The Communiqué of Apostasy: The Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Continued Fall Into Gracelessness
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Subdeacon Nektarios, M.A.
On June 8th, 2026, the Arch-Heresiarch of Constantinople delivered a radical ecumenical address before the papist Archbishop of Vilnius, Gintaras Grušas, and the participants of the World Apostolic Congress on Mercy. The Congress is a Roman Catholic religious gathering devoted to the Divine Mercy movement. Its establishment was approved by Pope Benedict XVI, who mandated that the first World Apostolic Congress on Mercy be held in Rome in 2008. The movement itself draws heavily upon the so-called private revelations received beginning in 1931 by Faustina Kowalska, a Roman Catholic nun, from which developed the modern Divine Mercy devotion, including its image, chaplet, feast, and extraordinary promises of spiritual benefits attributed to Christ.
In this communiqué, Bartholomew delivers one of his most openly heretical addresses in recent memory. Without equivocation, he advances an ecclesiology fundamentally opposed to the Orthodox understanding of the Church, further manifesting his departure from the confession of the Fathers and his descent into apostasy and gracelessness.
From the opening paragraphs, Bartholomew presents the historical divisions of Christianity not primarily as the consequence of heresy and departure from the Orthodox Faith, but as the product of theology being transformed into political and ideological categories. In a series of convoluted statements, he suggests that theological and confessional boundaries themselves became instruments of division rather than necessary safeguards of revealed truth. He states:
Touching upon the agony of divided Christianity and traversing the centuries that accumulated successive wounds upon the body of the Church, to confront reality. If we excavate the historical subsoil, attempting to understand in the end the meaning of reconciliation, we perceive that the division of the Churches was produced chiefly by the transformation of theology itself into state ideology. Suffocatingly trapped was the message of salvation within geographical and political borders [1].
He then criticizes the Orthodox Christian world for remembering the demonic sack of Constantinople in 1204, accusing the Orthodox of remaining “trapped within” this historical memory and presenting it as yet another cause of continued division [2]. He further claims that “ecclesiastical administration instrumentalised dogma,” by which he means that the Orthodox Church used her dogmas as instruments of political division and confessional antagonism. In doing so, Bartholomew shifts responsibility for the continued separation away from the actual theological causes of the schism, namely the numerous heresies introduced and persistently maintained by the Latins since the eleventh century [3].
In the following paragraphs, the Arch-Heresiarch goes further down the road of apostasy by recognizing these heretical communities, first, as legitimate churches on par with and equal to the Orthodox Church. He then continues, saying that the “persistence in institutional isolation is equivalent to a denial of the truth that God Himself is revealed as a communion of three persons […] We invalidate in practice our faith in the Triune God by denying communion with our Brother” [4].
What he means by this additional convoluted statement is that the exclusive ecclesiology of the Orthodox Church, according to which we recognize ourselves, and ourselves alone, as the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, is nothing less than a denial of the Holy Trinity. Yes, Bartholomew is saying that if you believe the Orthodox Church alone is the Church and that outside of her there is no Church, then you are, in essence, denying the Trinitarian dogma of the Faith because you reject communion with Latin heretics who have been condemned as heretics by the Orthodox Church for centuries.
The Arch-Heresiarch states that the Orthodox Church prefers “the security of dogmatic borders over the impetus of the spirit of Resurrection,” which is merely a convoluted way of saying that the infallible, unchangeable, and immovable doctrines of Holy Orthodoxy stand in the way of this ecumenist and heretical union and, by implication, obstruct what he presents as the true message of Orthodoxy. How can a so-called Orthodox Patriarch deliver such a heretical statement in the presence of Latin Papists when the centuries-long witness of the Church and her saints has rejected not only heresy in general, but Latin Papism specifically? As Saint Mark of Ephesus declared: “Our Church,” said Mark, “has kept silence on this, because the Latins are more powerful and numerous than we are; but we, in fact, have broken all ties with them, for the very reason that they are heretics” [5]. Never mind, moreover, what Saint Paul the Apostle says in his Epistle to the Galatians concerning those who depart from the Gospel delivered by the Apostles:
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be anathema. 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 anathema (Galatians 1:6-9, KJV).
