Osipov: Vatican shows its true face, but poison penetrates into Orthodoxy
Distinguished Professor of MTAS Alexey Osipov commented on the sensational statement of the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, about same-sex unions.
It is not so much the Vatican that is showing its true face that worries us but rather that "our Orthodoxy can fall under the full influence of all these phenomena". The Honored Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy, Doctor of Theology Alexey Osipov spoke of this on the Orthodox radio station "Radonezh".
He noted that the sensational statement of Pope Francis about same-sex unions is far from his first statement on this topic, "but, apparently, the latter has a special mentality, thanks to which, probably, he was once elected."
“If we speak from the point of view of the Providence of God acting in the world, the time has finally come for all those who have not yet understood what the Vatican is, what Catholicism is to call it all by its proper names,” the professor added. “The spirit that the Vatican lives has been revealed. <...> What Francis has now publicly declared is nothing more than, finally, an open statement about what the Vatican is, what the Catholic religion is. "
According to Osipov, the pope questions the most fundamental provisions of the moral Christian doctrine, and, in his opinion, "soon the Vatican will not talk about it so accurately as the pope now but will generally accept it as one of the theses of its faith".
At the same time, the theologian himself is much more concerned not with the Vatican but with the danger to Orthodoxy, into which "poison is already penetrating".
In this regard, he recalled that Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople “has been recently flying to Rome every now and then, only communicating with the Roman prelates. Doing this he demonstrates his spirit in the most obvious way”: “You see what danger we, Orthodoxy, face! This is Constantinople, the leading Church, and what it is doing! It is not by chance, by the way, that Constantinople has recently taken not only such a position but has essentially gone into schism: this is what it means – communion with the spirit of the world, with the spirit of Catholicism!"
“I am already worried not only about the fact that the Vatican is showing its true face, but I am much more worried that our Orthodoxy might be under the full influence of all these phenomena. We must not forget what St. Philaret of Moscow said: "Not a single Local Church is guaranteed to be protected from deviations and falls." The Roman Church is a prime example of this. So, it is not even Francis that worries me, but I’m much more worried about our Orthodoxy. Because in our country too we see examples of approval of what is forbidden by God Himself,” stressed Alexey Osipov.
As reported, on October 21, in one of the episodes of the documentary "Francisco", which premiered in Rome on October 21, the current head of the Vatican proposed to have same-sex civil unions covered by the law. Subsequently, they began to say that the phrase of the pope in the film was deliberately mistranslated in order to influence public opinion of the conservative Catholic wing in the United States before the elections.
Earlier Alexey Osipov spoke about the spiritual origins of the coronavirus.
