FALSIFICATIONS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE AND THEIR APOSTATIC CONSEQUENCES IN OUR CONTEMPORARY WORLD

In our end-of-times period the once Christian society, which no longer wishes to have him "who now letteth" (2 Thess. 2,7) [157], and which does not protect itself any more, and has permitted those who "trouble" us and "would pervert the Gospel of Christ" to multiply excessively and to assume power.

The prophecy of the Apostle that "in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be... having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof" (2 Tim. 3, 1-5). Before our own eyes mankind is increasingly failing to understand why the Scriptures are called sacred, and that it is "given by inspiration of God" (2 Tim. 3,16) and "is not after man" (Gal. 1, 11); it is generally losing the concepts of Sacredness and Truth, being contaminated with the false teaching of universal relativity. This explains the frivolous and impudent disregard of the stern words of the Apostle Paul: "As we said before, so say I now again: if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed" (Gal. 1,9).

The mission of both the Old and the New Testament Church had always been, and still remains, to guard and to preach the inviolate divinely revealed faith and God's promises, the Holy Scriptures and Tradition. Well known is the particular care with which the text of the Scripture was guarded in the Old Testament times, when every biblical manuscript which was damaged, or contained mistakes, was subject to destruction, when no one having some speech defect could even be admitted to reading from Scriptures aloud in public.

The ancient Church translation of the Old Testament Books into Greek (the so called Septuagint) was accomplished in the 3rd century B.C. by the specially appointed and God-chosen men, and it was done with all possible precautions and reverence, and under the direct protective guidance of the Heavenly Church, as is testified particularly by a well-known episode with St.Simeon's translation of the Book of Prophet Isaiah containing the text of Messianic prophecy about the Savior of the world to be born of the Virgin (Is. 7,14).

Worthy of the original are the canonical translations accomplished by holy men in the New Testament Church: that of Blessed Hieronymus (from the Old Hebrew, with due regard to the Septuagint, into Latin) and of Sts. Equal of the Apostles Methodius and Cyril (from the Greek text of the Septuagint adopted by the Church, into the Church Slavonic). From the period of Reformation onwards, when the protective efforts of Catholicism suffered defeat, translations of the Bible into ethnic languages appearing in the West already have an imprint of Protestant teaching (like Luther's translation). In the most recent times there are no longer any restrictive barriers to the development of even the most extreme and blasphemous false teachings. The spectrum of translations and transpositions of the Bible has widened accordingly.

It could not have been otherwise, inasmuch as Holy Scripture belongs only to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and its use out of contact with the ecclesiastic and patristic tradition (and even in opposition to it, which is characteristic of all religious communities that have fallen away from the Orthodox faith), inevitably entails distortion of both the meaning and the letter of Scripture. According to the Fathers, one who is outside the sacramental communion with the Church cannot but deviate into heresy and from preaching true Orthodoxy.

Human folly is not the only cause of distortion of truth. The Word of God is hateful to the "father of lies", the Devil, who, with the help of his minions attempts to pervert it in every way possible.

With the falling away from God of those who became His killers and called down upon themselves and their descendants the blood of the Son of God Whom they crucified (Mt. 27,25), there began a conscious corruption of the Old Testament books once carefully guarded by the Jewish people. Messianic prophecies were the first to undergo this corruption. "Rabbis corrupted the contents of the Scriptures to suit their own malicious intentions... and still keep modifying it", wrote Euthimius of Chudovo (1705) [158]. Such accusations have been heard since the apostolic times. In the period from the 5th to the 10th centuries Masoret rabbis had established the Old Testament text which since then has been adopted as the official one. In this text practically all prophecies about the Savior of the world have been distorted in such a manner that they could not be seen as referring to the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Subsequently all Hebrew copies of the text which differed from the established Masoretic canon were destroyed.

