Orthodox Reflections

By Walt Garlington, an Orthodox Christian living in Dixieland.  His writings have appeared on several web sites, and he maintains a site of his own, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.

It is not a little galling, then, to see the Patriarchate (in the person of Abp Elpidophoros) pressing each Metropolis in the US to cough up another $35,000 apiece to fund what amounts to an act of heretical ecumenism later this year in Constantinople and Nicaea, where Patriarch Bartholomew and Pope Leo will meet and likely tell us all how wonderful union between Roman Catholics and Orthodox will be:

The Ecumenical Patriarch is seeking financial contributions from the Metropolises of America to fund Pope Leo’s visit to the Phanar, the National Herald reports.

The Roman pontiff plans to be in Istanbul for the Feast of St. Andrew (November 30), the Thronal Feast of the Church of Constantinople. Batholomew and Leo will then journey together to Nicaea, to commemorate the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council held there.

The Patriarch has charged the newly-appointed Grand Archpriest Alexander Karloutsos to oversee the event’s organization and has urged American Metropolitans to coordinate with him.

In a letter dated September 26, 2025—the day after the Patriarch’s departure—Archbishop Elpidophoros of America wrote:

You already know that an official Pan-American pilgrimage is being organized to Constantinople and Nicaea around the Thronal Feast of the Mother Church of St. Andrew, to which you have also been personally invited.

In response to the expressed request and solemn exhortation of our Patriarch, the organization in the Phanar of the celebrations marking the 1700 years since the convocation of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicaea, in the presence of the Roman Pontiff, has been entrusted to one of the clergy of our Holy Archdiocese, the Reverend Grand Protopresbyter of the Ecumenical Throne, Fr. Alexander Karloutsos. Therefore, the Mother Church respectfully requests that each Holy Metropolis contribute to the expenses of this event with the amount of $35,000.

Accordingly, Your Eminence is also kindly requested, in consultation with the aforementioned esteemed clergyman, to coordinate your efforts toward the stated purpose.

His Holiness’ visit to the States was in many ways a disaster, from VP Vance pressing him on persecution of the Orthodox in the Ukraine (for which he had no answer) to his Nazi salute addressed to Zelensky.

In a video, Patriarch Bartholomew is seen raising his staff and shouting the Nazi slogan “Glory to Ukraine” (“Slava Ukraini”) while Archbishop Elpidophoros of America stands beside him, smiling and approving. This man’s government is persecuting Orthodox Christians. 

Association with the Templeton Foundation itself is deeply concerning.  This fellow, Igor Druz, doesn’t pull any punches (bolding not added):

The other day, the pan-galactic patriarch Bartholomew received one of the world’s largest prizes, worth £1.1 million – the John Templeton Foundation Prize. The foundation promotes all the classics of the global agenda, from “saving the climate” to ecumenism and “gender diversity”. In other words, the Satanists have recognized their fellow’s significant contributions to the cause of building a diabolical new world order. “Bartholomew is receiving the Templeton Award for making environmentalism a central commitment in his role as a spiritual leader,” said Heather Templeton Dill, president of the Templeton Foundation.

In fact, the focus of an Orthodox hierarch’s concerns should be love for God and the salvation of the souls of the flock entrusted to him, and not “concern for the environment” – this already smacks of pantheism and worship of the elements. Bartholomew confirmed this version, saying in an interview with the Templeton Foundation website: “We are not the masters of this planet. We are simply stewards and priests of the environment, not its owners.” That is, he is a “priest of nature”, not of God – well, who would doubt it?

The explanatory text about the award on the foundation’s website also stated: “The spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians has been awarded the 2025 Templeton Prize for his pioneering efforts to integrate scientific and spiritual understanding of humanity’s relationship with the natural world, and to bring people of different faiths together to respond to the call to stewardship of creation.”

This foundation is seriously connected with the world elite, and the words that the head of the microscopic Istanbul patriarchate Bartholomew is supposedly the “leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians” once again confirm my sad version of the attempt of globalists to replace all of Orthodoxy with a degenerate Istanbul simulacrum. As we can see, along with Bartholomew’s fake “ecological” merits, the Templeton Foundation noted his very real achievements in the ecumenical fusion of different faiths.

We should honor our bishops as shepherds given to us by God for our salvation, but sometimes it is necessary to say ‘No’ to them, for their good and for ours.  How will the Orthodox Christians of the GOA benefit from having their money extracted for the sake of an heretical gathering?  How did they benefit from his disastrous trip through the Yankee Northeast on his way to collecting the monstrous Templeton Prize?  Pocketbooks ought to stay tightly closed when Abp Elpidophoros’s letter arrives, and prayers ought to be offered daily for the repentance of Patriarch Bartholomew and all the Phanariotes who are of the same mind as him.