Saint Paul the Apostle, called by Christ Himself, declares that anyone who preaches another gospel contrary to that which was delivered by the Apostles is ἀνάθεμα (anathema), a term which, in this Pauline context, means substantially accursed, devoted to condemnation, and cut off from the saving communion of God because of the false gospel being preached. Yet today we have a so-called Orthodox Patriarch declaring that if one adheres to the Orthodox ecclesiology of the Church, one is, in fact, denying the Triune Godhead.
Bartholomew carries on by saying that our separation from heretics is nothing less than “institutional ego,” rather than a genuine separation over theological matters of the Faith. He entirely ignores the very clear fact that the Orthodox Church has recognized the Latins as being in heresy and tainted by numerous heresies since the eleventh century, and instead places blame for the schisms upon the Orthodox because of a supposed “reluctance of ecclesial organisations to make a sacrificial move” [6]. Again, he ignores the biblical command of Saint Paul, who, in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, directly instructs the faithful:
Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to withdraw yourselves from every brother walking disorderly and not according to the tradition which they received from us ( 2 Thessalonians 3:6, KJV).
In the next paragraph, Bartholomew continues to denigrate the Orthodox Church by saying that inter-Christian relations are a “conciliar responsibility” because “theological dialogue requires exhaustive labour from those who participate” [7]. He further states: “We need to penetrate into a network of historical differences, dense, many times entirely impenetrable, in order to touch the very body of the revealed faith. Exactly there we seek the primary nerves which hold together the existence of the Church” [8]. In essence, he is calling the Orthodox to engage in dialogue with heretics and to negotiate doctrinal positions because, in his own words, these “primary nerves…hold together the existence of the Church” [9]. This statement is, in and of itself, emphatically heretical because it implies that the existence and unity of the Church are constituted not by the Orthodox Church alone, as the one undivided Body of Christ, but by some broader ecclesial reality in which both the Orthodox and heretical communities participate. Such an ecclesiology necessarily treats separated confessions as constituent parts, branches, or manifestations of a greater Church transcending the visible boundaries of Orthodoxy. This is precisely the ecclesiological premise underlying the heretical branch theory and syncretistic ecumenism.
What would a heretical speech from the Ecumenical Patriarchate be without a reference to the non-canonical lifting of the anathemas of 1054, which had placed the Roman Patriarchate outside the Church and outside the grace of the Holy Spirit? In this part of the speech, Bartholomew states:
Bringing back to our memory the brave initiative of the lifting of the anathemas of 1054 by the ever-memorable Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI in December 1965, we recognise with awe the magnitude of their courage before the unbending circles of their Churches. They committed the unthinkable, overturning a consolidated alienation of nine whole centuries. The mercy they displayed acted as a dynamic force, rupturing the watertight compartments of suspicion. Looking forward to the fulfilment of the high priestly prayer of the Lord “That they all may be one” (John 17:21), they dared to look upon the face of the other without the dry rampart of a dogmatic complacency [10].
He calls courageous what the Apostles would call apostasy. He calls the Papist ecclesiastical structure a “Church,” while our councils, saints, canons, and liturgical texts identify those who persist in heresy as being outside the Church. He then describes the lifting of anathemas against unrepentant heretics, still fully entrenched in their errors, as an act of mercy. Yet what kind of mercy is it to give Papists the impression that where they are is acceptable, that they are not in heresy, and that they have no need of correction or repentance? Is this mercy? If so, why did the eight Ecumenical Councils labor to condemn heresy when it arose within the Church, and why did they anathematize heretics at all, if, according to Bartholomew’s ecclesiological model, heresy itself is not the real problem, but rather our “dogmatic borders”?