Stability of the Masoretic text of the Old Testament and the absence of variants in its copies caused many Bible scholars and theologians, even amongst Christians, beginning with Origen and until today, to constantly turn to this Hebrew text as the main authority, despite stern warnings of the Church. On the other hand, the presence of the variant readings in the Church text of the Septuagint has been considered as the sign of its unreliability. As a result not only Western Catholic and Protestant theologians and translators relied on the Masoretic text of the Bible. By way of Venetian printed editions it began to influence the later Greek and Slavonic copies of the Scriptures. It "was listed among the basic sources, despite strict warnings of the Holy Synod" 159, when the Elisabethan Bible was being revised in 1751. The Masoretic text, regardless of the presence of serious dogmatic distortions (of Messianic references in the first place) became the basis also of the Synodal translation of the Old Testament into Russian, resulting in the initial translation by Archpriest G. Pavsky having caused general indignation in ecclesiastical circles. At that time Archbishop Theophan the Recluse formulated the essence of the perpetrated substitution as follows: "According to our law, when trying to interpret the Word of God we must consult the Church Fathers. The Fathers interpreted the Scriptures as presented in the Septuagint. Consequently, the new translation prevents us from understanding the Word of God from the Orthodox point of view, because it presents us with the text different from the one used by the Fathers. ...Translation from the Hebrew text cuts the ground from under our feet. We are faced with new ideas, new church, new era: (our emphasis - L.P.) such, then, are the consequences of this translation!" [160]. "But the editors of the Russian Bible in London (doubtless under Masonic influence) permitted themselves the impudence of writing: "We insist on and we wish one thing -- namely: freedom from Church concepts and freedom from the translation of the Seventy" [161]. Today's Biblical societies and commissions have achieved this "freedom" in full.

Although subsequently everything possible was done to coordinate this translation with the Church text of the Septuagint in Greek and its Slavonic version by Sts. Methodius and Cyril, "complete rapprochement could not be achieved. The break of the Russian text with the Church Slavonic Biblical-liturgical tradition doomed this translation to its usage outside the church services only: the Holy Synod earmarked it for an edifying reading at home." [162]

Discovery of the Qumran manuscripts, at the beginning of the 1950-ies, relating to the 1st century B.C. (i.e. to the pre-Masoretic period) has conclusively, and in favor of the Septuagint, resolved the centuries old controversy of the comparative merits of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Old Testament. It has turned out that the manuscripts removed from the Qumran caves contain all the variants of the text which are available in the Greek manuscripts and which seemingly undermined their authority. Nevertheless, these conclusions are hushed up, and publication of the Qumran manuscripts which are at the disposal of "The House of the Bible" in Jerusalem, is stopped completely.

Any new translations of the Bible are still done in accordance with the Masoretic text and even with the participation of Hebrew Scholars of the Bible. At the same time Renovationists of the Moscow Patriarchate and of other local Churches with increased insistence keep introducing into church services unauthorized translations of Scripture into contemporary ethnic languages. All these translations, as a rule, are of a non-Orthodox origin and are based on the Masoretic text which is non-traditional in the Orthodox Church. Along with the widespread modernization of liturgical language and rites, the introduction of the Western Gregorian calendar, and other countless concessions to the spirit of times, these translations increasingly destroy the link of these Churches with their own Orthodox past, and prepare the ground for any further reforms aimed at the creation of the ecumenical pseudo-church of Antichrist.

By means of Ecumenical Movement the contemporary heretical Christianity of the West keeps expanding its influence upon the Orthodox world. Indeed, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk, the Chairman of the Department of Foreign Church Relations at the Moscow Patriarchate, declared, at the 7th General Assembly of the WCC, this organization to be "the cradle of the one church of the future" (see Chapter 1). For us, Orthodox Christians, this "church" means nothing else but the church of Antichrist.

Participants of ecumenical assemblies are engaged in a step-by-step development of a blasphemous teaching of this "church", of its ritual and language. The highly "ecumenical" language of these assemblies reflects such a degree of ecumenical consciousness of participants that, according to one of their leaders, the former General Secretary of the WCC, Dr. Philip Potter, upon their return from the conferences the members of their own communities simply fail to understand them at first.

