The Confession of Cyril Lucaris

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Cyril, Patriarch of Constantinople, publishes this brief Confession for the benefit of those who inquire about the faith and the religion of the Greeks, that is of the Eastern Church, in witness to God and to men and with a sincere conscience without any dissimulation.

We believe in one God, true, Almighty, and in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the Father unbegotten, the Son begotten of the Father before the world, consubstantial with the Father; the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father by the Son, having the same essence with the Father and the son. We call these three persons in one essence the Holy Trinity, ever to be blessed, glorified, and worshipped by every creature.

We believe the Holy Scripture to be given by God, to have no other author but the Holy Spirit. This we ought undoubtedly to believe, for it is written. We have a more sure word of prophecy, to which you do well to take heed, as to light shining in a dark place. We believe the authority of the Holy Scripture to be above the authority of the Church. To be taught by the Holy Spirit is a far different thing from being taught by a man; for man may through ignorance err, deceive and be deceived, but the word of God neither deceives nor is deceived, nor can err, and is infallible and has eternal authority.

We believe that the most merciful God has predestined His elect unto glory before the beginning of the world, without any respect of their works and that there was no other impulsive cause to this election, but only the good will and mercy of God. In like manner before the world was made, He rejected whom He would, of which act of reprobation, if you consider the absolute dealing of God, His will is the cause; but if you look upon the laws and principles of good order, which God’s providence is making use of in the government of the world, His justice is the cause, for God is merciful and just.

We believe that one God in Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to be the Creator of all things visible and invisible. Invisible things we call the angels, visible things we call the heavens and all things under them. And because the Creator is good by nature, He has created all things good, and He cannot do any evil; and if there is any evil, it proceeds either from the Devil or from man. For it ought to be a certain rule to us, that God is not the Author of evil, neither can sin by any just reason be imputed to Him.

We believe that all things are governed by God’s providence, which we ought rather to adore than to search into. Since it is beyond our capacity, neither can we truly understand the reason of it from the things themselves, in which matter we suppose it better to embrace silence in humility than to speak many things which do not edify.

We believe that the first man created by God fell in Paradise, because he neglected the commandment of God and yielded to the deceitful counsel of the serpent. From thence sprung up original sin to his posterity, so that no man is born according to the flesh who does not bear this burden and feel the fruits of it in his life.

We believe that Jesus Christ our Lord emptied Himself, that is He assumed man’s nature into His own substance. That He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the ever virgin Mary, was born, suffered death, was buried, and risen in glory, that He might bring salvation and glory to all believers, Whom we look for to come to judge both quick and dead.

We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ sits on the right hand of His Father and there He makes intercession for us, executing alone the office of a true and lawful high priest and mediator, and from there He cares for His people and governs His Church adorning and enriching her with many blessings.

We believe that without faith no man can be saved. And we call faith that which justifies in Christ Jesus, which the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ procured, the Gospel published, and without which no man can please God.

We believe that the Church, which is called catholic, contains all true believers in Christ, those who having departed their country are in heaven and those who live on earth are yet on the way. The Head of that Church (because a mortal man by no means can be) is Jesus Christ alone, and He holds the rudder of the government of the Church in His own hand. Because, however, there are on earth particular visible Churches, every one of them has one chief, who is not properly to be called [head] of that particular Church, but improperly, because he is the principal member of it.

We believe that the members of the Catholic Church are saints, chosen unto eternal life, from the number and fellowship of which hypocrites are excluded, though in particular visible churches tares may be found among the wheat.

We believe that the Church on earth is sanctified and instructed by the Holy Spirit, for He is the true comforter, whom Christ sends from the Father to teach the truth and to expel darkness form the understanding of the faithful. For it is true and certain that the Church on earth may err, choosing falsehood instead of truth, from which error the light and doctrine of the Holy Spirit alone frees us, not of mortal man, although by mediation of the labors of the faithful ministers of the Church this may be done.

We believe that man is justified by faith and not by works. But when we say by faith, we understand the correlative or object of faith, which is the righteousness of Christ, which, as if by hand, faith apprehends and applies unto us for our salvation. This we say without any prejudice to good works, for truth itself teaches us that works must not be neglected, that they are necessary means to testify to our faith and confirm our calling. But that works are sufficient for our salvation, that they can enable one to appear before the tribunal of Christ and that of their own merit they can confer salvation, human frailty witnesses to be false; but the righteousness of Christ being applied to the penitent, alone justifies and saves the faithful.

