The OCF Deception: How Orthodox Christian Fellowship Students Are Taught to Embrace Heretical Ecumenism

By Subdeacon Nektarios, M.A.

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During November 4–6, 2025, various jurisdictions within World Orthodoxy participated in yet another heretical ecumenist event, officially sponsored by the Huffington Ecumenical Institute of Hellenic College Holy Cross (HCHC), the seminary of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (GOARCH) in Boston, Massachusetts. This heretical gathering, entitled “Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches: Moving the Dialogue Forward,” was an utterly disgraceful display of post-patristic apostasy, in which clergy of GOARCH and the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) took part in dismissing the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, the Council of 451 A.D. that officially anathematized the heretical monophysites. These monophysites are today represented by the so-called “Oriental Orthodox,” which consist of the Coptic, Armenian, Syriac, Ethiopian, and Eritrean jurisdictions.

Guest speakers included the pseudo-bishop and heresiarch Elpidophoros, who, in his typical fashion, was busy promulgating the pan-heresy of ecumenism with the ecumenically condemned monophysites and engaging in all the pandering that accompanies it. Another heresiarch, Alexander Golitzen, was also present, a man who has publicly admitted in the past that he rejected the Fifth Ecumenical Council and its decision to condemn Origen as a heretic.

However, what proved most noteworthy was a five-minute speech delivered by a seminarian of HCHC. In this speech, he described his experience with the Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) and its relationship with these same ecumenically condemned monophysites. His remarks made clear that the OCF is nothing less than a student organization actively inculcating the pan-heresy of ecumenism into unsuspecting college youth, who have no idea that they are being infected with the bacterium of ecumenism.

The OCF is a campus ministry organization of the so-called Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the United States. It gathers students from World Orthodox jurisdictions and creates a network of fellowship, community, worship, and educational programs during their college years. At first glance, this appears to be a commendable organization beneficial to students. Yet this veneer is only superficial. As noted, the organization is governed by the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, which is composed of all the major World Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States, almost all of whom are active participants in the ecumenical movement and the World Council of Churches. Worst of all, they are led by the same arch-heresiarch, Elpidophoros of the Greek Archdiocese of America.

In this five-minute speech, the HCHC seminarian immediately presents his personal experience in the Champaign, Illinois OCF chapter, where he served as chapter president. He enthusiastically recalls how his chapter collaborated with the monophysite jurisdictions, attended each other’s events, and even received the blessing of these same ecumenically condemned monophysite priests. The seminarian describes his experience in the Orthodox Christian Fellowship, saying:

“I was a very active member of my OCF, and our OCF was in Champaign, Illinois. Our OCF was a cooperator with the Coptic Orthodox Fellowship that was associated with that university, and we coordinated and held events. One of the things that became very clear in the relations between our two ministries was that, especially on the Greek side, especially with the GOA [GOARCH] people, there was hardly even a perception that these two communions constituted two separate communions.

“Our fellowships cooperated in every way. We met in the same building many times, we coordinated events together, and their priests, we were blessed by their priests often. We accepted their blessings. Often, I was asked by fellow members of the OCF, because I was a leader of that OCF chapter, “What are the distinctions between these two? They seem different, but I do not quite know what the distinction is.”

“When you tried to get into the historical disputes between these two communions, it would be completely unrelatable, and they would have no idea what you were even talking about. Frankly, it would seem absurd when you talked to them about it. The distinction between two natures and one hypostasis, the one incarnate nature, was not only arcane, but completely incomprehensible and absurd [1].

Immediately, we see a problem with the OCF in that this student organization, and those who are running it, are using it to inculcate students with the heresy of ecumenism by organizing events with those who have been anathematized by the Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council and by encouraging participation in religious services, events, and even receiving blessings from their heretical clergymen, in direct defiance of Canon 32 of the Holy Council of Laodicea, which states, “One must not receive blessings from heretics, for they are not blessings but curses.” [2].

What seems even more troubling is the way this subject is spoken of by those who came out of the OCF, especially in their treatment of these anathematized heretics. Their descriptions are increasingly dismissive of the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council. We see this in the language of the seminarian, who referred to this monophysite heresy as nothing but an incomprehensible, absurd, and archaic division that separates Orthodox Christians from the heretical monophysites who broke away from the Church in 451.

