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| Augustinos Kantiotis |
A WEAPON OF PAPISM AGAINST ORTHODOXY BY BISHOP AUGUSTINOS KANTIOTΙS
Our orthodox people, who hears the word “uniates” asks: What are the uniates? What is the unia?
Unia is not a Greek word. It is a foreign word, probably of polish origin, which only it alone suffices to prove the external deliberation against Orthodoxy by her enemies. The unia is one of the weapons that papal propaganda utilizes so that it might subject the Orthodox Church. O Lord of love, of mercy and of pities, what means, what weapons, what machinations have not the people of Vatican not manufactured against us orthodox! Shall we enumerate them? The time does not allow us…The arbitrary [and high-handed] interventions of popes before the schism in the administration of the Eastern Church, against which fathers and teachers rose up against in protest: the crusades, who as the excuse, on the one hand, they had to liberated the all-holy places, but [on the other] as the deeper aim would hide the dissolution of the orthodox Byzantine empire and the triumph of papism; the false and notorious unions by force of the councils of Florence and Ferrara, against which the champion of Orthodoxy Mark Eugenicos rose up against; the overrunning of the Venetians against the islands of the Greek archipelago; the fearful machinations and crafting of intrigues by the embassadors of papal nations during Turkish rule, through which they overthrew from their thrones glorious patriarchs and led them into exile and the gallows; the religious schools in Rome and elsewhere, in which they drafted young orthodoxy men in order to transform them into betrayers of their faith, into janissaries of papism, into mortal enemies of Orthodoxy – all these things were means, weapons, which they used to dominate the fortress and for the flag of Orthodoxy to no longer wave in all of the East, to make the orthodox to fall down and worship the pope’s slipper, which the foolish ambition of westerners elevated above every authority in the world.
But all the attacks of the papists against our immaculate faith were repelled. Very few, nill, unworthy of mention were the results of their activities. Of the millions of orthodox a certain few thousand capitulated to the multi-form pressures, apostasized, or fell away from, the mother, from the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, and formed religious communities.
But from this failure Vatican did not despair. Its peaks convened a conference. Cardinals, bishops, abbots of big monastic orders spoke and set forth before their gathering all the elements of their activity amongst the orthodox. How few the fruits! So much money, so much wisdom, so much rhetoric, so much blood of centuries, and this East to remain unbending! Niether the enticements, then, nor the threats of papists would be able to separate her from the orthodox faith? The members of the convention were plunged in thoughts concerning what they must do. Lucifer, who in one cavity of the hall of the Vatican from invisibility was observing the [considerations] of the convention, took on the task of removing them from the “no-exit”. At a certain appropriate moment he threw out in the convention the idea of the unia. And it was not possible but from him alone for this same idea to originate, because he was the first imposter of the world.
I think I hear him proposing his plan and through the mouth of a monk of the Jesuit order he spoke rhetorically the following.
- “My dearly beloved members of this convention! The nature of things compel us to confess a truth, and the truth in this case is that all orthodox people of the East foster a fearful antipathy toward us. For they have bad experience with regard to us westerners. And what evil did not our progenitors not do against them! Not as Christians, not as humans did they behave before the peoples of the East, but as wild bloodthirsty monsters they fell upon them. In the main they surpassed in savagery even the savagery of the Turks. The word frank has become the most hated word in the East. And for this reason, when they see a “Frank-priest”, they depart afar, just like sheep leave before wolves, dear leave before hunters and doves before hawks. Thus, as we are and as we appear, nothing can be done. Wolves, as they are and as they appear cannot enter into the pen. But if it is supposed that some one of the wolves wears a sheep’s skin? Then the pen will open and many sheep will approach the wolf in sheep’s clothing, or in the form of sheep, and thusly the wolf will become the ruler of the flock. The hunters of Timoukoura, as they are and as they appear, are not able to capture even a single dear, but if they wear the hide of a dear, then how many dear will approach and fall dead before their feet! But why, brethren and fathers, do I admonish to the imitation of methods of savage tribes for our propagandistic work? Our prototype is very near us. It is here. (At this point there occurred a certain brief silence. And immediately there was heard a hoarse voice continuing the discourse). Your prototype for your propagandistic work amongst the orthodox is I…lucifer, whose voice and thoughts are transmitted by the one speaking to you. Do you not remember what I did in paradise? If I had appeared just as I was to the foremother Eve, she would never have approached me; before my dreadful sight she would have departed afar; but when I transformed myself into the most beautiful paradisial animal and through it I spoke, then Eve was captured in my trap. She approached and I opened with her the known dialogue, whose result was the expulsion from paradise. The deception, behold my method. This method you too utilize, O bishops, cardinals, white and black popes. And upon hearing the form of the deception, please do not be shockingly surprised. Do not get rile up. Make no objection. I advise you, the much-experienced one, who knows how one wins through the method of the lie, [of falsehood] and of deception. So, without objection you will hear me and obey me. You will take off the clothing of the frankpriest, the so hated clothing for every orthodox soul, you will wear the robe and the kalymafchion (orthodox priest hat), you will stop shaving, you will grow beards, you will take on in every respect the form of the orthodox cleric. But be careful! You will have in your heart the whole pope. And thus you will come by the side of the orthodox. And then you will see the wonderful results of the new method, which, I entreat you, to baptize with the name of unia. So do you agree?”