We believe that free will is dead in the unregenerate, because they can do no good thing, and whatsoever they do is sin; but in the regenerate by the grace of the Holy Spirit the will is excited and in deed works but not without the assistance of grace. In order, therefore, that man should be born again and do good, it is necessary that grace should go before; otherwise man is wounded having received as many wounds as that man received who going from Jerusalem down to Jericho fell into the hands of thieves, so that of himself he cannot do anything.

We believe that the Evangelical Sacraments in the Church are those that the Lord instituted in the Gospel, and they are two; these only have been delivered unto us and He who instituted them delivered unto us no more. Furthermore, we believe that they consist of the Word and the Element, that they are the seals of the promises of God, and they do confer grace. But that the Sacrament be entire and whole, it is requisite that an earthly substance and an external action concur with the use of that element ordained by Christ our Lord and joined with a true faith, because the defect of faith prejudices the integrity of the Sacrament.

We believe that Baptism is a Sacrament instituted by the Lord, and unless a man has received it, he has no communion with Christ, from whose death, burial, and glorious resurrection the whole virtue and efficacy of Baptism proceeds; therefore, we are certain that to those who are baptized in the same form which our Lord commanded in the Gospel, both original and actual sins are pardoned, so that whosoever has been washed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit are regenerate, cleansed, and justified. But concerning the repetition of it, we have no command to be rebaptized, therefore we must abstain from this indecent thing.

We believe that the other Sacrament which was ordained by the Lord is that which we call Eucharist. For in the night in which the Lord offered up Himself, He took bread and blessed it and He said to the Apostles, "Take ye, eat, this is my body," and when He had taken the cup, He gave thanks and said, "Drink all of this, this is my blood which was shed for many; this do in remembrance of me." And Paul adds, "For as often as ye shall eat of this bread and drink of this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death." This is the pure and lawful institution of this wonderful Sacrament, in the administration of which we profess the true and certain presence of our Lord Jesus Christ; that presence, however, which faith offers to us, not that which the devised doctrine of transubstantiation teaches. For we believe that the faithful eat the body of Christ in the Supper of the Lord, not by breaking it with the teeth of the body, but by perceiving it with the sense and feeling of the soul, since the body of Christ is not that which is visible in the Sacrament, but that which faith spiritually apprehends and offers to us; from whence it is true that, if we believe, we do eat and partake, if we do not believe, we are destitute of all the fruit of it. We believe, consequently, that to drink the cup in the Sacrament is to be partaker of the true blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the same manner as we affirmed of the body; for as the Author of it commanded concerning His body, so He did concerning His blood; which commandment ought neither to be disremembered nor maimed, according to the fancy of man’s arbitrament; yea rather the institution ought to be kept as it was delivered to us. When therefore we have been partakers of the body and blood of Christ worthily and have communicated entirely, we acknowledge ourselves to be reconciled, united to our Head of the same body, with certain hope to be co-heirs in the Kingdom to come.

We believe that the souls of the dead are either in blessedness or in damnation, according as every one has done, for as soon as they move out of the body they pass either to Christ or into hell; for as a man is found at his death, so he is judged, and after this life there is neither power nor opportunity to repent; in this life there is a time of grace, they therefore who be justified here shall suffer no punishment hereafter; but they who die, being not justified, are appointed for everlasting punishment. By which it is evident that the fiction of Purgatory is not to be admitted but in the truth it is determined that every one ought to repent in this life and to obtain remission of his sins by our Lord Jesus Christ, if he will be saved. And, let this be the end.

This brief Confession of ours we conjecture will be a sign spoken against them who are pleased to slander and persecute us. But we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and hope that He will not relinquish the cause of His faithful ones, nor let the rod of wickedness lie upon the lost of the righteous.

Dated in Constantinople in the month of March, 1629. Cyril, Patriarch of Constantinople

HERE is what the Ecumenical Patriarchate has to say about Cyril Lucaris.

On 4 November 1620, the Holy Synod of Constantinople elected «Cyril Lucaris, renowned for his virtue and wisdom», Ecumenical Patriarch. From 1620 to 1638 Cyril reigned five times (1620-23, 1623-33, 1633-34, 1634-35, 1637-38), and found himself at the centre of the acrimonious dispute between the Papacy and the Reformists, while the Churches of the East, especially that of Constantinople, experienced the stifling and infuriating propaganda of the Jesuits.

