Below is the letter which was sent to His Beatitude Patriarch John X and the Holy Synod of the Church of Antioch, by Father Matthew (Ion-Valentin) Vulcanescu and the members of the parish of Saint Edward the Martyr and Saint Paraskevi of Rome in Liverpool, on the 16 October 2024.

ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF SAINT EDWARD THE MARTYR
AND SAINT PARASKEVI OF ROME
Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland

His Beatitude Patriarch John X
And the Holy Synod of the Church of Antioch
Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East
Patriarchal Residence
Balamand
Koura
Lebanon

16 October 2024

Our Father, Your Beatitude the Patriarch,
And Your Eminences, the Metropolitans, Members of the Holy Synod,

We have waited with all love and patience for the response to the open letter that we sent to Your Beatitude and the Holy Synod, dated 6 December 2023[1], signed by Father Matthew (Ion-Valentin) Vulcanescu and the members of our parish of Saint Edward the Martyr and Saint Paraskevi of Rome in Liverpool. The same letter was re-sent on 21 August 2024 and 29 August 2024, but we have not received any response.

It has been brought to the attention of Your Beatitude and the Holy Synod the burning issues arising from our Orthodox conscience in relation to the struggle to preserve the Truth of the Faith unaltered. This struggle needs concrete actions such as: withdrawal from the “World Council of Churches” (WCC), condemnation of the heterodox ecclesiology of the so-called Synod of Crete[2], annulment and condemnation of the so-called “Chambesy Agreements” (1989, 1990 and 1993) and the 1991 synodal decision for inter-communion with the Monophysites[3], as well as the adoption of anathemas that condemn all heresies (including Miaphysitism/Monophysitism, Papism, Protestantism, the pan-heresy of ecumenism) and the implementation of the synodal decision of the Holy Synod of the Church of Antioch of 1933 to receive every heretic who comes into the Church by Holy Orthodox Baptism with triple immersion[4].

The same issues were also brought to the attention of our Metropolitan, His Eminence Silouan Oner, in a letter sent on 12 December 2023[5]. Unfortunately, instead of providing support and counsel in resolving these issues of Orthodox conscience, His Eminence Silouan responded in an unexpected manner, by initiating persecution against Father Matthew (Ion-Valentin) Vulcanescu, which led to his suspension and deposition[6]. We do not recognise this deposition, which is canonically null and void according to Canon 3 of the Third Ecumenical Council[7].

Due to the public preaching of heresy by His Eminence and His refusal to publicly confess the Orthodox Faith (by not proclaiming anathemas against heretics), our parish has unanimously voted to cease the commemoration of the name of His Eminence at all the holy services of the Church on 20 December 2023[8], in accordance with Canon 15 of the 1st-2nd Council of Constantinople[9]. The public preaching of heresy can be demonstrated in the following public documents of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland: the letter to the clergy of the Archdiocese dated 16 December 2023[10], the “Canonical Resources and Policies for the Reception of the Heterodox” document[11] and the article from “The Narthex” newsletter[12] which confirms the practice of communing Monophysites in our Archdiocese.

The document mentioned above, the “Canonical Resources and Policies for the Reception of the Heterodox” issued by the Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland, was brought to Your attention on 3 October 2024. This document blasphemes Holy Baptism,  describing it as “the exceptional remedy”, redefines the Truth of Salvation in an unorthodox manner, creates new canons without synodal approval and forbids the baptism of the heterodox, recognising their “baptism” done in the name of the Trinity (but which would need to be “perfected” by the sacrament of Chrismation).

Saint Gregory Palamas said that there are three kinds of atheism: classical atheism, heresy, and silence at times of heresy[13]. We do not want to be atheists, rather we want to confess the Orthodox Faith. At the same time, we see how the agreements with the Monophysites, the inter-communion with them and all the other ecclesiological deviations continue to work within the Church like a cancer. Faced with this situation, the silence of Your Beatitude and of Your Eminences, the Metropolitans, Members of the Holy Synod, is not just a type of atheism but also the way in which heresy spreads in the Church.

Professor Dimitrios Tselengidis says that when “others do not have the same opinion regarding faith, it is better to disagree than to agree with evil. It is then preferable to obey God rather than men and not to pass over in silence those things that God has commanded us to confess.”[14]

The Holy Apostle Paul says: “A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject; knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself.”[15]

Unfortunately, when the shepherds are asleep, the wolves devour the flock. Yet, our intention was to bring Your attention to this danger with all love, waiting for Your public confession of the Orthodox Faith. The lack of pastoral care for our souls shows that You have turned from being our Fathers into step-Fathers whom we can no longer trust. Until Your Orthodox Faith is restored, any action against Father Matthew (Ion-Valentin) Vulcanescu and against us, either synodal or archdiocesan, is not canonical and therefore we cannot recognise it.

