Does the Russian Orthodox Church Need to Participate in the Ecumenical Movement? (Part II/II)

St. Seraphim (Sobolev) of Sofia (+1950) gives an exemplary defense of the ecclesiology of the Church and on this basis, why the Russian Orthodox Church (and all local Orthodox Churches) should not participate in the Ecumenical Movement. Delivered euring the proceedings of the Congress of the Orthodox Churches at the celebration of the Quincentennial of the autocephaly of the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow, Russia, July 13, 1948, on the eve of the Amsterdam Conference of the World Council of Churches. Consider how much has changed since this address as given, and how the words of the Saint have been followed by some, and rejected by others.St. Seraphim is known as defender of the truth of the Church and as a wonderworker. He was glorified as a Saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 2016. A beautiful and well-known saying of his reads, “Adapt your life to your Faith, not the other way around.” The book of his life and works: https://churchsupplies.jordanville.or...A brief account of his life here: https://blog.obitel-minsk.com/2021/02...Text of recording: http://www.dep.church/downloads/StSer...From “Does the Russian Orthodox Church Need to Participate in the Ecumenical Movement?”:“Let us remember its essence and its aim, and let us wholly reject the ecumenical movement. It constitutes a falling-away from the Orthodox Faith, a betrayal of and treason against Christ, which are things that we must avoid in every way so as not to fulfill the words of Saint Seraphim: ‘Woe to him who even in one iota falls away from the Holy Ecumenical Synods.’” “From this, it is obvious who really stands behind the ecumenical movement: Freemasons, longtime foes of the Orthodox Church. It is also clear to what end the ecumenical movement, at all of its gatherings since its inception, has striven: not a dogmatic union of all so-called “Christian churches” with the Orthodox Church, but a commixture of both, achieved by means of the falling away of the Orthodox from their Faith through an ecumenical familiarity with heretics, especially with Protestants. This commixture is equivalent to the destruction of Orthodoxy.”“The Orthodox Church should never join with those of other confessions. Such a union is unfeasible, utopian, and extremely harmful and even disastrous for the Orthodox Church. Orthodox Christians should, rather, join with each other, and so fulfill the commandment of Christ: “Neither pray I for these alone [i.e., the Apostles], but for them also which shall believe on Me through their world; that they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us.” In this context, the word “all” means “believers,” and the word “believers,” here, does not signify Orthodox together with ecumenists and heterodox Christians; one can only understand the word to mean “true believers,” i.e., Orthodox Christians. As God declared, “I am...the truth,” He could not have meant, here, heretical Christians, but rather only right-believing ones.”“For not joining the ecumenical movement as the Orthodox ecumenists have, we are accused of an essential lack of love for non-Orthodox Christians. However, through their involvement in the ecumenical movement, Orthodox ecumenists break the Holy Canons; violate Orthodox ecclesiological dogma; establish friendships with Protestants and Freemasons at ecumenical gatherings, which makes them lenient toward Protestants propagandizing in Orthodox countries; and assist the enemies of the Orthodox Church in their work for Her elimination. The Orthodox ecumenists’ behavior in their relationship to ecumenism is a complete outrage; it is egregiously unseemly behavior, in which, according to the teaching of Saint Paul, there is no love: “Love,” he says, “doth not behave itself unseemly.” It is obvious, however, that any lack of love is not to be found with us, but with the Orthodox ecumenists, since they do not express love, but rather behave unseemly. Let them ask their conscience—it will answer