State diplomacy took an active part in the conflicting actions and counteractions of the Jesuits and the Reformists. France and Austria offered their services to Rome, where the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide was organizing a scheme against Cyril. Part of the plan was to discredit the Patriarch with the clergy and laity by spreading the rumour that he was a Calvinist. At the same time, the Ambassadors of France and Austria were pressing the Porte to depose Cyril.

Indeed, Cyril was deposed five times and each time he was re-elected to the Patriarchal throne by the clergy, with the support of the Orthodox population. Anglicans and Protestants (the English, Dutch, Germans, Swedes) also supported the return of Cyril to their own advantage. In the swirl of conflicting political and religious rivalries and the resulting dangerous climate, Cyril Lucaris tried to steer a course that, in his opinion, would serve best the interests of the Orthodox Church. He was fully aware of the critical state of affairs and of the pervasive influence of the Jesuits. He wrote: They (the Jesuits) «seek our destruction and the ruin of the Patriarchate and of the entire Church of the Greeks».

The Calvinists, from their side, used political influence, diplomacy, money and every other means to win the Patriarchate and the Orthodox Church over to their views. Cornelius Van Haag, the Dutch Ambassador, made use of all his influence in this unrelenting struggle, assisted by the Calvinist divine Antoine Leger. The latter, through theological discussions, fiery sermons and friendly approaches eventually swayed the Patriarch's entourage, which included Nathaniel Conopios, Metropolitan of Smyrna, Meletios Pontogalos, Metropolitan of Ephesus, Theophilos Corydalleus, Metropolitan of Arta, and John Caryophyllos.

At about that time, the Calvinists of Geneva arranged to print and publish the Holy Bible translated into modern Greek by Maximos Callipolitis. Cyril found himself obligated to sanction Callipolitis's translation, though it contained Calvinist views that could cause confusion to the common people. This confusion became chaotic when, in 1629, the Calvinists of Geneva published the first Latin edition of the so-called «Lucarian Confession», in which the Patriarch appeared to accept the Calvinist doctrines and betray the Orthodox faith. From 1629 to 1633 the «Eastern Confession of Christian Faith» was published under the name of Cyril Lucaris in Latin, Greek, French, German and English. J. Carmiris writes: «This inelegantly worded Confession roused great commotion and indescribable agitation throughout the Church and caused preoccupation not only to the ecclesiastical theologians but also to the politicians and the diplomats. In the beginning almost everyone believed it to be a forgery, not a true work of the Patriarch». More than 350 years have elapsed since the first publication of the so-called «Lucarian Confession». Eminent historians, theologians and researchers have tried to clarify whether Lucaris was the actual author of the «Confession» attributed to him by the Calvinists. The Patriarch himself verbally denied it on several occasions and proclaimed his Orthodox faith with his attitude and in his letters. To the end, however, Cyril did not disavow the «Confession» in writing. Successive Synods of the Orthodox Church have condemned the «Confession» as heretical and alien to the Orthodox faith of the Fathers.

The tragic figure of Cyril Lucaris stood in the midst of opposing religious currents. On the one side the Protestants tried hard to win over the Orthodox in their struggle against the Roman Catholics, going so far as to involve the Patriarch himself with the «Lucarian Confession» in order to promulgate their novel doctrines. On the other side the machinations of the Jesuits reached unheard of extremes. The Ecumenical Patriarch, alone, unprotected and betrayed, was judged and condemned. On 27 June 1638, he was strangled and his body was flung into the Bosporus. Manuel Gedeon writes that after some time «the sea out of compassion for this outstanding champion of Orthodoxy washed ashore his body on the island of Chalki». Cyril's body was buried with all honours by the Patriarch Parthenius I (1639-1644) in the precinct of the historical monastery of Panagia Kamariotissa on Chalki.