The Orthodox have seen where unions with the Roman Catholics have gotten us in the past.  St Nikolai Velimirovich reminds us by recounting the story of the Martyrs of Zographou Monastery:

When Emperor Michael Palaeologus contracted the infamous Union of Lyons with the pope, in order to obtain help from the West against the Bulgarians and Serbs, the monks of the Holy Mountain sent a protest to the emperor against this Union, imploring him to reject it and return to Orthodoxy. The pope dispatched an army to help the emperor. The Latin army entered the Holy Mountain and committed such barbarism as the Turks had never committed in five hundred years. Having hanged the Protaton,¹ and having killed many monks in Vatopedi, Iveron and other monasteries, the Latins attacked Zographou. The blessed Abbot Thomas warned the brethren that whoever wished to be spared from the Latins should flee from the monastery, and that whoever desired a martyr’s death should remain. And so, twenty-six men remained: the abbot, twenty-one monks, and four laymen who served as laborers for the monastery. They all closed themselves in the monastery’s tower. When the Latins arrived, they set fire to the tower and these twenty-six heroes of Christ found a martyr’s death in the fire. While the tower was burning, they chanted the Psalms and the Akathist to the Most-holy Mother of God. They gave their holy souls to God on October 10, 1283 A.D.

The Orthodox of the GOA are not up against a military power like the Zographou Martyrs were.  How much easier should it be for the former to withstand the demands of the Patriarchate for contributions in furtherance of a new Roman Catholic-Orthodox union?

It is a terrible shame that Patriarch Bartholomew has wasted his time on so many un-Christian projects.  Other Patriarchs show what he could have accomplished over his more than three decades as the bishop of Constantinople.  Patriarch Daniel of Romania presents a clear contrast.  Here is a summary of what he has accomplished in his 18 years as Patriarch:

Gifted by God with vision and a remarkable capacity to plan and organise, His Beatitude has dedicated himself to the service of the Church, inspiring those around him with the knowledge and strength to build both tangible and intangible realities, including:

• • • • • • strengthening the institutional framework of the Church through coordinating commissions that draft regulations and guidelines;
          • founding the media institutions of the Romanian Orthodox Church (the Basilica Media Centre was among the first created under his patriarchate);
          • establishing academic and medical-social institutions;
          • reorganising the Romanian Orthodox diaspora by founding new parishes and dioceses;
          • instituting commemorative and honorary theme years in the Romanian Patriarchate;
          • signing cooperation protocols with state institutions for the benefit of the faithful and all Romanians;
          • canonising 65 Romanian saints;
          • adding to the liturgical calendar another 29 saints or commemorations, such as the Translation of the relics of Saint Demetrios the New to Bucharest.

The Romanian missionary endeavors in South America are particularly to be noted.  For instance:

The month of February, in the middle of the Chilean summer, was full of pastoral and missionary activities for the Romanian Orthodox Church “St. Siluan Athonite” in Concepción, Chile. Despite the intense heat and vacation period, Father Alex Aedo Vilugron and Deacon Nicolas continued their pastoral mission with dedication, reaching out to the Orthodox communities in southern Chile. These activities took place in the cities of Lanco, Villarrica, Valdivia, Puerto Montt, and Puerto Varas, located about 500-700 km south of Concepción, areas that host a small number of Orthodox families and friends of Orthodoxy.

Orthodoxy in Chile is a minority but active presence, and the Romanian Orthodox Church “St. Siluan Athonite” is considered one of the southernmost Orthodox presences in the world. This makes the Orthodox mission in this region both a challenge and a great blessing. Although the number of Orthodox believers is small, they form a close-knit community, and the presence of the Church in these isolated areas brings a real sense of hope and an opportunity for spiritual strengthening for many of them.

Among the activities carried out during this period were baptisms, the blessing of a clinic, Panikhida for the departed, visits to families, and the blessing of a newborn. Additionally, Father Alex Aedo Vilugron, with love and devotion, continues to bring the Holy Sacraments to a monk living in isolation in Patagonia, in an extremely remote area where access to the Church is nearly impossible. These missionary gestures are a clear example of dedication and sacrifice, a true act of witnessing the faith, highlighting the true missionary spirit of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Chile.

St. Silouan the Athonite in Concepción, Chile

Rod Dreher has pointed out how the Spanish conquistadors seem to have been sent by God to eradicate the vile religion of the natives of Latin America, which included horrific human sacrifice.  But while they were liberated from their satanic religion, they were not set free: They became trapped in the oppressive System of Roman Catholicism, with all its submission to the Pope, purgatory, and other false teachings (though lately they have added to this the chaos of sects like Pentecostalism).  Those disorders still afflict them today.  There is a nearly uninterrupted flow of stories from that region about governmental corruption, political unrest, murders, etc.

The evangelism of Latin America by the Romanians, Serbians, and others offers them a chance to finally experience true freedom in Christ through the Orthodox Church, rather than the deficient and misleading forms of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism.

Bringing those in darkness into the Light of Christ by promoting missionary work alone is a worthy legacy for any patriarch.  Sadly, Patriarch Bartholomew has done the opposite through some of his major endeavors:  He has obscured the Light of Christ by preaching Gaia worship, ecumenism, etc.

But as the Holy Fathers say, it is never too late to repent.  May he do so through the prayers of the Panagia, and may he also pray for me, a poor country-boy sinner from Dixie.