Holy Metropolis of Kythera - The Sunday Message (13-07-2025)

SUNDAY MESSAGE (audio message)
BY HIS EMINENCE THE METROPOLITAN
KYTHIRA & ANTIKYTHIRA SERAPHIM
SUNDAY OF THE HOLY FATHERS
OF THE SECOND ECUMENICAL COUNCIL 
(13-07-2025)

WRITTEN DIVINE PROCLAMATION

On this Sunday, my dear brothers and sisters, our holy Church has established that we celebrate the memory of the holy and divine Fathers, who formed the Fourth Ecumenical Council in 451 A.D., and condemned a terrible heresy, which at that time shook and tormented the Church for more than 100 years, the heresy of Monophysitism. The apostolic passage we have heard is a passage from the letter of the Apostle Paul to Titus. In this letter, the apostle refers, among other things, to heretics and in particular to the attitude that his spiritual son, Titus, ought to take towards them as pastor and apostle of the Church of Crete.

He writes: The man who believes falsely after first and second admonition, leave him. Know that such a man is totally perverted and sins, and for this sin he is controlled and condemned by his conscience. Who is the heretic man of whom the apostle speaks here? He is every man who, out of selfishness and pride, sets his opinion and his judgments above the truth of the Gospel and above the doctrines of the Church. He is the one who deliberately perverts the word of Truth and persists in his error in order to create his own followers and to break the unity of the Church. We have many cases of people who may formally appear as members of the Church, but in fact do not accept the truths of the Gospel and clearly declare that they do not believe in the divinity of Christ. We also have numerous cases of people who, while formally appearing as members of the Church, nevertheless consciously choose either civil marriage or free cohabitation, thus willfully despising the sacrament of marriage instituted by the Church. In all these cases of people who are alienated from the faith, it is of no use to keep trying to change their minds. The disease of perversion from which they suffer cannot be cured. After we have exhausted our due debt after one and two admonitions, we must then turn away, lest the germ of error also harm us irreparably. Furthermore, the governing Church owes to all these so-called Christians to apply the prescribed Holy Canons, following its long tradition. This is because the Church does not seek to attract followers for the sake of nobility, but to have consciously striving believers.

Also, here we must emphasize that the treatment of error and heresy does not stop at the pastor's effort to help the deceived spiritually, in order to bring him back to the truth of Orthodoxy. It has much broader dimensions. The Church must confront heresy as an organized system of error, which acts corrosively and destructively within its body and threatens not only the salvation of its members, but also its unity. The holy fathers of our Church discerned, with the divine illumination they had within them, how great and deadly is the danger from the action of heretics. They also discerned that the most effective way to combat heresy is the formation of holy synods. In these councils they defined the truth of the Orthodox faith and condemned error and malodoxy, establishing conditions and formulating the doctrines of the faith. This was precisely the work of the holy fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, whom we celebrate today.

Heretics have always been the greatest danger to the life of the Church. Their followers work tirelessly to spread their errors. They establish Societies, Associations and Schools, create websites, organize conferences, open radio and television stations and youth centres, go around the neighbourhoods and homes and distribute leaflets free of charge, wearing the face of love, in order to attract their victims to the deception. They use various slanders against the Church and try in every way to pass their ideology on to our Orthodox people. Especially the false witnesses of Jehovah have invaded our country and many are those who have been deceived by them. But of all the heresies circulating in our country, the most terrible and the most dangerous is the pan-heresy of Ecumenism. From this dreadful heresy let us strive above all to guard ourselves, my brothers, which I hope will happen to all of us through the intercessions of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Fathers we celebrate today and all the saints. Amen.

Archim. Paul Dimitrakopoulos