The Autumn of Papal Glory

From Union with Rome?: Part I

By Saint Raphael of Brooklyn

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"There is no doubt that our current age, compared to all previous ages, is the one with the most need to unite the diffused powers of the Christian world and to associate them together, so that Christians, united under the banner of the glorious Holy Cross, are able to repel the vehement enemies of the Christian faith—by whom I mean the evil atheists: groups of materialists, socialists, nihilists, anarchists, and those like them, among the children of the papist church and all Protestant sects—who began in recent times spreading the teachings that God handed down with authority, not according to current scientific truths but according to weak imaginary assumptions. Thus, they began troubling, with their terrible teachings, the conscience of the simple faithful, and disturbed, by their horrible acts, the serene and healthy life of the people, especially in the West, where the papist church, being alienated from the remaining Eastern churches of Christ, became unable to repel the arrows of the enemies of the Christian religion. On the contrary, it brought hatred and abhorrence upon itself from many of its own children, let alone the remaining non-papist Christians, due to its several heresies, its many innovations, and the gross claims of its leaders that are at odds with the spirit of Christian teaching and incompatible with the Apostolic Traditions, and increased the malice and defiance of the enemies of the faith and religion, and it thereby dug its own grave.

Saint Raphael (Hawaweeny), Bishop of Brooklyn

"And no matter how much the co-papists, of all their tints and parties, strive to show off that their church, under the mercy of its visible head, is still flourishing and glowing, it is nevertheless more like an autumn tree shedding its leaves under a soft breeze. For how many hundreds, rather thousands and millions, have separated up until now from the papist church since its schism from the Orthodox Church of Christ? And what is the reason for the separation of these millions from the papist church other than its strange heresies and many innovations in most dogmas, rituals, and old Christian practices? Was not the heresy of indulgence bonds the main reason for the separation of the Protestants? And was not the heresy of papal infallibility what recently alienated tens of hundreds from the papist church? And was not the bold claim of its leaders in the right of authority and headship over all the Church what deprived it from the grace of union with the other Orthodox churches of Christ, and recently brought it to fall and decay?

Exile from Paradise

"But despite all this, instead of abandoning all its innovative teachings that became a reason, first, to separate itself from the Eastern Church, and, second, to alienate from it millions in the Western countries, and return to its status before the schism and unite with the other Orthodox churches and unite to itself all Protestant and Catholic denominations, we see that papist church, conversely, still insists on these heinous teachings, in addition to innovating, age after age, other new teachings more heinous than the first! So, is it not right for us to say, in this case, that all hopes of uniting the Eastern churches with the papist church are vain no matter how frequently the popes of Rome utter expressions of love and words of flattery toward the Eastern faithful in their letters and encyclicals, as long as they insist on the teachings contrary to the spirit of Scriptures and Tradition that they innovated in the foundations of faith and religion?

"But let us read now through the encyclical of Pope Leo XIII where he specifically invites the Orthodox churches of the East to unite with the papist church, hoping that he commits therein at least to abandon the innovative papist teachings post-schism which, as we said, are the strongest hindrances to unity."

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