In order to understand ecumenists one should cease to understand the Gospel and learn their blasphemous encroachment upon the Word of God. Worthy of consideration is the ecumenists' interpretation (which has become their slogan) of our Saviors words: "that they all may be one" (John 17,21). Ecumenists allege that these words imply Christ's commandment concerning the unity of the whole world -- Orthodox, sectarians, Judaists, Moslems and all heathens. They simply disregard Christ's words directly preceding the cited phrase: "I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine" (John 17,9).

When contemplating forgery, ecumenists are embarrassed by nothing: neither by the teaching of the Church Fathers, nor the faith of the whole Church, nor simple self-evidence. In the same way Papacy maintains, without any feeling of embarrassment, and contrary to anything the Fathers were saying always and everywhere, that in the Saviors words: "and upon this rock I shall build my Church" (Mt. 16, 18); "the rock" should mean not the faith in Christ and confession of Him as the Son of God, but the Apostle Peter himself and his alleged successors -- the Popes of Rome [163].

Ecumenists-"peacemakers" experience no embarrassment when they contend that political peace they are fighting for is the same peace which Christ had in mind when He said to His Apostles: "My peace I give unto you". It should be noted that they never finish this citation from the Gospels: "... not as the world giveth, give I unto you" (John 14,27).

Ecumenists are not ashamed of their own illiteracy when one of them (who, it goes without saying, is against teaching Church Slavonic language even in seminaries), be he even an archbishop, or a professor at a theological academy, is capable of declaring in all sincerity and for all to hear, that the invocation of the Great Litany "In peace let us pray to the Lord" means "let us (the entire congregation) pray as one", i.e. all together. (Translator's note: in Russian the words "peace" and "congregation" sound the same). And another invocation -- "for the welfare of God's holy Churches, and for the union of them all", is, allegedly, calling the Orthodox to a longed-for ecumenical union with heretics [164]. "They that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction" (2 Peter 3,16).

Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad, who was responsible for the Patriarchate of Moscow joining the WCC, has even introduced a special pro-Communist heresy when in his sermons and articles he offered a false interpretation of the parable on two sons (Mt. 21,28-31). He likened Christians to the son who was obedient in words but careless in deeds, and in the person of the obstinate son, who did the will of his father, he taught to see godless Communists (who can now be easily replaced in this role by today's "democrats"), who declared the creation of the Kingdom of God on earth to be their objective. Nikodim's sermon on the completely non-Orthodox idea of this earthly "Kingdom of God" and the fusion of Christianity with Communism was persistently heard from the ambos of the Patriarchate's churches until the chaos which has enveloped Russia, has, for the time being, pushed it aside, along with other Bolshevik slogans.

Another of Metr. Nikodim's heresies has remained unaffected by any liberal trends of "democratic" reconstruction. This heresy represents one of the most important supports of "Christian" ecumenism. However, its full significance will apparently make itself evident in the already near future, when the WCC will declare its primary task to be the unification of all religions under one roof of the "universal church" of Antichrist. This heresy, often repeated and deeply rooted in the Moscow Patriachate has been deduced by Metr. Nikodim from his devious reasoning that while on the Cross the Lord adopted all humanity in the person of the holy Apostle John the Theologian, and not only those who believed in Him. This heresy is expressed in a single phrase: "The Lord Jesus Christ in His incarnation received all mankind into His Body" [165]. The well known "priest" of the MP Georgii Kochetkov, who enjoys strong support, has already declared not only Francis of Assisi, but also D. Bornhoffer, A. Schweizer and... Mahatma Ghandi as being members of the "true Church" and even Its "saints"! [166]

"Many wrong opinions have entered our life under the influence of the devil, who teaches careless people to misinterpret contents of the Scriptures and to obscure the truth by either adding to, or deleting something from its text", wrote St. John Chrysostom already in the 4th century [167]. The God-defying anti-Scriptural evolutionism seems to have become the most widely spread lie which, unfortunately, the perverters of the Word of God, along with the atheists, managed to instill into the consciousness of many Christians of all denominations.

