the supposedly lost unity of the Church, the Holy Fathers unequivocally teach us that the Church is, always has been, and always will be undivided and indivisible. 

There has been a good deal of hoopla of late concerning the long planned and forthcoming Pan Orthodox Council, which is to be convened not in order to condemn a new heresy that threatens to distort the inspired dogma of the Church, but rather to promote--through cunning and deceit--the pan-heresy of ecumenism.  Do not be deceived, my friends--the ultimate goal of this pernicious heresy is to unite the One True Church to the heretical Roman confession, and (eventually) to bring together all so-called Christians into the one world religion  of the  Antichrist.  It is therefore vital that we, as true Orthodox Christians, stand firmly rooted in that Faith once delivered unto the Apostles and sealed by the blood of the martyrs, that we might until the end of time remain truly one... even as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are one.  Maranatha!  Lord come!