American and European Metropolias No Longer in Communion
Update: American Synod publishes statement and lists Church it is in communion with
EUROPEAN METROPOLIA BREAKS COMMUNION WITH AMERICAN, BULGARIAN, AND GREEK SISTER SYNODS
As of March 22 (OS)/ April 4 (NS), the Western European Metropolia, commonly called the ‘Milan Synod’, broke official communion with its America, Greek, and Bulgarian Sister Synods. This came after about 2 weeks of strained relations in the aftermath of the American Archiocese being granted autonomy. After the autonomy was granted, a public statement was issued by the Milan Synod in Europe stating that the new Metropolia had been granted full autonomy and that “from this time the Orthodox Archiocese of America is totally independent and outside its jursidiction”. Friction had come in the few days after the autonomy was granted in Milan, when the Chancellery Office and Synod in Europe began to make statements advocating the European Synod’s union with the Moscow Patriarchate. As a result of this statement, the American Sister Church published statements which condemned the Moscow Patriarchate as an abomination, and declared that the Patriarchs and the innovating clergy and laity are representatives of Satan (either knowingly or unknowingly), and further warned the Patriarchs and others that if the Patriarchs do indeed retain the holy Mysteries they commit the greatest of blasphemies.
Furthermore, the Greek Sister Synod had issued a statement only a few months ago declaring the Mysteries of the Patriarchates to be invalid. This along with the American and Greek Sister Synods insistence upon the European Synod adopting a clearer stance provoked factions within the European Synod to flare up and ‘seize’ control. After a few days of these pro-unionist sentiments being expressed on Milan’s official Italian website, there were heated responses and contacts. Matters devolved rather quickly, especially with the infamous Bishop Abundius in control effectively of the European Synod. Bishop Abundius made clear that he desired a union with the Patriarchates, and especially with the Moscow Patriarchate, and he would not tolerate statements that contradicted this, let alone that called into question the grace or salvific character of the Mysteries and ecclesial actions of the Moscow Patriarchate, or any other World Orthodox Patriarchate.
While an investigation was still being conducted on the part of sources in Europe (including the Greek Sister Church of the Milan Synod, as well as the American Sister Church), a statement was published which ended the communion between the American and Greek Churches and the Synod in Milan. The statement can be found here:
http://ihtis.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/statement-2/
It makes clear, among other things, that the Synod in Milan will seek union with the MP under any circumstances, and that it will punish any relcacitrant clergy in Italy who refuse; as well as stating that it has ended any liturgical communion with any Old Calendarist Orthodox Church or with those it had formerly been in communion with (i.e., the American, Greek, and Bulgarian Synods). It further commands its clergy to commemorate the Patriarch of Moscow, and the MP’s Metropolitan of Moldova.
Additional statements were made in the previous week that it was not in communion with any Russian ‘catacomb’ church; it especially names the True Orthodox synod of Metropolitan Raphael, of which the American, Greek, and Bulgarian Synods are in communion. This statement was made to distance itself from its former Sister Synods who had accepted communion with Met. Raphael.
Editor’s Opinion: This will end badly for the European Synod. It has now cut itself off from healthy members, and it will devolve further into the sphere of the Moscow Patriarchate; a Patriarchate in which no loyalties are shown or mercies granted if these conflict with its political/ecumenist agenda for promoting its mob-like mentality, and it’s former KGB friends and masters. This can be shown by the insistence of the MP that the European Synod turn over all their churches first, and then they will deal with the three remaining bishops. A once promising Orthodox mission in Italy has been destroyed by the conivings of an ambitious Bishop Abundius (who should never have been consecrated); conivings and deceptions layed upon the gulibility of an elderly Metropolitan who trusted the wrong people, and is now in the process of destroying himself and others.
This can be shown by the complete takeover of the European Synod in its clergy ranks and its higher ecclesial offices by Romanians, who feign a traditionalism of sorts, and then are able to seize power. Romanians who expound the virtues of ‘Elder’ Cleopas and ‘Elder’ Arsenie (two famous Romanian Patriarchate ‘elders’ who spoke against ecumenism but never sought to separate themselves from ecumenists under any circumstances), can only breed an attitude of complacency, and one in which they are willing to convince people to settle for the supposed Moscow Patriarchate, which has falsely claimed to renounce ecumenism and participation in prayer services with heterodox (and this claim is easily disproved by the Belorussian MP hierarchs participating in a join prayer services with Lutherans, Papists, and various other groups, as well as enancting a mock ‘communion service’, see the story, “A Big Loaf of Bread”).
