by Hieromonk Enoch –
Perhaps this could help clarify why Patriarch Bartholomew has a generally pro-abortion stance. In his book, “Encountering the Mystery”, [emphasis in bold] he says:
I also encounter many and diverse issues related to the sanctity of life from birth through death. Those issues range from sensitive matters of sexuality to highly controversial questions like the death penalty. In all such social and moral issues, it is not one or another position that the Orthodox Church seeks to promote in a defensive spirit. Indeed, we would normally refrain from expounding a single rigidly defined dogma on social and moral challenges. Rather, it is the sacredness of the human person, created in the image and likeness of God, that the Church at all times seeks to underline.
I’m sure many can see the starkness between this muddled statement that can be open to the most radical interpretation, indeed, it lends itself to such, as opposed to the generally pro-life stance taken in the MP’s own official documents (despite the fact that the MP allows hotels it operates to run abortion services, which indicates a divide even in the MP between official views and rhetoric and practice).
Even more shocking is the fact that the Ecumenical Patriarch, while at the notoriously globalist and anti-human Coca Cola in Atlanta, gave a gift of the Koran to the Muslim executive, while lauding the essential similarity of all religions (see video below).
Interesting how he doesn’t mention Jesus Christ once. Nor in his interview with Charlie Rose about 2 years ago, did he mention our Sweet Saviour Jesus Christ. He constantly mentions saving the environment, the world, but, never mentions Jesus Christ in these interviews. Obviously, he is embarrassed to preach Jesus Christ to the world. … He even calls the Koran the “Holy Koran, the Sacred Book of our Muslim brothers and sisters”.
As Rev. Johannes Jacobse, the president of the American Orthodox Institute, says:
Perhaps the EP’s [Ecumenical Patriarch’s] equivocations on abortion explains the affinity with the alarmism of progressive environmentalism. The alarmism is essentially misanthropic (mis-anthropos — hate man); it views the human person as spoiler, rather than part, of the environment. (The language of stewardship is used in progressive apologetics, but the definition of the term is reserved for those who hold to progressive cultural prescriptions.) Malcolm Muggeridge wrote about the misanthropic theme in broader philosophical terms back in 1979: The Great Liberal Death Wish.
Reducing the value of a person to private opinion means that man has no more value than an animal, and viewing man as mere animal is a descent into madness. Human rights activist Wesley J. Smith rightly discerns the barbarous end of this thinking and calls for a new ethic of “human exceptionalism” in Orthodox Advocate For “Human Exceptionalism”. Hopefully other human rights activists will take heed.
Why move it to Moscow, when Jerusalem is the center of Christianity?
There will be false prophets so compelling that even the just will be fooled
I am shocked at the words or lake of words ” the non-mention of Christ”. I personally could no longer have faith in his teachings. I will pray for Patriarch Bartholomew, it would appear to me, without judging him that the fallen world has infiltrated his thinking.
i am utterly shocked. Has he become a compromising politician rather than a primate of the Church? Perhaps aging has destroyed many brain cells. He does have to juggle a lot living in a Christianity-hostile country, which is becoming more so with every election. A lot of damage has been done to the Church throughout its history by high ranking officials and bishops, though. Consider Arianism, iconoclasm, and relentless persecution of such luminaries of our faith as St John Chrysostom in the 4th century, and St Nectarios of Aegina in the 29th century, with many other examples in between. It seems that the plain, simple believer has greater unwavering access to the truth of our faith than many highly educated and illustrious bishops and dignitaries. CHRIST IS RISEN!!!