This spirit of dismissiveness toward the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, who were nothing less than inspired by the Holy Spirit in their rulings concerning the monophysites, is becoming more common among the modernist World Orthodox jurisdictions. This divinely inspired Council stands directly in the way of their ecumenist ambitions to unite with the monophysites without repentance, without abandoning their heretical theology, and without fully embracing the truly Orthodox doctrines of Christ’s Church.

The seminarian goes on in his speech to explain to the audience that the reason why all of this is dismissed among those in the OCF as incomprehensible, archaic, and absurd is not because the divinely inspired Church Fathers ruled in an infallible Ecumenical Council that the monophysites were anathematized and outside the Church, but because, in modern America, the cultural mindset essentially mandates that these divisions are nothing more than the product of an ancient society that simply “did not understand each other.” In other words, the Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council were, according to this view, ignorant of the real theological issues, while modern people today are supposedly more enlightened, despite not living contemporaneously with these events, nor knowing the languages spoken at the Council, nor possessing the theological precision of the Fathers themselves. The HCHC seminarian continues, saying,

“Something sort of struck me when I reflected on that, which is that I think this is in part a consequence of the unique diasporic experience of Orthodoxy within America. Both the Greek Orthodox Christians and all Chalcedonian Orthodox and non-Chalcedonian in America have a common experience as a minority faith, right? They’re minority faiths; they are conscious of the fact that they are not “mainstream” in the sense that they don’t conform to American perceptions of what Christianity constitutes. And so, often times it’s difficult for them to maintain their unique cultural, ethnic, and ecclesiastical identities, and this is often a bad thing.

“But it also sometimes is an opportunity to challenge the traditional narratives that we sometimes have about “unbridgeable divides” within our ecclesiastical communions. Because not only is our American culture—I mean, if you try to explain these distinctions between these two churches to the common American, they would look at you like you’re a crazy person—and the notion that they constitute, like I said, “unbridgeable divides” or “absolute divisions” would just be completely… they would not be able to understand it.

“And so, it is also the case with the Christians themselves, the Orthodox Christians, the Coptic Orthodox, and Greek Orthodox, because of that common diasporic experience. And so, I wanted to say that my experience, what it told me, was that we’re in a unique position in America, and within all diasporic Orthodox, to live together, understand our common Christian heritage, and then, by realizing how silly the divides look in the eyes of our fellow Americans, we should ask ourselves whether or not we’ve sort of gone mad.

“And so, I wanted to say that my experience in OCF and experience as an American convert to Orthodoxy, it has taught me to be mindful of the fact that ecclesiastical history, and our obsession with text and dogmatic formula, can obscure the fact that these differences, in the eyes of the world and even in the eyes of ourselves sometimes when we reflect on them, maybe aren’t so unbridgeable as we initially thought” [3].

Here again we see, despite the ecumenistic word salad, how people within the Orthodox Christian Fellowship are being exposed to this bacterium of ecumenism, which spreads like a contagion, as so many Church Fathers have taught. These students are being inculcated with the heresy of ecumenism, being led to believe that the separation between the Orthodox and the monophysites is merely a cultural issue, a misunderstanding, or just an ancient dispute between two cultures that did not understand each other culturally or linguistically. They are being taught that we must “challenge the traditional narratives” of the Fourth Ecumenical Council and that the divinely inspired decisions of the Ecumenical Council are not necessarily absolute or unbridgeable, even in the continued absence of repentance on the part of the monophysites or their full adoption of Orthodox Christian theology and its Ecumenical Councils.

