The True Christ

FORBIDDEN PRAYERS USED BY ORTHODOX LEADERS

     All Orthodox Church members especially clergy are forbidden to pray with those outside the Church. When this is violated it leads to no good as you will see. In an encyclical bu Patriarch Bartholomew entitled: 

“BARTHOLOMEW MAKES ADDRESS IN SISTINE CHAPEL

Vatican City (AP) The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians prayed with Pope Benedict XVI in the Sistine Chapel and urged Catholics and Orthodox Christians to work together to combat fundamentalism and to promote religious tolerance.

Bartholomew addressed the 12th General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops of the Roman catholic Church at the Vatican. This was the first time ever that an Ecumenical Patriarch has addressed this gathering, which meets approximately every two years.

Benedict praised his guest, Patriarch Bartholomew I, on the occasion of the Orthodox leader’s first  service in the chapel, which is famous for its frescoes painted by Michelangelo.

Bartholomew’s participation in the vesper service and speech in the chapel where popes are elected, is a “joyous experience of unity perhaps not perfect, but true and deep,” Benedict said.

The two men are eager to bridge a nearly millennium-long schism between the two churches, and see moral and social issues – including fundamentalism, religious intolerance, abortion, euthanasia and environmental degradation – as fertile ground for common initiatives.

Bartholomew was invited to address more than 400 cardinals, bishops, priests, and lay people from around the world attending a meeting at the Vatican this month about the importance of the Bible. Cardinals and bishops listened attentively as the patriarch spoke about the potential for common initiatives between the world’s 250 million Orthodox and more than a billion Catholics.

The Orthodox leader called it more imperative than ever for both sides to provide a “unique perspective – beyond the social, political or economic – on the need to eradicate poverty, to provide balance in a global world. . .”

Patriarch Bartholomew identifies the Vatican as being a “catholic Church” which is only its claim, not truth.

     He calls for religious tolerance which is up to the state being outside his Orthodox responsibilities. Orthodoxy does not believe that other religions are good but that they are erroneous, for Orthodoxy is the Church founded by Christ, and seeks to bring all men into the Church. She \urges them to abandon their false religions and be baptized into the true Church and this is not religious tolerance. The state can declare religious tolerance but not the Orthodox Church. Our vision is one single united Church and the non-existence of the many false churches.  All the many false churches draw people away from the one Church.

     Though we are forbidden to deliberately associate with heretics the Patriarch urges Catholics and Orthodox Christians to work together to combat fundamentalism and to promote religious tolerance.