Evolutionists could not produce a single scientific fact to prove the correctness of their theories. Everything that they previously claimed to be indisputable proofs, has remained in school textbooks which are now being ridiculed by the evolutionists themselves. Nevertheless, for nearly 100 years evolutionism has been strenuously thrust upon every new generation throughout the world, by all levels of state schools.

When C. Darwin was working on his Theory of the Origin of Species, based on superficial observations and conclusions, he expected that the necessary evidence will subsequently be found. These hopes, however, remained altogether unjustified. Not only the missing link between the ape and the man remained undiscovered [168]: evolutionists are unable to present a single intermediate form between any other species -- neither in living, nor in fossilized form. Moreover, the very possibility of the existence of a mechanism ensuring the transition of one species into another, is denied by the contemporary science. No evolutionist is able to explain the existence of evolution, if it is to contradict the most fundamental law of nature (the Second Law of thermodynamics), requiring transition from the complex and unstable to the simple and chaotic, but not the other way around -- from inanimate to animate matter right up to such of its most complex and super-perfect forms, as the human organism.

In order to make the impossible seem plausible evolutionists suggested an assumption that the universe has existed for boundless billions of years, during which anything could have happened. Counting on these millions and billions of years the Lunar space-ship was provided with several meters long legs to prevent its sinking in cosmic dust which should have accumulated there in all those years. But ... the layer of dust on the Moon turned out to be less than one centimeter thick.

It is well known that incomprehensible scientific jargon has a bewitching effect on non-specialists. One of them is the "radiocarbon method". But not many people know that theoretically this method may help to determine the age of organic remains only. Due to the efforts of science popularizers, reliance on the precision of the radiocarbon method has been exaggerated out of proportion. The fact is that with the radiocarbon method of extreme importance is the required particular purity of experiment. This requirement is often too difficult, or even impossible, to comply with, since the quantities to be measured at any significant age of the samples are too small. Besides, the method is based on the assumption that the fossils being investigated have never in the past been subjected to any possible though unknown influences -- such as high pressures and temperatures, oscillation of the quantity of Carbon-14 in the environment, etc., although the presence of any of these factors renders measurements meaningless. As a result, the data obtained by this method frequently strike one with their unreliability. For instance, "examination of the shell of living snails showed that they died 27,000 years ago" [169]. Already today scientists have doubts about at least half of all the data obtained by this method.

This "science falsely so called" (Tim. 6,20) which has declared the religion itself and the moral code to be the result of evolution, is in fact a certain satanic faith, which, along with humanism and atheism has penetrated all spheres of official science -- not only natural sciences, but humanitarian and political as well.

Denial and distortion of biblical truth turned out to be a fertile ground for everything that transforms the modern world into the threshold of the inferno -- from atheism and faith in the everlasting universe, which has increasingly become overgrown with pantheistic mysticism (of the New Agers and other occult mystificators), and up to the evolutionist theories about human society, revolutionary and racist doctrines, justification of homosexuality and murder through abortions.

As a part of mass consciousness, primarily through school education, the anti-biblical evolutionism has become, in one way or another, one of the basic ideas of a huge multitude of people who consider themselves to be believers, but who reject the biblical evidence of God being the Creator of the world and man, of the Fall, the Deluge, the Babel, etc., or consider these narratives as being conventional, allegorical and supposedly refuted by "science". Seldom is one aware of the fact that this kind of reasoning makes the Prophets, the Apostles, the Church Fathers, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself appear as deceivers, although they clearly and frequently confirmed the truth of the Book of Genesis.

Great is the amazement of these very few of our contemporaries, who unexpectedly learn that in all of its history evolutionism has failed to produce any real proof of its theories, that it has maintained its predominant position in science in a purely artificial manner, that the evolutionists' fabrications about the millions of years of the earth's history, "geological periods", the origin of life, etc. have not been confirmed in any way and that, on the contrary, the real facts are in agreement with the Bible. This amazement of the few is capable of turning upside down many carefully maintained notions in our society. Therefore, despite its obvious predominance in the mass consciousness and science, the evolutionary humanism, feeling its vulnerability, manifests extreme intolerance to any display of disagreement with the doctrines they have thrust upon mankind. For example, the "New York Times" published an announcement about the so-called "secular humanist declaration of 1980" signed by 58 well-known scientists and writers. The declaration discredits Christian morals and "urges to intensify science and reason, instead of religion, as the means of solving human problems... Reflecting the elements of two earlier humanist manifestos of 1933 and 1973, the declaration considers the supernatural religion and Divine Revelation to be the enemies of the rational process leading to progress" [170].