In the course of his difficult patriarchy «the much famed and very wise» Cyril Lucaris issued a large number of decrees on many ecclesiastical matters. A few of the synodical resolutions, patriarchal decisions and sigils are noted below:

1. A synodical resolution in July 1622 canonized St. Gerasimos of Cephalonia.
2. A special patriarchal encyclic appealed to all the Orthodox to make donations for the rebuilding of the monastery of Simonopetra, Mount Athos, which had been destroyed by fire.
3. In 1627, Cyril set up a patriarchal printing-press for the publication of Orthodox works that would invigorate the faith of the sorely tried Orthodox world.
4. Cyril appointed as Director of the famous Patriarchal Academy «Theophyllos Corydalleus, celebrated erudite and expounder of Aristotle's writings».
5. In 1628, Cyril instituted the dating of patriarchal documents from the Birth of Christ and not from the Creation of the World, as was the practice until then.

So the Orthodox position is "a pox on the Jesuits and a pox on the Calvinists". As others have pointed out, it would have been nice if you had not excised the preamble to your posted article as it contained important information related to this very controversial document.

From Schaff (Protestant), The Creeds of Christendom (via Calvin College's CCEL):

§ 15. The Confession of Cyril Lucar, A.D. 1631
…
The Confession of Cyril Lucar was never adopted by any branch or party of the Eastern Church, and even repeatedly condemned as heretical; but as it gave rise to the later authentic definitions of the 'Orthodox Faith,' in opposition to the distinctive doctrines of Romanism and Protestantism, it must be noticed here. Cyrillus Lucaris (Kyrillos Loukaris), a martyr of Protestantism within the orthodox Greek Church, occupies a remarkable position in the conflict of the three great Confessions to which the Reformation gave rise. He is the counterpart of his more learned and successful, but less noble, antagonist, Leo Allatius (1586–1669), who openly apostatized from the Greek Church to the Roman, and became librarian of the Vatican. His work is a mere episode, and passed away apparently without permanent effect, but (like the attempted reformations of Wyclif, Huss, and Savonarola) it may have a prophetic meaning for the future, and be resumed by Providence in a better form.
Cyril Lucar was born in 1568 or 1572 in Candia (Crete), then under the sovereignty of Venice, and the only remaining seat of Greek learning. He studied and traveled extensively in Europe, and was for a while rector and Greek teacher in the Russian Seminary at Ostrog, in Volhynia. In French Switzerland he became acquainted with the Reformed Church, and embraced its faith. Subsequently he openly professed it in a letter to the Professors of Geneva (1636), through Leger, 55a minister from Geneva, who had been sent to Constantinople. He conceived the bold plan of ingrafting Protestant doctrines on the old œcumenical creeds of the Eastern Church, and thereby reforming the same. He was unanimously elected Patriarch of Alexandria in 1602 (?), and of Constantinople in 1621. While occupying these high positions he carried on an extensive correspondence with Protestant divines in Switzerland, Holland, and England, sent promising youths to Protestant universities, and imported a press from England (1629) to print his Confession and several Catechisms. But he stood on dangerous ground, between vacillating or ill-informed friends and determined foes. The Jesuits, with the aid of the French embassador at the Sublime Porte, spared no intrigues to counteract and checkmate his Protestant schemes, and to bring about instead a union of the Greek hierarchy with Rome. At their instigation his printing-press was destroyed by the Turkish government. He himself—in this respect another Athanasius 'versus mundum,' though not to be compared in intellectual power to the 'father of orthodoxy'—was five times deposed, and five times reinstated. At last, however—unlike Athanasius, who died in peaceful possession of his patriarchal dignity—he was strangled to death in 1638, having been condemned by the Sultan for alleged high-treason, and his body was thrown into the Bosphorus. His friends surrounded the palace of his successor, Cyril of Berœa, crying, 'Pilate, give us the dead, that we may bury him.' The corpse was washed ashore, but it was only obtained by Cyril's adherents after having been once more cast out and returned by the tide. The next Patriarch, Parthenius, granted him finally an honorable burial.
Cyril left no followers able or willing to carry on his work, but the agitation he had produced continued for several years, and called forth defensive measures. His doctrines were anathematized by Patriarch Cyril of Berœa and a Synod of Constantinople (Sept., 1638), then again by the Synods of Jassy, in Moldavia, 1643, and of Jerusalem, 1672; but 56on the last two occasions the honor of his name and the patriarchal dignity were saved by boldly denying the authenticity of his Confession, and contradicting it by written documents from his pen.
This Cyril was the same who seat the famous uncial Codex Alexandrinus of the Bible (A) to King Charles I. of England, and who translated the New Testament into the modern Greek language.

The rest of the article, linked above, provides some useful data (from a respected Protestant perspective).