Is this what the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church teaches about the Ecumenical Councils, that they may be challenged over time and that their decrees are not necessarily absolute and established dogmas of the Church? To answer this, we need only look at the text of that very Ecumenical Council, which we as Orthodox Christians supposedly have an “obsession with,” as though that were something negative. In the decree of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, which for the true Orthodox Christian is a non-negotiable dogmatic decree, it states,

“The holy, great, and ecumenical synod, assembled by the grace of God and the command of our most religious and Christian Emperors, Marcian and Valentinian, Augusti, at Chalcedon, the metropolis of the Bithynian Province, in the martyry of the holy and victorious martyr Euphemia, has decreed as follows:

“Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, when strengthening the knowledge of the Faith in his disciples, to the end that no one might disagree with his neighbour concerning the doctrines of religion, and that the proclamation of the truth might be set forth equally to all men, said, ‘My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.’  But, since the evil one does not desist from sowing tares among the seeds of godliness, but ever invents some new device against the truth; therefore the Lord, providing, as he ever does, for the human race, has raised up this pious, faithful, and zealous Sovereign, and has called together unto him from all parts the chief rulers of the priesthood; so that, the grace of Christ our common Lord inspiring us, we may cast off every plague of falsehood from the sheep of Christ, and feed them with the tender leaves of truth.  And this have we done with one unanimous consent, driving away erroneous doctrines and renewing the unerring faith of the Fathers, publishing to all men the Creed of the Three Hundred and Eighteen, and to their number adding, as their peers, the Fathers who have received the same summary of religion.  Such are the One Hundred and Fifty holy Fathers who afterwards assembled in the great Constantinople and ratified the same faith.  Moreover, observing the order and every form relating to the faith, which was observed by the holy synod formerly held in Ephesus, of which Celestine of Rome and Cyril of Alexandria, of holy memory, were the leaders, we do declare that the exposition of the right and blameless faith made by the Three Hundred and Eighteen holy and blessed Fathers, assembled at Nice in the reign of Constantine of pious memory, shall be pre-eminent:  and that those things shall be of force also, which were decreed by the One Hundred and Fifty holy Fathers at Constantinople, for the uprooting of the heresies which had then sprung up, and for the confirmation of the same Catholic and Apostolic Faith of ours.

 “The Creed of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers at Nice.

“We believe in one God, etc.

“Item, the Creed of the one hundred and fifty holy Fathers who were assembled at Constantinople.

“We believe in one God, etc.

“This wise and salutary formula of divine grace sufficed for the perfect knowledge and confirmation of religion; for it teaches the perfect [doctrine] concerning Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and sets forth the Incarnation of the Lord to them that faithfully receive it.  But, forasmuch as persons undertaking to make void the preaching of the truth have through their individual heresies given rise to empty babblings; some of them daring to corrupt the mystery of the Lord’s incarnation for us and refusing [to use] the name Mother of God (Θεοτόκος) in reference to the Virgin, while others, bringing in a confusion and mixture, and idly conceiving that the nature of the flesh and of the Godhead is all one, maintaining that the divine Nature of the Only Begotten is, by mixture, capable of suffering; therefore this present holy, great, and ecumenical synod, desiring to exclude every device against the Truth, and teaching that which is unchanged from the beginning, has at the very outset decreed that the faith of the Three Hundred and Eighteen Fathers shall be preserved inviolate.  And on account of them that contend against the Holy Ghost, it confirms the doctrine afterwards delivered concerning the substance of the Spirit by the One Hundred and Fifty holy Fathers who assembled in the imperial City; which doctrine they declared unto all men, not as though they were introducing anything that had been lacking in their predecessors, but in order to explain through written documents their faith concerning the Holy Ghost against those who were seeking to destroy his sovereignty.  And, on account of those who have taken in hand to corrupt the mystery of the dispensation [i.e. the Incarnation] and who shamelessly pretend that he who was born of the holy Virgin Mary was a mere man, it receives the synodical letters of the Blessed Cyril, Pastor of the Church of Alexandria, addressed to Nestorius and the Easterns, judging them suitable, for the refutation of the frenzied folly of Nestorius, and for the instruction of those who long with holy ardour for a knowledge of the saving symbol.  And, for the confirmation of the orthodox doctrines, it has rightly added to these the letter of the President of the great and old Rome, the most blessed and holy Archbishop Leo, which was addressed to Archbishop Flavian of blessed memory, for the removal of the false doctrines of Eutyches, judging them to be agreeable to the confession of the great Peter, and as it were a common pillar against misbelievers.  For it opposes those who would rend the mystery of the dispensation into a Duad of Sons; it repels from the sacred assembly those who dare to say that the Godhead of the Only Begotten is capable of suffering; it resists those who imagine a mixture or confusion of the two natures of Christ; it drives away those who fancy his form of a servant is of an heavenly or some substance other than that which was taken of us, and it anathematizes those who foolishly talk of two natures of our Lord before the union, conceiving that after the union there was only one.

