Faithful to biblical and patristic Tradition, Orthodoxy strongly believes that there can only be one Church of God since we know only one Lord, one faith, and one baptism (Eph. 4:5) Kolo, I did read your link and I am sorry to tell you that I didn't see anything new, save for some names I never heard of before. This debate took place over thirty years ago, and nothing has changed.
Let's just list some of the points I was making:
- One Lord, faith, baptism -- defines just about any Christian church, Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant. Obviously the EOC does not live by that definition.
- Salvation may be possible outside the Church -- is a relatively recent ecumenical politically correct sloganism in some parts of the EOC. But the Church doesn't buch up what it says because it doesn't act as if it really believes in those words. We associate Eucharist as the key to salvation and hold that there is no salvation outside of Eucharist. Yet we allow only the Orthodox members of the Church (who may or may not even believe!) to partake of the Gifts, but none of the other Christians who know "one Lord, faith and baptism".
- The Eucharist is used as a tool of the Church to get its way. I always bring up the case of a menstruating Russian woman in the medieval times who would be denied Eucharist for three years for being "unclean" in the church. Ask yourself if Jesus would have denied her His grace for three years because of that. Only when we contemplate this in terms of the One we call on to save us, can we fully understand that the Church follows Christ by word more than by deed. It is not up to the Church to deny Eucharist, Kolo, for God knows who is true and who is not true.
- The EOC is the only Church that denies Eucharist to other Christians. This makes it the most exclusive church of all.
I did not come up with this, Kolo. These are not accusations. These are plain facts. The canon is not God, yet it is often used in His stead.
As for the conservative Russian side of the Church (which is 9/10 of all Orthodox in this world), which refused to yield to ecumenism, it is not the cause of the eventual schism inside the Church. Ecumenism is. If the Church becomes polarized, it will fracture and its small bits and pieces will be absorbed like the rest of the Eastern-rite churches have been, and will become peripheral and mostly invisible satellites of the mother ship. The Pope is not humiliating himself in front of Catholics by taking the barbs from various Orthodox officials for no reason whatsoever. He knows very well that in his humility he is fracturing the arch rival that stood steadfast for 1,000 years as the defender of one, true, catholic and apostolic Church. Ecumenism is a Trojan horse. It will accomplish that which no other assault could. It will destroy from within.
As for your suggestion that perhaps I should leave the [official] Church, that is already a fact because I neither agree with its un-Christian exclusivity, nor with its liberal wing's naive peddling of ecumenism. I am for a more liberal and Christian acceptance of others, but not for compromising in what constitutes then faith defined by the Councils.
More importantly, it is not up to the Church officials to decide whether I belong to the Church of God or not. I do not recognize their authority or their ability to exclude me from God. They don't have that power, no matter or authority.
I love the Church because of its worship, which is not in itself sacred or holy, as an artistic expression of love for God, put together as the most elegant supper for the most glorious occasion. The Church does not give me my faith and consequently does not decide if God will have mercy on me, a sinner, or not. The Church is overflowing with sinners.
As usual, I agree with most of what you have written. I do honestly feel that the actions of +JPII are not as sinister as you feel they are. In fact, it may be the actions of the EP rather than the Pope which are sinister. As I pointed out at the end of my post, the present EP had a rather different pov before he was elected to the Patriarchate. I also don't think that ecumenism is a particularly real danger to Orthodoxy in light of the fact that 30+ years of it hasn't changed much of anything in the Orthodox Churches save perhaps the understanding with the Monophysites regarding intercommunion, and that is an act of economia on both sides. As to refusing say Roman Catholics communion, it appears to me that the recognition of the validity of their sacraments and the lifting of the mutual anathemas isn't seen as enough to go to the next level and allow the actual physical reception of communion. This is because the Eucharist is the ultimate physical symbol of actual Unity. That does not exist. To allow physical intercommunion would be to deny the very real separation that in fact, and I think sadly, exists between Orthodoxy and the rest of the Christian world.
By the way, I don't think that a Russian or Slavic refusal to follow, for instance, Constantinople and Antioch into a reunion with Rome would be the culpable cause of a Schism. In fact, I think it would be quite the opposite, but that is of course only a personal opinion.