Opening Worship Ceremony, 7th WCC Assembly in Canberra, Australia, 1992
"In the end, the great religious communities will not disappear. No one will have the upper-hand. Jews will remain Jews; Muslims will remain Muslims; and those belonging to the great Oriental religions will remain Hindus, Buddhists, and Taoists. Africa will express its own view of the world; China will retain her heritage. As before, people will continue to travel from the East to the West, from the North to the South, and abide in the Kingdom of God without, in consequence, having first become Christians like us."
- From the Official "Guide" to the World Council of Churches Assembly in Vancouver, Canada (July 24 - August 10, 1983): Christianity Today (April 1994), p.12; cited in Orthodox Life, vol. 37:5 (September-October 1987), Jordanville, N.Y., p. 31.
A Greek Orthodox Archdiocese publication by the Reverend George Mastrantonis, a priest of the Greek Archdiocese of North America who reposed in 1988, entitled ¨The Basic Sources of the Teachings of the Eastern Orthodox Church, printed the following text: "The seventh source [of the one, undivided Church, the Orthodox Church] is the discourses written through the World Council of Churches today, mostly on its relationship to the Orthodox Church." (pg. 4, ISSN 0029-7143).
As is obvious from the preceding, since the Greek Archdiocese and the Patriarchate of Constantinople have become members of the World Council of Churches in its pursuit of Ecumenism, the discourses with the World Council of Churches has now somehow become one of the seven primary sources of the teachings of the Eastern Orthodox Church!
Archbishop Gregory P.O. Box 3177 Buena Vista, CO 81211-3177 USA Email: ArchbishopGregory@starband.net
Copyright 2005.