“Following the holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same [Person], that he is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before the worlds according to his Godhead; but in these last days for us men and for our salvation born [into the world] of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to his manhood.  This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son [of God] must be confessed to be in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that without the distinction of nature’s being taken away by such union, but rather the peculiar property of each nature being preserved and being united in one Person and subsistence, not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only-begotten, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Prophets of old time have spoken concerning him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ hath taught us, and as the Creed of the Fathers hath delivered to us.

“These things, therefore, having been expressed by us with the greatest accuracy and attention, the holy Ecumenical Synod defines that no one shall be suffered to bring forward a different faith (ἑτέραν πίστιν), nor to write, nor to put together, nor to excogitate, nor to teach it to others.  But such as dare either to put together another faith, or to bring forward or to teach or to deliver a different Creed (ἕτερον σύμβολον) to as wish to be converted to the knowledge of the truth, from the Gentiles, or Jews or any heresy whatever, if they be Bishops or clerics let them be deposed, the Bishops from the Episcopate, and the clerics from the clergy; but if they be monks or laics:  let them be anathematized.

“After the reading of the definition, all the most religious Bishops cried out:  This is the faith of the fathers:  let the metropolitans forthwith subscribe it:  let them forthwith, in the presence of the judges, subscribe it:  let that which has been well defined have no delay:  this is the faith of the Apostles:  by this we all stand:  thus we all believe” [4].

The Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council were not ignorant of what the monophysite heresy taught, and their infallible decree was not the result of cultural misunderstanding or some type of linguistic differences that were somehow lost on the Holy Fathers, as these modernists are now promulgating. As the Church Fathers stated themselves, “These things, therefore, having been expressed by us with the greatest accuracy and attention” [5]. Their own testimony makes it clear that they acted with precision and deliberation. The attempt to portray them otherwise reflects a modern distortion of the historical record and is nothing less than a slap in their face.

Do you not think it is at all problematic that these modern hierarchs and pseudo-Orthodox academics are pushing the narrative that they are wiser than the Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, who were divinely inspired and produced an infallible Ecumenical Council? This claim elevates contemporary opinion above the mind of the Church. It implicitly suggests that modern interpreters possess greater insight than the Saints themselves. Such a position is inherently contradictory to Orthodox ecclesiology.

Sadly, this is what the Orthodox Christian Fellowship (OCF) is teaching in these campus chapters, and these are the types of activities in which they are involved, which is largely due to the OCF being an organ of the so-called Assembly of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops, whose members are composed almost entirely of representatives of the heretical World Council of Churches and chaired by the Arch-Heresiarch Elpidophoros of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. The influence of these bodies shapes the ethos and direction of OCF programming. Their ecumenist commitments naturally filter down into campus life. This raises legitimate concerns about the formation students receive.

This organization is doing nothing less than inculcating in the youth of these OCF chapters by slowly drip feeding them the idea that there is no difference between the Orthodox and the heterodox, basing everything on feelings rather than the teachings of the Holy Fathers. This subtle conditioning takes place over time, shaping the students’ understanding of ecclesial identity. It replaces doctrinal clarity with emotional sentiment. Is this what you want your students involved in?

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 References

 

[1]. “Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, Moving the Dialogue Forward - Day 2,” HCHC Media YouTube Channel, accessed November 15th, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/live/mMKOiOJQlRA?si=Ef-80bRcEfDMKNZI&t=37423

[2]. The Canons of the Synod Held in the City of Laodicea, “Canon XXXII,” in Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, Volume 14, ed. Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (Peabody: Hendrickson Publications, 1999), 149.

[3]. “Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches, Moving the Dialogue Forward - Day 2,” HCHC Media YouTube Channel, accessed November 15th, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/live/mMKOiOJQlRA?si=Ef-80bRcEfDMKNZI&t=37423

[4]. “The Definition of Faith of the Council of Chalcedon,” in Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, Volume 14, ed. Philip Schaff & Henry Wace (Peabody: Hendrickson Publications, 1999), 262-265.

[5]. Ibid., 262.