BCP: Open letter to the Bishops of Poland

Dear bishops,

the Byzantine Patriarchate appealed to the current Pope Francis to declare the year 2015 as the year of a true reform of the Church. The letter “2015 – year of the reform of the Catholic Church”(http://vkpatriarhat.org.ua/en/?p=9585) points out that the blame for the disastrous state of the Church lies above all with the Polish Pope John Paul II, and You build statues in memory of him and rename streets and squares in irrational euphoria, and, to all appearances, You will even dedicate new churches to him!

Salvation is intrinsically linked with the true Christian faith and repentance. Jesus said clearly, and this applies to all without exception: “Unless you repent, you will all perish.” (Lk 13:3)

During our novitiate in the Order of St Basil the Great in Warsaw in 1991-92, Bishop Methodius met a professor of theology who said: “I was shocked when a statue of Buddha was placed on the altar in a church in Warsaw, and we prayed before it. But then we, older professors, said to ourselves: If our Pope gives a blessing to such events, and if he prayed together with pagans in Assisi, it means we should adopt a new view.”

2015 – year of the reform of the Catholic Church

Francis І 

Leader of the Catholic Church 

Città del Vaticano

In 2015, Russia is commemorating the 1000th anniversary of the death of St Vladimir who baptized the Russian nation. The Czech Republic will commemorate the 600th anniversary of the tragic burning at the stake of the priest Jan Hus who fought against the scandalous life of the clergy. Armenia will mark the sad 100th anniversary of the genocide of the nation. In Europe, we commemorate 70 years since the end of World War II.

The Byzantine Patriarchate appeals to the leader of the Catholic Church for a radical reform within the Catholic Church which is under God’s curse – anathema. Pope John XXIII summoned the Second Vatican Council under the motto of “aggiornamento”. The Council neither dealt with the fundamental problem of the Church, i.e. internal restoration by true repentance, nor was it an effective response to negative phenomena in the world which influenced the Church. It mainly concerned invasion of occultism, heresies of Neomodernism under the guise of so-called historical-critical method, moral issues, the issue of atheism, materialism… Modernism was condemned by St Pius X as early as 1907. Instead of turning the hearts and faces to God, the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council turned the altar and the priest away from the tabernacle. This resulted in desecration of the church as a place and of thought. The liturgical reform diverted attention from the spreading heresy of Neomodernism and even gave it its support.