Rather characteristic is also a hysterical letter written in 1982 by a well-known science-fiction writer and supporter of anti-biblical humanism, Dr. Isaac Asimov on behalf of the American Association of Civil Liberties: "These religious fanatics... like an army of the night come into our state schools with the Bible raised up high... They present a very real menace to society which values academic freedom and enlightenment above dogmas and moral piety" [171].

A veritable rejection, and not just a distortion of the Gospel, of the Church Fathers and of Christianity itself was the well known speech of "Patriarch" Alexius II (Ridiger) [172] before Jewish rabbis of New York in 1991. It caused numerous protests, indignation and even a movement of "non-commemorators" in the entire Orthodox world, including the Moscow Patriarchate. Full of servile declarations of respect for "the older brothers -- Jews", using Old Testament expressions, and confirming the allegedly still continuing chosenness of Jewish people and even the unity of Christianity and Judaism ("we are one with Judaists"!) this address demonstrated complete theological insolvency and an open betrayal of Orthodoxy [173].

Such statements appear by no means unfounded. We are in the second decade of deeply secret discussions between "Orthodox" ecumenists and Judaists [174] (as well as Moslems and heathens). Rapprochement of Judaism and Roman Catholicism began more than half a century ago [175], and it was announced quite definitely at the Second Vatican Council (Declaration "Nostra Aetate" of 28 October 1965). Anticipation of "Messiah" (none but Antichrist may be understood by this word) jointly with Judaists, has by now become a wide movement under the guidance of the apostate hierarchs and "theologians" occupying highest positions in all confessions united by ecumenism.

The unexpected celebrations, in recent years, of Jewish feast days of Hanuka and the future meeting of "Machiach" (Hebrew word meaning "Messiah" amidst the Cathedrals of Kremlin and the Red Square of the former Third Rome -- Moscow, do not seem so unexpected against this background.

As a result of the betrayal on the part of ecumenists, the Judaists' appraisal of our times as the Post-Christian era appears to be quite realistic; and their declarations that in future they intend to permit the existence of only such a Christianity which will prove its loyalty to them, do not seem to be too self-confident [176]. Ecumenists are now in a hurry to deserve this right to exist.

Countless servants and underlings of the enemy of mankind are now concocting all kinds of poison out of various lies and distortions of the Word of God, in order to deprive both the ordinary men and scholars of their reason, and "if it were possible" to "deceive the very elect" (Mt. 24,24).

Already in the past century there appeared seemingly innocent alterations in the Bible for children. At first they put out colorfully illustrated cartoons, now they produce animated cartoons, comics and video-games, thus trivializing the Scriptures and inculcating a primitive and distorted idea about it.

In the second half of the 20th century the disrespect for the Bible has reached such a degree that it has become possible to produce a variety of "versions" of the Old and the New Testaments: for workers, students, house-wives, etc. In Chapter 10 of the present work we discussed the feminist edition of the Bible, impudent in its blasphemous character.

At the end of 1995 the Oxford University Press published one more ecumenical translation of the New Testament and the Psalms [177] intended to satisfy not only feminists but all those who, according to the editor of this translation, might be offended by the Word of God in any way. It goes without saying that "God the Father" has been changed by the unprecedented in both the Old and the New Testament Church, "God the Father-Mother". Omitted are all the expressions in which preference is shown to fathers to the detriment of mothers; each time the mention of a biblical husband is accompanied by the name of his wife, if her name is known to the editors. Playing up to the political correctness of today, such "monarchistic" phrases as the "King", "Sovereign", "Lord" and "Ruler" are abolished and the "Kingdom of God" replaced by "Dominion of God".