- “Indeed, indeed. We agree! We applaud your plan, Lucifer”, the assembly answered.
- “I thank you very much, said Lucifer. I wish you brilliant successes”, and making a deep bow before the convention he departed and left the members of the convention to take especial care for the finding of suitable persons, which will put into practice the satanic plan. Thusly in the dark was born the unia…
The above a dream, an imaginary icon? But you must open the history of the Orthodox Church, in order to see what ravaging they did upon the regional church, bishoprics, metropolises and patriarchates of Orthodoxy these organs of the popes, who are called uniates. Exploiting the misery of the peoples of the East, with sheep skins these fearful wolves entered into the folds and chopped the sheep into pieces. Only from the Orthodox Church of Poland the unia succeeded in detaching approximately two million people and to form within the bowels of the orthodox polish people the uniate religious community, which is absolutely dependent upon the center in Rome. Especially during those centuries during which the orthodox were found under the sole of Turkish domination, the unia succeeded in leading astray into its nets entire populations and to bring on great unrest, disorder and confusion.
Orthodoxy, despite all the difficult external instances, did not remain as an indifferent spectator and witness to this grabbing of its spiritual children through this cunning manner, but as mother was pained and took an interest. Thus during the year 1722 there convened in Constantinople a Synod, in which participated the patriarchates of Constantinople Jeremiah III, Athanasios of Antioch III, and Chrysanthos of Jerusalem. This same synod condemned the uniates, these organs of the popes, which as an encyclical sent out to the whole orthodox membership
“by different sophisms, by both machinations and evil arts deceiving and completely persuading those of the Eastern Church of Christ to apostasize, or fall away, also, from correct dogmas and paternal traditions, and to believe and to accept as true the latin deception, the new innovations”.
And because the unia continues its underground work and sowed the weeds in the farm of Orthodoxy, the Orthodox Church also through another encyclical in 1838, stricter than the previous one, censured and stigmatized the cunning (sneaky) workers of the unia, who, instead of unity, as they promised, disrupted the unity of the Church in Antioch and cut to pieces her powers, so that the monarchy of the pope might prevail.
“We are endebted”, the patriarchs and bishops of the East who signed it, “to raise the voice of the Church and through our present patriarchal and synodical encyclical letter, as another evangelical trumpet, to trumpet forth to the Orthodox all over the earth, and indeed to those in Syria, Egypt and Palestine, and to publicly stigmatize, who are these wolves in sheep’s clothing, the cunning ones and imposters, the modern ones from the Lebanese mountains, showing themselves to appear as other dark lucifers, and casting as black and disgusting and choking cloud upon all the areas of Syria, Egypt and Palestine” (See John Karmiris, The Dogmatic and Symbolic Monuments of the Orthodox Catholic Church, Athens 1953, vol. II, p. 823 and 895, as also Chrysostom Papadopoulos, The Latin Propaganda in Syria, Alexandria 1949)
THE UNIA SPREADS IN THE HURRICANE
Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria saw these lucifers, as the synodical encyclical calls the uniates. And Greece remained outside of their evil-dealing activity? In the small kingdom of the free fatherland, which raised from the dead heroes of Orthodoxy, for 100 years the uniates were completely unknown. Not even one of them existed as a seed. But the wolves lay in ambush. As the popular saying goes, wolves rejoice in the hurricane. And some-such hurricane, a national turbulence, shaking our national ship, was the Asia Minor disaster of 1922. Then for the first time there appeared also the uniates in Greece with their head the notorious George Halvatsin, whom the pope ordained bishop of a non-existent bishopric, of Theodoroupolis, and established him in the middle of Athens, in order to bring the garb of the orthodox cleric also into the churches of the franks and to liturgize with the amphia, the garb of an orthodox bishop! When for the first time this leader of the uniates liturgized in the papal metropolitan temple of saint Dionysios of Athens with the full hierarchal orthodox garb, some orthodox person, who saw him and could not imagine that such-kind of deception was possible for clerics of an alien dogma to execute, he suffered confusion and thought that on that day in the papal temple liturgizing as an orthodox was our archbishop of Athens, Chrysostom Papadopoulos. He became filled with wrath and indignation and disseminated that Chrysostom “became a frank” and concelebrated with the papists. On the occasion of this news the orthodox membership was riled up, and the blessed Chrysostom, to calm the consciences of the orthodox down was forced also to say in writing that it was not he who liturgized in the papal temple, but George Halvatzis. And later between Halvatzis and the blessed archbishop Chrysostom there took place a correspondence, in which Chrysostom, despite the meek and tranquil nature that distinguished him, with a strict tongue cauterized the cunning (sneaky) nature of the unia and revealed her dark underground aims (See als “Ecclesia” or “Church”, an official publication of the Church of Greece, 1928, pp. 339-341).
