The True Christ

POPES ALWAYS SOUGHT TO DOMINATE

ALWAYS ENEMIES OF ORTHODOXY

     For the Orthodox, there has been a perpetual battle against or capitulation to the popes of Rome, whose objective is to dominate the Orthodox. During c=different eras faithful Orthodox leaders fought valiantly against attempts of various heretics to spread their heresy in the Church,  and  there have been against the Roman Church  which sought to dominate, rule and destroy the Eastern Church, which stands as a witness to the truth against them. They were often assisted by unfaithful fallen Orthodox within, and other from outside the Church. For at various times there appeared unfaithful Orthodox leaders who betrayed the Faith and assisted the encroachments upon Orthodoxy by the Latins, many of them accepted the pope’s asserted authority and thus fell from truth and their own salvation. Some were rewarded for their betrayal with their cardinal position in the papacy. 

     Pride and love of authority led the Roman Church to abandon Christ as their Head, and the Orthodox Church as His Body. The Roman Church gradually became the papacy to replace the church, and its head by crowning and enthroning the Pope of Rome as absolute head and supreme Vicar of Christ. But long hundreds of years before, when they were still part of the true Church. many popes, even then, sought to dominate the Orthodox. The plans for preparation for total domination over Orthodoxy was in the minds of early Roman Catholic popes, many of whom actually tried to establish their distorted form of total authority over Orthodoxy.

     The faithful Orthodox never considered as acceptable the arrogant claims of superiority by the popes, for they recognized the pope as a  patriarch, who seeks to usurp authority over the entire Church. To the Orthodox no human patriarch could replace Christ as vicar, also the Orthodox had always held the Godman as preeminent, recognizing only Jesus Christ is Head of the Church.

 The present day Orthodox leaders illicitly embrace and kiss the pope of Rome as an equal  brother, ranking him as a bishop which is not only not Orthodox, but is against the law of God. For when bishops recognize  the pope, people believe that God does the same. The Church and Body of Christ never has and never will recognize popes as super  bishops, or the heretical papacy as a church with mysteries, No Orthodox bishop has the authority before God  to recognize as a bishop, he whom God has rejected through His Church for over a thousand years.  For by their actions and mutual prayers, they cause it to appear that all the heresies of papal Rome have disappeared of are being blessed by God, which is not possible. The Orthodox who recognize the pope as a bishop, by their actions effectively reject the unique nature of the Orthodox Church as the divine human Body of Jesus Christ. Unions will never prevail as they are contrary to the Body of Christ, whose only union is with the Trinitarian God and the Godman.

   When Rome was part of the Church, a Council of Orthodox and Roman Catholics was convened during 879-880, some time before the Latin apostasy of 1054 A.D.  During those days the Roman Church and future Papacy was often led by authority-loving popes. Such popes, held high among their list of objectives, the  placement of  the Eastern Church under their universal dominion. During his reign Pope John VIII was furious at the results of this Council, when he learned that the papal claims of supremacy were not accepted,  and certain territories, Illyricum and Bulgaria were being administered by Constantinople and not under his authority as pope of Rome. 

    From these accounts we can see that many leaders of Rome, long before they  morphed into the papacy, were greedy for authority and power, which it finally achieved when it became the papacy and it grew bigger with almost universal power until 1870, when they finally declared the pope to be infallible, for they replaced the Godman Christ with the infallible vicar of Rome.

     The Eastern Orthodox Church has always remained faithful to  Christ, glorifying Him alone as Head of His Church. It is true that Orthodoxy remains faithful, but why did the Roman Church go into apostasy and become the papacy? The answer is that because of arrogance, the papacy replaced Christ and established vicar popes to head their church. Orthodoxy remained true to Christ and thus remained the Body of Christ from which Rome had separated. Rome by declaring Christ as absent  established the pope as His replacement and vicar. But the Orthodox Church always remained faithful to and experienced the fulfillment of the promise of Christ: “Lo, I am with you to the close of the age.”   

The papacy usurped not only the Head of the church but they also with their claims to supremacy, after reaching the depths of pride, declared the pope infallible, and having declared him to be the only guide of their church, they usurped the authority of the Holy Spirit, whom  Christ promised would be the Guide and Comforter of the Church. “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit, which the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatever I have said unto you” (John 14:26). In these words Christ denies that He appointed Peter and popes to teach His flock, promising the coming of Holy Spirit for this purpose.

     During the 879-880 time period Pope Stephen sent a letter to Emperor Basil I. In this letter he trumpeted the superiority of the pope of Rome, claiming: “As God has given you sovereignty of temporal things, in a like matter we have received from Him, through St Peter, Prince of the Apostles, the sovereignty of spiritual things . . . To us is committed the care of the flock; this care is much more excellent as the heavens are above the earth.; Hear what the Lord says to Peter, ‘You are Peter . . . ‘ (Mat. 16:18) I therefore, entreat your piety to honor the name and dignity of the prince of the Apostles by conforming to his decrees; for the episcopate in all the churches on earth owes its origin to St. Peter, by whom we instruct all the faithful, teaching them wholesome and incorruptible doctrine.” Pope Stephen then fabricated that the legates of Pope Sylvester (314-335), at the first Council of Nicaea, established the principle “that the first bishop (pope) could ne judged by no one.”

     Nothing has changed with the papacy, for it is certain that the papacy from the earliest days, well over a thousand years ago,  desired to dominate the Orthodox Church and Body of Christ and thus effectively destroy the continual witness of the True Christ and His True Church. The Gospel and all true dogmas are preserved and  kept alive in Orthodoxy and the words of Christ are continuously declared in the Church, breathing life into the faithful. In the Church, the Holy Spirit protects her from domination, nor have the gates of Hades, that is the mouths of heretics, prevailed against it. This is because Christ established His Church upon a rock and that rock and cornerstone is not Peter or popes but Jesus Christ.