Accordingly "slaves" have become "enslaved people"; parents no longer "discipline and punish", but "guide" their children who are told to "heed", rather than "obey" their parents.

References to darkness as "evil" and light as "good" are eliminated, so as not to offend people of dark color. Also references to the blind, the deaf and lame are considered insensitive, and are replaced by descriptive expression. No left-handed person should feel discriminated against; the phrase "right hand of God" is replaced by "mighty hand".

One could only laugh at these and similar absurdities, if such mocking of Holy Scripture would not be part of one universal program of the creation of the "New Age" and "New humanity". Nevertheless, "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebr. 10,31), and the blasphemers of the Word of God have no grounds to be unconcerned. It is to them that the stern words of the Apocalypse are addressed: "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book. If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city and from the things which are written in this book" (Rev. 22,18-19).

But ecumenists who are harder of hearing than those who condemned Christ to crucifixion (the Israelite leaders and teachers) do not hear the Lord's warnings, and the parable on tares (Mt. 13,24-30) will apparently remain incomprehensible to them until the very day of harvest, the Day of the Terrible Judgment of God.

Patriarch Pimen (Izvekov) of Moscow in his
residence: offering presents to Judaists.

The Pope of Rome John Paul II meets Rabbis in Warsaw

[157] The phrase "he who now letteth" was unanimously understood by the Fathers as meaning an Orthodox Monarch.

[158] Quotation from: Hieromonk Aleksy (Makrinov), "Vklad S.-Peterburgskoi dukhovnoi akademii v razvitie bibleistiki" (Contribution of St. Petersburg Theological Academy to the Development of Bible Studies). Collection Bogoslovskie trudy (Theological Works), Moscow, 1986, p.205.

[159] Ibid., p. 206.

[160] Quoted from: Archim. Seraphim (Aleksiev), Archim. Sergius (Yazadzhiev), "Pochemu pravoslavnomu khristianinu nel'zia byt' ekumenistom" (Why an Orthodox Christian Cannot Be an Ecumenist), translated from Bulgarian). SPb., 1992, pp. 254255.

[161] Ibid., p. 255.

[162] Hieromonk Aleksy (Makrinov). Op. cit., p. 206.

[163] In the more recent times this point of view was decisively pronounced at the Vatican Council of 1870 by the Roman-Catholic Archbishop Joseph Strossmeier. See "Papstvo i ego bor'ba s Pravoslaviem" (Papacy and its struggle with Orthodoxy). Strizhev-Centre, Moscow, 1993, p. 21.

[164] Compare "O kakom soedinenii vsekh ma molimsia. Po povodu tret'ego prosheniia Velikoi ektenii" (What Union of All Are We Praying For. On the third invocation of the Great Litany). Orthodox Russia, Jordanville, USA, No.22, 1991, p.8.
[165] Quoted from "Seti <<obnovlennago pravoslaviia>>" (The Nets of the "Renewed Orthodoxy"), Russkii Vestnik, Moscow, 1995, p. 153. See also Arch priest Lev Lebedev, "Why I joined the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad", Montreal, 1991, p. 22.

[166] "Seti <<obnovlennago Pravoslaviia>>", p. 141.

[167] St. John Chrysostom, "Tvoreniia" (Works). St.Petersburg, 1900, v.IV, book 1, p. 445.

[168] For many years evolutionists-anthropologists had been placing their hopes on the so called "Piltdown man" whose bones have been the subject of over 500 doctoral dissertations, until finally these bones turned out to be a mystification. (See Henry M.Morris, "Creation and the Modern Christian". Moscow, 1993, p. 125).

[169] Science, vol. 224 (1984), pp. 58-61. Quoted from: Ken Ham, Andrew Snelling, Carl Wiland, "The Book Of Answers". Moscow, 1993, p. 60. Those who are interested in the contemporary alternative evaluation of problems in connection with the theory of evolution we refer to the bibliography of basic editions of the Institute of Creationist Research in the book by Henry M. Morris "Creation and the Modern Christian", 1985 (Russian translation 1993).

