There is no other way. Certainly I cannot predict the particulars nor the day and hour, but the direction is already quite evident, and I am also without doubt that Orthodox hierarchs see what I see with even greater precision.
Before we fall under the spell of Mary's spin doctoring let us look at what in
fact the Orthodox hierarchs have been saying during the 50 years of ecumenism.
I want to present a few official examples which show the consistency and
ultra-conservatism of the official Orthodox viewpoint throughout the years of
ecumenism... the unbending and inflexible insistence that Orthodoxy alone
constitutes the One Church. The Orthodox have not strayed from their own
reality and have not failed to present the authentic Orthodox point of view at
ecumenical meetings and in official statements with both Catholics and Protestants.
1. 1957.... The Statement of the Representatives of the Greek Orthodox
Church in the USA at the North American Faith and Order Study
Conference, Oberlin, Ohio, September 1957. This is quite unequivocal
about the uniqueness of Orthodoxy as the Church.
http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/ecumenical/gocamerica_faith_order_sept_1957.htm2. 1980s.... The contretemps in the 1980s at the International Roman
Catholic-Orthodox Theological Dialogue which saw a walk-out of the
Catholic participants when the Orthodox delegates declared that they
were unable to accept Catholic baptism per se. These were not fringy
palaeohiemerologhites but the most ecumenically minded bishops and
theologians of the canonical Orthodox Churches. This question has
never been revisited in the international dialogue but one day it will
need to be faced head on.
3. 1986.... Report of the Third Panorthodox Preconciliar (WCC)
Conference, Chambesy, 1986:
"The Orthodox Church, however, faithful to her ecclesiology, to the
identity of her internal structure and to the teaching of the
undivided Church, while participating in the WCC, does not accept the
idea of the "equality of confessions" and cannot consider Church
unity as an inter-confessional adjustment. In this spirit, the unity
which is sought within the WCC cannot simply be the product of
theological agreements alone. God calls every Christian to the unity
of faith which is lived in the sacraments and the tradition, as
experienced in the Orthodox Church."
Report of the Third Panorthodox Preconciliar Conference, Chambesy,
1986
Section III, Paragraph 6
http://www.incommunion.org/articles/ecumenical-movement/chambesy-19864. 1997..... Even the most ecumenical Patriarch of Micklegarth His
Divine All-Holiness Bartholomew scandalised the Catholics with his
presentation at the Jesuit University of Georgetown in 1997 when he
declared:
"The manner in which we exist has become ontologically different.
Unless our ontological transfiguration and transformation toward one
common model of life is achieved, not only in form but also in
substance, unity and its accompanying realization become impossible."
Full text at
http://www.geocities.com/trvalentine/orthodox/bartholomew_phos.htmlThe Jesuits declared morosely that Patr. Bartholomew had set the
dialogue back 10 years. Nobody else made a comment since they did
not have a clue what the Patriarch was talking about.
5. 2000..... The important Statement on Orthodoxy and its ecumenical
relationships with non-Orthodox Churches issued by the 2000
Millennial Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church:
"Basic Principles of the Attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church Toward the
Other Christian Confessions"
It basically repeats what the Greeks said at Oberlin Ohio in 1957
and even more emphatically - the boundaries of the Church are
the Orthodox Church herself.
http://www.mospat.ru/en/documents/attitude-to-the-non-orthodox/and
http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/ecumenical/roc_other_christian_confessions.htm6. 2007..... The Agreed Statement ussued by the Catholic-Orthodox
International Theological Meeting in Ravenna, Sept 2007
"Note [1] Orthodox participants felt it important to emphasize that
the use of the terms "the Church", "the universal Church", "the
indivisible Church" and "the Body of Christ" in this document and in
similar documents produced by the Joint Commission in no way
undermines the self-understanding of the Orthodox Church as the one,
holy, catholic and apostolic Church, of which the Nicene Creed
speaks."
http://www.orthodoxeurope.org/page/14/130.aspx#2Fr Ambrose
Russian Orthodox Church (Abroad)