…And then from an Orthodox perspective, we have this from Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna:

Just as today one must see the Orthodox world in its greater historical context, so in Patriarch Kyrillos’ day, too, Orthodoxy existed in a world of political reality that must be carefully studied, in order to see what implications rise above his specific witness and faithfully address Orthodoxy at a general level. To this end, let me just say, as a general observation, that with the fall of Constantinople the Orthodox East fell under Latin domination and the Turkish Yoke. Its survival threatened, its spiritual and intellectual primacy relinquished to the West, Orthodoxy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries took on an historical character that cannot be applied universally to the Church’s experience and ethos, and especially, again, without careful examination and precision.
Too much scholarship today comes from secondary and from encyclopedic sources, offered up by inadequate scholars who ignore primary sources and who, in the field of Orthodox studies, fail to capture the thinking of the Fathers. For example, the political intrigue surrounding the reign of Patriarch Kyrillos is very complex. It involves theological and political issues dating back to the time of his mentor and (most probably) relative, Patriarch Meletis (Pegas) of Alexandria, and to Loukaris’ strong opposition to the Latin Church and the Unia, an opposition that brought him into conflict with certain circles (both in Alexandria and in Constantinople) which had primarily political reasons for their sympathy with Rome. To reduce these complicated factors to some supposed opposition within the Orthodox Church to Patriarch Kyrill’s so-called Protestantism is absurd. Such a faulty reduction also creates a myth about the Patriarch that is to a great extent a fabrication of Western scholarship and of those Orthodox captured by the West. It also ignores the standard historiographical assumptions of Orthodox Greek writers, who have a far more expansive knowledge of Orthodoxy in the age in question than their Western counterparts. In this vein, it is rather amazing that one of these articles in Credenda tries to make something of the fact that the Patriarch’s "Confessio fidei..." was published in Geneva. Could we imagine it being published in post-Byzantine Constantinople? Anyone with even an elementary knowledge of intellectual life of the Greeks at this time would readily understand why men of Greek letters published throughout the West, and especially in Italy and France. It is astonishingly naive for anyone to attach to the publication of Loukaris’ confession in Geneva any special significance at all. The notion that these particular writings were "composed" by Loukaris in Latin is another troubling statement. It needs careful scrutiny and actually says nothing to support the thesis that Loukaris had, by implication, a keen appreciation and knowledge of Western (Reformed) theology. It leads us, rather, in another direction, as we shall see.
While he knew Latin, it is clear from his many letters and writings, as well as from biographical data from contemporaries of his, that Patriarch Kyrillos could not have produced a polished text such as that of the original Latin "Confession." Indeed, many Greek scholars even dispute the claim that the Greek text, which appeared together with the Latin text four years later, was the work of Loukaris. Rather, it is argued by most Greek scholars that the text was essentially the work of Calvinist scholars with whom Cyril communicated on a regular basis and who condensed many of his letters and exchanges into a conveniently Calvinistic confession that ignored the Patriarch’s Orthodox understanding and grasp of reformed theology. For a brilliant textual analysis in support of these assumptions, see Professor Ioannis Karmiris, Orthodoxia kai Protestantismos (Athens, 1937). (Cf. Chrysostomos Papadopoulos, Kyrillos Loukaris [Athens, 1938].)
It is only by ignoring his many sober theological works and writings, wholly in concord with traditional Orthodox theological concepts, and his synodal confessions and justifications, that one can argue that Patriarch Kyrillos was a supporter of Calvinism. The whole idea of a "Protestant" Patriarch who was forced to betray his Protestant leanings is a bit of Western fancy that the Reformers used to slap at Rome (beset as it was by the "problem" of the Eastern Church only a few centuries after having, however fruitlessly, "united" with it, a "problem" which the Lutheran Reformers had also exploited at the Diet of Worms). This fanciful idea was also one that the Latins used in their struggles against Loukaris, on account of his many years of opposition to the Unia and the Jesuits in Eastern Europe, characterizing him as a betrayer of his own Faith. (Remember that the Latins had a deep hatred for this Patriarch. Through the machinations of the Jesuits and other anti-Orthodox agents in Constantinople, the Papists were finally able, through the Austrian Embassy, to bribe the Turks to condemn and kill Patriarch Kyrillos in 1638, and thus to silence him. His body was, indeed, unceremoniously thrown into the Bosporos.)
