Heresy. From the writings of St.Basil we find that from antiquity heretics were considered to be people
Heresy is a disagreement , a discrepancy on vital issues of faith and culminates in the negation of the unity of God and the Church. As causes of separation St. Basil mentions pride and arrogance originating in the human faculty of free choice . Because it was an act of deliberate choice, heresy was not tolerated in the churches. Its authors were cautioned first; then if they refused to obey, they were excommunicated from the churches.“who were altogether broken off and alienated in matters relating to faith.”
In describing the impropriety of those who originate rival assemblies St. Basil uses the term nondiscipline the opposite of the good order and discipline of the church. Each parasynagogue or constitution of a rival assembly implies the breach of ecclesiastical unity resulting in exclusion from the Eucharistic Communion of the Church.
Canon 5 of the Council of Nicaea (324A.D) speaks of breaches of church unity caused by unruly clergy. According to the canon the end result for the unruly clergy is “to become excommunicated”. The cleric becomes excommunicated, not necessarily in the juridical term, but in the sense that unless he repents he can no longer receive Holy Communion in the Church in which alone abides the Holy Spirit.
Today the concepts of heresy-schism-parasynagogue in a certain manner overlap and in this sense constitute an indivisible unity.
Where does this place the few "ECUMENISTS GREEK ORTHODOX CHURCHES"?
The few so called Greek Orthodox Ecumenists Churches are indeed a heresy that to some is exposed but to many others is camouflaged. The fact that it camouflages itself means that it causes more harm than an exposed heresy. In Adelaide these “churches” are generally regarded as heretical in that their potential for communion into the Genuine Orthodox Church is prayerfully anticipated and patiently waited.
Due to the extraordinary characters serving in Adelaide’s Few Ecumenists Greek Orthodox Churches, these churches present themselves mainly as Canonical.
These Churches are camouflaged with the word "Canonical" (many Priests, Bishops, luxurious Churches") But the heresy remains there.
CAN HERETICS HAVE THE GRACE OF SACRAMENTS?
No question divides contemporary True Orthodox Christians
more than the question whether or not the ecumenist Orthodox, i.e. those
Orthodox who are members of Churches belonging to the World Council of Churches,
possess the grace of sacraments. Some have argued that “the question of grace”,
as we shall call it, is a secondary issue. The important thing, they say, is to
agree that Ecumenism is a heresy and flee from communion with the heretics.
However, a moment’s thought will demonstrate that there can hardly be a more
important question than that whether some millions of people calling themselves
Orthodox Christians have the grace of sacraments and are therefore members of
the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church having a good hope of salvation,
or, on the contrary, do not have the grace of sacraments and are therefore
outside the Church and on the path to destruction. Hard as one may try, it is
impossible to escape this question; for the answer one gives to it affects in a
significant way one’s attitude to the ecumenist Orthodox. Are they like the
people of whom the Apostle Jude says: “On some have compassion, making a
difference” (v. 22), since their sin is not a sin unto death, a sin that
estranges them completely from the Church? Or are they like those of whom he
says: “Others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the
garment spotted by the flesh” (v. 23), because their sin is not only a sin unto
death, estranging them completely from the Church, but also contagious, liable
to contaminate us if we are not extremely careful in our relations with, and
attitude towards themThe Orthodox Church as a whole is unerring and invincible,” writes Metropolitan
Cyprian. “It is possible, however, for Christians and for local Churches to fall
in faith; that is to say, it is possible for them to suffer spiritually and for
one to see a certain ‘siege of illness within the body of the Church’, as St.
John Chrysostom says. It is possible for Christians to separate and for
‘divisions’ to appear within the Church, as the Apostle Paul writes to the
Corinthians. It is possible for local Churches into fall into heresy, as
occurred in the ancient Orthodox Church of the West, which fell into the
heresies of Papism and Protestantism and finally into the panheresy of
ecumenism.
Please check out the link for the churches that are members to the church world council in South Australia : http://www.sacc.asn.au/en/index.php?rubric=en_who_members