At the close of the Arch-Heresiarch’s speech to the gathered Latins, he again denigrates Orthodox ecclesiology by calling it a “luxury of ecclesiastical self-sufficiency,” as if the boundaries of the Orthodox Church were some cheap commodity that we possess as a flock, rather than the divinely established boundaries of the Body of Christ. He then indicts the Orthodox by saying that our “history weighs heavily upon us,” as if the history of the Church and the doctrines delivered to us by Christ and His Apostles were themselves the problem [11].
In his closing remarks, he again excoriates the Orthodox Church by saying that “the future of Christianity will not be secured by the preservation of inherited antagonisms, but by the courage to transform memory into reconciliation and suffering into communion” [12]. Here we have a so-called Orthodox Patriarch presenting the ecclesiology and dogmatic theology of the Church as nothing more than “inherited antagonisms” toward heretics, rather than as divine dogmas delivered to the Church by Christ and preserved by the Apostles, Fathers, and Councils. We can only presume, then, that within the Arch-Heresiarch’s ecclesiological model, the Ecumenical Councils and their supposed “antagonisms” are likewise obstacles to be overcome, and that the theological boundaries established and defended by the Church are to be subordinated to his innovative ecclesiology. In their place, Bartholomew and his Patriarchate preach an ecumenist doctrine in which these “dogmatic borders” become barriers to unity, while true unity is instead founded upon mutual recognition of separated churches and the setting aside of those very “antagonisms” handed down to us through the Church of the God-man Himself, Jesus Christ.
Does this sound like a grace-filled Orthodox Patriarchate preaching the truth of Orthodoxy in a manner that would receive the approval of the Holy Apostles and bear witness to the presence of the Holy Spirit? Certainly not. The sycophants of World Orthodoxy will, of course, dismiss this speech of apostasy and renunciation of Orthodox ecclesiology as merely the private rhetoric of a single bishop. Yet those willing to examine these statements critically can see that they are not isolated expressions, but manifestations of the ecclesiological position now repeatedly advanced by the Ecumenical Patriarchate: an ecumenist and syncretistic structure which, by abandoning the ecclesiology of the Fathers, has departed from the grace of the Holy Spirit and become an empty historical vessel capable of producing neither grace nor salvation. Saint Basil the Great, in his famous Letter 188, describes perfectly the current state of the Ecumenical Patriarchate when he writes: “The first separatists had received their ordination from the Fathers, and possessed the spiritual gift by the laying on of their hands. But they who were broken off had become laymen, and, because they are no longer able to confer on others that grace of the Holy Spirit from which they themselves are fallen away, they had no authority either to baptize or to ordain” [13].
It is time, therefore, for all those who remain under this absolute heretic to flee from the heretical gospel now being preached by the Ecumenical Patriarchate and return to the true Body of Christ, His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
References
[1]. “Ecumenism and Mercy: Overcoming Historical Intertia,” Official Website of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, September 15th, 2026, https://web.archive.org/web/20260826013438/https://ec-patr.org/09/06/12/33/ecumenical-patriarch-bartholomew-ecumenism-and-mercy-overcoming-historical-inertia-vilnius-8-june-2026/
[2]. Ibid.
[3]. Ibid.
[4]. Ibid.
[5]. Ivan. N Ostroumoff, The History of the Council of Florence (Washington, D.C.: Orthodox Traditionalist Publications, 2024), 114-115.
[6]. Ecumenism and Mercy: Overcoming Historical Inertia,” Official Website of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, September 15th, 2026, https://ec-patr.org/09/06/12/33/ecumenical-patriarch-bartholomew-ecumenism-and-mercy-overcoming-historical-inertia-vilnius-8-june-2026/
[7]. Ibid.
[8]. Ibid.
[9]. Ibid.
[10]. Ibid.
[11]. Ibid.
[12]. Ibid.
[13]. St. Basil the Great, “Letter CLXXXVIII (188) To Amphilochius, Concerning the Canons,” in Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, ed. Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (Peabody: Hendrickson Publications, 1999), 224-225.
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