Let us also say that the Orthodox Church, which in Her mind constitutes the successor of the very Church established by Christ, has a theology and spiritual life quite foreign to those of the West, whether Latin or Reformed. Soteriology, the sacraments (or, more properly, the Mysteries), and Christian anthropology and cosmology, however misunderstood and misrepresented by the West (we think, here, of the gross stupidity of Western scholars who imagine our theological traditions to be neo-Platonic—an accusation which shows an ignorance both of Orthodoxy and of Neo-Platonism), are concepts that we discuss in a context and with nomenclature foreign to the Papists and Protestants. When addressing Roman Catholics, our Church has, however, spoken about seven sacraments and about various administrative structures in Western language (though, in fact, our Mysteries are without number and order always yields to prophecy in Orthodoxy); speaking with Protestants, we have spoken of the interaction of Faith and good works and of Divine Providence and Grace in ways that they understand (when, in fact, the first distinction is unknown to us and the apophatic and Hesychastic traditions of Orthodox theology approach the second issue in a way largely mystifying to Western theologians). Admittedly, less-gifted Orthodox thinkers today also seek to form a "systematic theology" in response to the West (notwithstanding the fact that it is in the realm of spiritual practice, not confessional theology, that any notion of the systematic properly applies in Orthodoxy). But all of this does not mean that we are speaking the language of the heterodox in our hearts, let alone that we share their theological precepts.
When we address Westerners on their own terms, we are reaching out to them in the limited language that they grasp. Setting aside the issue of the authenticity of his confession, when Loukaris reached out to the Protestants, then, whatever his motives and whatever his language, his writings, his witness, and his Orthodoxy were in no way compromised by these actions. Nor did he become that which he addressed. I leave it to others to judge the wisdom of his actions. But to characterize them in any way than that which I have is to argue, once more, against all that one can glean from studying his life and reading his writings as a whole. If the modernist Orthodox can make "Popes" of their Patriarchs and create a melange of Orthodoxy, Protestantism, and Papism that they pass off as "official" and "canonical" Orthodoxy, Protestants sectarians can make of Patriarch Cyril a Protestant. But these creations do not change the truth. Both in the case of modern Orthodoxy (which has created its own religion from the language of mission by which Orthodoxy has been preached in the West) and a phantom "Protestant" Patriarch, we are dealing with false creations of theological nomenclature that are separated from true experience.
Despite Western references to Patriarch Kyrillos’ wide contacts with the Reformers, he is in fact most famous in the Orthodox world for his anti-Papist stand against the Uniate menace and for his opposition to Jesuit missions in Eastern Europe. His contacts in Eastern Europe, where he studied, served, and traveled, were extensive. His opposition to Uniate Catholicism after the Brzeesc-Litewski Treaty of 1596 was so strong and widespread, that his so-called "Confession," whatever its true source, is a mere footnote to his struggle against Papism. It was THIS anti-Latin Loukaris who supported Protestant opposition to Papism, who perhaps allowed his views to be restated and published by his Calvinist contacts in Geneva, and who earned the enduring hatred of the Papacy, which has played an essential role—if one reads the intellectual history surrounding this issue—in perpetuating the idea that the "Confessio" was the direct work of Kyrillos and that he was a Protestant in his thinking. If one ignores almost all of his scholarship and accepts the "Confessio," and if one ignores almost all of his activities and accomplishments in Eastern Europe and in resisting Uniatism, then it might be argued that Loukaris was the author of an Orthodox "reform" that almost was. But this fantasy, so favored by Protestants and so boldly bequeathed to them by Latin polemicists, is much like modernist Orthodoxy in America. It has the press. It has attention. It can dismiss arguments against it as those of fringe elements and cultists. But just as a thorough study of those who hold forth as Orthodoxy’s "official" spokesmen today show these people to be something other than what they are, so with a careful study of the facts surrounding the "Confessio fidei" of Kyrillos Loukaris the myth of a "Protestant" Patriarch goes the way of Pope Joan.

So between this and the previous entry, it is obvious that, at best, this is the personal opinion of the author. At worst...a fairly disgusting forgery.

I think you'd (the_conscience) have done yourself a big favor had you posted the whole piece from the website and then asked the EO here if this thought is at all reflected in modern EO thinking...(it likely could have retained its caucus label...had you done so)

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