[170] New York Times, 19 October 1980. Quoted from: Henry M. Morris, "Creation and the Modern Christian". Moscow, 1993, p. 77.

[171] Henry M. Morris, op. cit., p. 48.

[172] "The speech of Patriarch Alexius II before rabbis of the city of New York of 13 November 1991 and the heresy of Judaizers". Moscow 1992. This 296pp. book contains the detailed analysis of Patriarch Alexius II address, and a compilation of sources dealing with the given problem.

[173] Ibid., p.8.

[174] Here are two unique reports which appeared in open press: "The first International Consultation of the Representatives of the Orthodox Church and Judaism took place in March 21-24 of 1993 in the city of Athens under the patronage of the International Jewish Commission on Interreligious Consultation and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. There were 25 representatives on each side. The Patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople were the most prominent representatives of the Orthodox Church. The representatives of the Orthodox (Autocephalous -- L.P.) Church in the USA also took part.
Addressing the participants of the Consultation, the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomeos I, expressed his hope that this meeting will create "new framework for the renewal of friendly relationship between Orthodox Christians and Jews living together under one sky in one world". Speaking on behalf of the World Jewish Congress, Leon Feldman reported that the Consultation touched upon a series of acute problems, including "historical problems of anti-semitism", and also expressed his concern about the fact that the liturgical texts of the Orthodox Church still include anti-Jewish material. Russkyi Pastyr, San Francisco, 1993, No. 16, pp. 35-36.)
It is of significance that this "historical" meeting went unreported both in religious and secular press in Greece and in Russia. It became known, primarily, from Jewish papers, specifically from the paper published in Melbourne (ibid. p. 35).
A year later the Times reported that "Archbishop Gregory of Thyatira and Great Britain (of the Patriarchate of Constantinople), the joint president of the Council of Christians and Jews, had opened the Interreligious Center of Dialogue named after Leopold Mueller in the Sternberg Center of Judaism in Finchley" (Times, 1 May, 1994. Quoted from: Russkiy Pastyr, 1994, No. 19, p. 44).

[175] See N.F. Stepanov's report "Judaeo-Catholic Rapprochement and the subsequent perspectives of further evolution of Ecumenical Movement". Acts of the Second Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. Belgrade, 1939, pp. 492-556.

[176] Worthy of note is the book by the well known Judaist scholar, Rabbi Prof. Elier Berkowitz "Faith After Catastrophe", published by the Institute of Publications On the Problems of Judaism for Repatriates (est. by the Section of Judaism of the Department of Education and Culture, and the Department of Religions, in cooperation with the Memorial Institute of Hebrew Culture, New York) . Published by Amaze (in Russian), Jerusalem, 1990.
Many concepts of the official Judaism expressed in Prof. Berkowitz's book should have a sobering effect on ecumenists. But, obviously, they prefer not to notice anything. We shall limit ourselves to only some characteristic citations:
"Accusation (of Jews -L.P.) of killing Christ is a disgrace for Christianity. It will not be white-washed until the Church will completely withdraw its accusations" (p.22).
"Ecumenism bears a direct relation to Jews, inasmuch as they too were invited to participate in the "universal church" for the sake of common religious heritage. It is interesting, however, that this invitation was extended at the time when the Christian era has entered its period of decline" (p. 32).
"How should the Jews regard Christianity in the Post-Christian era? First of all, we are obliged to make sure that now, indeed, Christianity is in decline" (p. 34).
"We have survived Christianity... Only our experience, the experience of the eternal people demonstrates the complete failure of Christian civilization and religion" (p. 35).
"For the time being, an honest dialogue with Christianity is emotionally impossible for Jewry as a whole... This, perhaps, depends entirely on the subsequent conduct of Christians" (p. 37).
"That which is usually called the Judaeo-Christian tradition exists only in the imagination of Christians and atheists" (p. 37).
"Everything non-Jewish in Christianity is unacceptable to Jews... Many think that at least the Old Testament is common for both Jews and Christians. This is a profound error... After all, the God of Abraham has nothing in common with the triune divinity of Christians" (p. 38).

[177] See Wall Street Journal, 3.9.1995.