Piraeus, Greece, July 14, 2022
Baptizing the children of two unrepentant homosexuals with such fanfare, Archbishop Elpidophoros of Constantinople’s Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America gave “amnesty” to the grave sin of sodomy, preferring the “modern gospel of the serpent” to the eternal teachings of the Church, believes the Metropolitan of Piraeus.
In a letter published yesterday, His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus of the Church of Greece, who is known for taking strong stands against ecumenism and all kinds of heresies and moral laxity, argues that Abp. Elpidophoros should be brought before an ecclesiastical court to be judged according to the sacred canons for his recent scandalous actions.
Recall that Abp. Elpidophoros caused an international scandal over the weekend when he flew to Greece to baptize the children of a gay celebrity couple with whom he is close. The event was hailed as the “first openly gay baptism” in Greece by the participants themselves, and the Archbishop was praised for his progressive views.
Metropolitan Antonios of Glyfada, in whose metropolis the Baptism took place, later explained to the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece that Abp. Elpidophoros had misled him and concealed the truth of the “family” involved.
***
Read the full text of Met. Seraphim’s letter:
We have emphasized in many of our interventions that the Church, the Body of Christ according to the heavenly Apostle Paul (Eph 1:23) is the land of converted sinners, and the incarnate Word of God declared l came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Mk. 2:17). The proclamation of the same Apostle of the Nations (1 Tim 1:15-16) is significant, as he claimed only one place of preeminence, that of the first of sinners. This is why the Church of Christ has always surrounded fallen man with infinite love, because there is no sin or crime that cannot be healed and restored by the unfathomable patience and affection of the Holy Creator of life and man. The opposition of the Gospel’s message, the preaching of the God-bearing Apostles and the Divine and sacred canons of the Holy God-bearing Fathers, does not concern the persons of the unfortunate victims of the serpent, but the sin, which separates from our Holy God and which returns man to the ground and deprives him of the prospect of coinherence with the eternal presence of the Lord of glory and theosis. Accordingly, love and mercy towards the sinner is the emphatic practice and commandment of the Savior, which is expressed throughout His presence on earth and in a moving way with the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin (Luke 15:3-10), and the condemnation of sin as the generative cause of illness and death (John 5:14).
We mention all of the above because of the inadmissible (as it appears from the document and report to the Holy Synod, of Rev. Metropolitan Antonios of Glyfada) action of the Most Reverend Archbishop Elpidophoros of America to celebrate after a procession and with great publicity the Sacrament of the Baptism of two children, who have been “adopted” by a “couple” of homosexuals. Certainly, the Baptism and the admission of every human being into the Kingdom of God is a work of grace and blessing and obeys the commandment of the incarnate Lord Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them (Mt. 28:19-20).
However, the celebration of the Sacrament of the Baptism, with great publicity, of two unfortunate children—which is the cause of the tragedy of our time, which has institutionalized the subversion of human ontology and physiology, as an alleged human right, when it has nothing to do with human nature, but is a psychopathological deviation that trivializes the human person and sullies man’s soul and fulfills the definition of the great Italian Criminologist Cesare Lombroso that “the homosexual has no moral restraint and no metaphysical ideal”—who are in the midst of the two allegedly homosexual parents, by the sole responsibility of the state which “legislated” in this regard, with the result that they are deprived of the life-giving caress of the mother and the robust personality of the father, that is, they are deprived of the standards of life; it becomes the springboard for the ecclesiastical amnesty of the ecclesiastical crime of sodomy, which is a mortal sin that deprives one of communion with the Living God and inevitably leads its unfortunate victim to eternal perdition.
Therefore, the specific priestly practice of the Most Reverend Archbishop Elpidophoros of America and the substantial rewarding of unrepentant sodomites and their promotion in the Church, as supposedly “God-fearing persons,” who baptize their children in an Orthodox way, and the consequent amnesty of the deadly crime of sodomy and the subversion of human ontology and physiology, directly offends the anthropology and soteriology of the One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church and leads the specific hierarch to trial before the holy canons and the Lord of the Church, because through his practical “teaching” he annulled the relevant soteriological mandate of the Holy Bible (Lev. 18:22, Gen. 19:24, Rom. 1:27-28).
Consequently, this particular hierarch, for obvious reasons of publicity or others that we do not know, preferred the “modern gospel” of the serpent to the teaching of the Church and is now under the curse of the Holy and God-bearing Fathers and the canonical provision of the canonical judicial bodies of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Personally, and because I am connected to him by friendship, I publicly call him to repair the spiritual damage caused, seeking the forgiveness of the holy Lord of the Church and the ecclesiastical body.
***
Recall that Abp. Elpidophoros is also in the midst of a battle with the other hierarchs of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America about his plans to consecrate the canonically defrocked Alexander Belya to the episcopacy later this month.
Follow OrthoChristian on Twitter, Vkontakte, Telegram, WhatsApp, MeWe, and Gab!
