The Church, Ecumenism, and the Salvation of the World - Elder Ephraim of Philotheou and Arizona

This excerpt is from “A Call From the Holy Mountain” by Elder Ephraim, written in 1974 (based on the text) and published in English in 1991. Elder Ephraim covers many aspects of the life of the Church, speaking to both monks and laymen. These words may be difficult to hear; they are written by the greatest missionary to America of our times. Let us take heed to stand firm on the teachings of our holy Elder Ephraim lest we fall away from the narrow path. 

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  “Christ's Church is Catholic in the sense that it possesses the entire fullness of the truth and the grace to illuminate and redeem the world; it is, moreover, Catholic in the sense that it tends not to conquer but to sanctify the world. The Head of the Church is Christ and we are members of it connected by the common faith in conjunction with love.”  

“The history of the Church is the story of its struggle to sanctify its faithful.”  

“…mere knowledge of things divine cannot save us; it is the taste, indeed, the experience of a life in Christ that will do so. And this is so because Christian truth is not an intellectual affair but a living experience of the dogmatic and moral doctrines of the faith and a mysterious and mystic communication between the faithful and its Founder.”  

“In cases of deliberate or undeliberate deviation from tradition, judgement has always been, is and shall be pronounced by the sound public opinion of the Church which by right intervenes and restores peace in the Church; peace not truth, for the grace and the truth never abandon the Divine Body of the Church. It abandons those who in wavering ‘concerning faith have made shipwreck, and betray the birthright of the common heritage of those ‘taxed’ in the heavens.”  

“Satan did his best to snatch away countless men from the bosom of the Church and to present it before the world as being divided and weak. Now he is again doing his best to unite it into a peculiar union of his own inspiration, using as leaven the formula of ‘love.’ Such has been the plethoric use and abuse of this ‘love’ by so many that others neither wish to hear nor talk about love.”

For more quotes from Elder Ephraim, please click the description on the YouTube upload of this podcast.

Read the full text here: https://www.scribd.com/document/16671...  

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