Leadership

The Orthodox Christian mind is secularizing. The ecclesiastical spirit is receding. Spiritual blindness is coming in. Commerce is getting ever stronger in many aspects of parochial life as an alarming token of all those evils. Material interests come into the foreground ever more often to oust and strangle everything living and sublime...

To kill a baby in mother’s womb is the most heinous of deadly sins. That precept has always been part and parcel of the Church doctrine. Meanwhile, the number of abortions in Russia defies imagination year in, year out. The nation is dying out, and that is nothing surprising. Does this nation deserve to survive at all, we wonder

These are some remarks the Patriarch of Moscow recently made.

These are the sorts of remarks that a Patriarch should be making. The light of the Church must shine onto the world. The Church offers Christ, and Christ offers Love and Salvation.

Now surf over to the site of the Patriarch of Constantinople.

Notice a pattern? He has a huge interest in environmentalism, and talks about it ad nauseum. There's even a special tab on the site where one can find resources on the subject of "Orthodoxy and Environmentalism."

Any mention of abortion, divorce, immorality, etc.? I didn't find any. And if Patriarch Bartholomew has spoken on these subjects, it's a crime that these thoughts do not figure prominently on his website while thoughts about the environment due.

Look, environmentalism can be important. God became man, and in doing so he blessed all nature. Matter is not intrinsically evil, for it received God, as Holy Communion does to this day. Making a big deal about the Incarnation is important, because it informs our relationship with God. Note that those Protestant denominations who seem to deny the Incarnation also deny the Real Presence, deny sensual worship (worship that makes full use of the senses through iconography, chant, incense, etc.), and most importantly deny the reality of Christ's sacrifice and his redemptive mission (Christ didn't die for our sins if He didn't have a body to be nailed to the Cross).

As important as all that is, serious moral problems face the faithful today. Orthodoxy is in crisis. Pope John Paul II has been an inspiration to scores of young Catholics, and has led to renewed interest among the youth. Can Patriarch Bartholomew claim any similar achievements? Can he explain why he publicly praised "Orthodox" politicians who support abortion?

May the Holy Spirit grant Patriarch Bartholomew wisdom. May God ensure that his successor is a man of clear vision who can address the evils of this world and make great strides towards Re-Union (we're aiming for 2054, after all).