Elder Gabriel – Kinot: Ukrainian schismatics not to be saved but go to hell
Elder Gabriel of Karyes finds it depressing that today the Holy Mountain is changing in many ways, more and more obeying foreign and always unorthodox orders.
The schismatics of Ukraine and the monasteries that host them, including those on Athos, will not be saved and will go to hell, wrote the Athonite Elder Gabriel of Karyes from the Koutloumousiou Monastery in his open letter addressed to the Holy Kinot. The text of the letter was published on the Pentapostagma.gr portal.
“It is sad and at the same time depressing to realize that the modern Mount Athos, from the cradle of Orthodoxy and civilization, from the workshop that produced great ascetics and consecrated monks, martyrs and confessors of our Orthodox faith, has been mutated and altered in a place of secularization, syncretism, ecumenism, the ruthless persecution of the weak by the strong, traditional monasteries, which oppose those who push them down a slippery slope,” the Elder noted in his letter.
In his opinion, today the Holy Mount has become “foreign and unrecognizable, willing and obedient to foreign and secular interests, always unorthodox”, which should sow discord, disagreement and cruel behaviour on Athos towards monks who “resist the emergence of new and very secular ideas and models of behaviour, which are now clearly striving to change the Orthodox faith and the Sacred Tradition of our Church."
“Mount Athos is not only quietly silent but favours and partners in the spread of syncretistic and ecumenical spirit, alien, irrelevant and destructive for the unchanging path followed by our Orthodox Church,” the Elder emphasized, adding that “if we do not recover from this spiritual lethargy, the stakes will be the final loss of our salvation".
He clarified that this mainly concerns the administrative bodies of Athos, the Holy Kinot and the Holy Epistasia ("Holy Administration"). Indeed, there are monasteries and monks who oppose the process of secularization and ecumenism, resulting in various pressures, threats and persecutions.
This situation, he believes, was a consequence of the Council of Crete (2016), at which "the Truth was deconstructed by man and became a "truth", a small "truth", having a relevant meaning", and heretics ceased to be called heretics, "because it was in the interests of all international, neoclassical, extra-ecclesiastical circles".
The Council of Crete, according to the Elder, became evil and the consequences followed. In particular, this is the granting of “autocephaly” on behalf of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the schismatics, heretics and self-ordained of Ukraine, “church communion with them and their commemoration” and “already prayerful communion and concelebration” of schismatics with individual hieromonks and abbots of the Athonite monasteries.
In addition, the Elder pointed to cases of anti-canonical joint prayers of the representatives of Athos with Muslims and Catholics, as well as the intense pressure on the Holy Mountain "from local, but mainly foreign statesmen and international ecumenical centres to alter its Orthodox constitution".
In conclusion, he noted that the persecution and accusations against the hieromonks and monks of the Holy Mountain, “expecting nothing more than to please God alone, in fact fighting for His Orthodox Church”, are the Cross and the price they pay for their actions and words. And the schismatics, the Elder stated, will still go to hell.
“The schismatics of Ukraine will not be saved, they will go to hell. No matter how many monasteries (of Mount Athos or not) received them, collaborated, prayed, and communed with them, they too will not be saved and they too will go to hell," Elder Gabriel of Karyes resumed.
As reported, earlier the head of the Phanar convinced the brethren on Mount Athos of the need to unite with the Catholics.
