THE OLD CHURCH IN THE NEW WORLD – 7

Continued excerpts from:

THE OLD CHURCH IN THE NEW WORLD

                                     – 7 

By Archpriest Basil M. Kherbawi

St, Nicholas Greek-Orthodox Cathedral

Brooklyn, NY

Published 1930

SOME REASONS WHY ORTHODOXY CAN NEVER UNITE WITH THE PAPACY

SYNOPSIS OF THE LIVES OF POPES

Continued:

    The Sultan of Egypt was fully justified in his reply to a letter of Pope Innocent IV: “We have received your epistle and listened to your envoy, He has spoke to us of Jesus Christ, whom we honor more than you honor.”

     Pope Clement IV left behind him a disgraceful name for world ambition and wanton cruelty. After his death the Chair of Peter was vacant for nearly three years. I suppose this is the longest period given to Christ to be the head of the church.  

    RJM NOTE: Pope Clement IV gave his support against the Orthodox Byzantines who had been under rule of the Latins forty seven years,  after the attack of the Crusaders in 1214.

     Pope Boniface VIII removed Pope Celestine V and took over his office. In this the Pontiff lived the spirit of Gregory VII and of Innocent III. He commenced his pontificate by asserting his right to adjudicate in all matters whatever in every part of the world. Albert of Austria had slain his competitors for the imperial crown and therefore sent to the Pope for the customary confirmation.  Pope Boniface VIII  replied to the messenger by putting the crown upon his head and exclaiming: “It is I who am Caesar – it is I who am emperor.” And from that time it became usual for the pontiffs to wear a double crown, indicating their temporal as well as spiritual supremacy, until the conceit of a later Pope added a third diadem to the bauble.

     RJM: Pope Boniface brutally arrested his predecessor who had fled. This inane Pope in the year 1296, issued a bull called Clericis Laicos, which divided the Papacy turning clergy and laity into enemies For in the bull Clericis Laicos he stated that  “the lay people are the enemy of the clergy”. After a temporary armistice, the latent enmity between the king and  the Pope broke out again. 

Pope Boniface VIII issued his Bull Unam Sanctam, this egomaniac’s arrogance is beyond description. His words betray his supreme self aggrandizement. “We declare state and define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human These are his own words, creature be subject to the Pope.”

     There seemed to be literally no limits to the arrogance of Pope Boniface.  As if he were more than human, he pretended to give and take away crowns and scepters by the mere expression of his will. . . . 

 The hands of Pope Nicholas V were stained with the blood of Porcari and nine of his confederates who were hanged from the battlements of St. Angelo. The crime of Stefano Porcari the noble and honorable Roman was that he urged his countrymen to ask the new Pontiff to give them constitutional liberty. 

     Pope Sextus IV who succeeded Pope Paul II had several illegitimate sons who, for enriching them, seized on the estate of one of the nobles of Romagna with the intention to confer them on one of these children, and the story of that trouble fills a volume.   The Pope formed a plot for the assassination for Lorengo’s whole family in revenge of him, because he interfered on behalf on the injured man. For two years this Vicar of Christ filled northern Italy with bloodshed and terror, and if it were not for the conqueror Turks entry into Italy and taken Otsanto, God alone knows what he would have committed of crimes and iniquities.

Pope Sixtus IV was succeeded only by Pope Innocent VII who was as feeble and indolent as his predecessor; his life was quite dissolute and his most earnest public wish was to enrich the seven children whom he publicly acknowledged as his own.

     The whole ten years of the pontificate of Pope Julius II were devoted to fraud and stratagems and deeds of violence and injustice, and bloody wars, in which he took personal part, forgetting the divine commandment: shall not kill.

   Philip the Fair, King of France had a long dispute with Pope Boniface VIII. The King imprisoned a bishop for committing treason, and wrote to the Pope desiring that the culprit might be suspended from office. The Pope got very angry and said in his reply to the King: “God has set me over the nations and kingdoms, to root out and pull down, to build and plant in His name.” 

     RJM: After reading this series it is obvious that the Papacy is absolutely contrary to Jesus Christ and his Gospel, There is no church among them, To even think of union is to deny Orthodoxy.  There is no grace sanctifying their sacraments. We must end the folly of intermarriage and recognition of their sacraments, for they do not exist.  Instead let us go after their stolen sheep and bring them into saving Orthodoxy.

The end of this series