But unfortunately, despite the protests of the then archbishop and the Holy Synod, Halvatzis, with a committee comprised of fanatic papal elder monks and elder nuns, wedged itself in the capital of Greece and began to work intensely.
For about 35 years this seat of the uniates, this leader of the uniates has been working in a dark, underground and disgusting manner at the expense of our Orthodox Church. Perhaps a special article would be needed to be published in order to present in detail the accomplishments of their activity and to persuade the gainsayers.
And yet this suspicious enemy of Orthodoxy upon dying a month ago and buried in grandiose fashion, the city of Athens honored him as much as they never honored archbishops of the official church and other famous men of our fatherland who have died. And still yet even political men of the country, baptized in the fonts of Orthodoxy, hunting for votes, participated in the exhibitions of sorrow, and what is most sorrowful even a certain hierarch of our Church sent to the uniate center a consolatory telegram upon the death of the leader of the unia, which was also published by them for the creation of impressions.
In this manner our Orthodoxy is not only deliberated against externally, but also internally is being undermined.
Papists, Do You Want the Same Method Of Dealing?
Beloved readers! The unia judged only from the moral and religious perspective, provokes dread for every faithful child of Orthodoxy. Never before has such-kind of a system of deception ever appeared in the religious life of humans. Truly an offspring of the night and not of day, a genuine child of Lucifer, who alone was capable of dictating such-kind of a method for the deceiving of orthodox souls.
The official Church of Greece, in the midst of whose bosoms the unia is operating and developing, ought to burnish its sword and to come down to the struggle against her. And to begin with, because the unia, as also every other papal organization has its center in Rome, the official Church of Greece must publicly direct to those in the Vatican the following question.
As you know, sirs, the Lord gave us the law, the so-called golden rule of our conduct towards one another. And this is the following. “As many of all the things that you want men to do unto you, thus you too do unto them” (Matt. 7:12; Luke 6:31). On the basis of this law we ask: Whatever through the unia you are doing to us orthodox, do you want us, too, to do the same to you? And on the more analytical side: Do you want, “holy” fathers of the Vatican, a cleric of our Church equal in stature and according to the weight of your pope, do you want this cleric to cut his hair, shave his beard, to wear the white papal garb, amphia, of the pontiff and on one of the feastdays with papal garb to liturgize in an orthodox church remembering in his prayers the names of archbishops and patriarchs of Orthodoxy? Do you want such-kind of a false pope to go to Rome and to be established near the Vatican and to liturgize and bring on confusion in the consciences of your faithful who will see in Rome two popes? Do you want not only him, but a dozen orthodox clerics to come to Rome, to establish themselves there, too, and to go about all the cities of Italy with the broad-brimmed garb of your clerics and on account of the similar form your people will not be able to discern to what dogma these strange clerics belong? Do you want these latin-eccentric clerics of ours to execute various propaganda against papism, leading astray to their side inhabitants of the poorest neighborhoods of Rome? Do you, then, want such-kind of methods of deception and cunningness (sneakiness) to be used by us against you, so that you might understand what this saying means, “the pole maker is knocked out by the pole” (“passalos passalo ekkrouetai”)? To these questions of ours answer us sincerely, honorably, without turns and Jesuit sophisms. We are sure that neither today’s pope, nor cardinal, nor bishop, but neither even a lay person of your dogma wants a such-kind of appearance and activity of our clerics. But then how do these things, which you do not want us to operate at your expense, how do you dare without pangs of conscience to do at the expense of our Church? If you want, sirs, for that longed after day to come, “the union of all”, stop using such-kinds of methods that, as we have also said above, provoke dread to every uncorrupted conscience and broadens the opened chasm between East and West. The path leading to union is not traversed through the unia, but through that path, which the God-man inscribed saying: “Know the truth and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).
"CHRISTIAN SPARK" BY METROPOLITAN AUGUSTINE KANTIOTΙS,
Issue no. 200 – Athens 1957
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