We remain in the Orthodox Church of Antioch, in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland, continuing to be in communion with all those who confess the Orthodox Faith and fencing ourselves from all those who allow heresy to spread within the Body of Christ.

With all love and prayer in Christ, we remain faithful to the Church in which the disciples of Christ were first called Christians[16] and we await the moment when Your Beatitude and Your Eminences, the members of the Holy Synod, will publicly reject and anathematise the participation in the “World Council of Churches” (WCC), the Agreements with the Anti-Chalcedonians [the so-called Chambesy agreements (1989, 1990 and 1993), and 1991 synodal statement of the Church of Antioch on the relations with the ‘Syriac Orthodox Church’, that decided to allow inter-communion and concelebration with heretics that have been condemned by the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Ecumenical Councils] and the “Canonical Resources and Policies for the Reception of the Heterodox” Document of Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland.

Remaining faithful to the Orthodox Church of Antioch,

With all our love in Christ,

Protopresbyter Matthew (Ion-Valentin) Vulcanescu

Parish of Saint Edward the Martyr and Saint Paraskevi of Rome
Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland

The letter continues with the signatures of the parish members and endnotes.

Endnotes

1.  Protopresbyter Matthew Vulcanescu and Parish of Saint Edward the Martyr and Saint Paraskevi of Rome in Liverpool, Open Letter to Patriarch John X and the Holy Synod of the Church of Antioch, 6 December 2023, accessed 13 October 2024, https://orthodoxchurchliverpool.co.uk/2023/12/12/open-letter-to-patriarch-john-x-and-the-holy-synod/.

2.  Holy and Great Council, ‘Relations of the Orthodox Church with the Rest of the Christian World’, 2016, accessed 13 October 2024, https://www.holycouncil.org/rest-of-christian-world/.

3.  Joint Commission Of The Theological Dialogue Between The Orthodox Church And The Oriental Orthodox Churches, First Agreed Statement, 20-24 June 1989, accessed 13 October 2024, https://orthodoxjointcommission.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/first-agreed-statement-1989/;Joint Commission Of The Theological Dialogue Between The Orthodox Church And The Oriental Orthodox Churches, Second Agreed Statement, 23-28 Sep. 1990, accessed 13 October 2024, 

https://orthodoxjointcommission.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/second-agreed-statement-1990/.

Joint Commission Of The Theological Dialogue Between The Orthodox Church And The Oriental Orthodox Churches, Recommendations On Pastoral Issues, 23-28 Sep. 1990, accessed 13 October 2024, https://orthodoxjointcommission.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/recommendations-on-pastoral-issues-1990/.

Joint Commission Of The Theological Dialogue Between The Orthodox Church And The Oriental Orthodox Churches, Communique: Proposals for Lifting Anathemas (1993), 1-6 Nov 1993. accessed 13 October 2024, https://orthodoxjointcommission.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/proposals-for-lifting-anathemas-1993/.

4.  Decision no. 8, 1933: J. Lacombe, Échos d’Orient, vol. 33, no. 173 (in French) (Paris, 1934), p. 99; Orthodox Ethos, On the Reception of the Heterodox into the Orthodox Church (Uncut Mountain Press, 2023), p. 299.

5.  Protopresbyter Matthew Vulcanescu and Parish of Saint Edward the Martyr and Saint Paraskevi of Rome in Liverpool, Open Letter to Metropolitan Silouan of the British Isles and Ireland, 12 December 2023, accessed 13 October 2024, https://orthodoxchurchliverpool.co.uk/2023/12/12/open-letter-to-metropolitan-silouan/.

6.  Metropolitan of the Orthodox Christian British Isles and Ireland, Silouan. Letter to Father Matthew Vulcanescu, 18 December 2023; Metropolitan of the Orthodox Christian British Isles and Ireland, Silouan. Encyclical to Archdiocese December 2023, 23 December 2023.

7.  Canon 3 of the Third Ecumenical Council, “And if any of the clerics in any city or village were stopped from the priesthood by Nestorius and those with him because they thought rightly, we have entitled them to be restored to their own rank. And in general, we decree that those clerics who think alike with the Orthodox and the Ecumenical Synod are not to obey in any way whatever the bishops who have apostatised, or those who remove themselves (ἀποστατήσασιν ἤ ἀφισταμένοις Ἐπισκοποις), or think differently from the Synod.”:
Agapios, Hieromonk and Nicodemus, Monk, The Rudder (Pedalion) of the Metaphorical Ship of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Orthodox Christians (The Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 2005), p. 228; Protopresbyter Matthew Vulcanescu and Parish of Saint Edward the Martyr and Saint Paraskevi of Rome in Liverpool, Response Letter to Metropolitan Silouan of the British Isles and Ireland, 28 December 2023, accessed 13 October 2024, https://orthodoxchurchliverpool.co.uk/2023/12/28/official-letter-to-his-eminence-metropolitan-silouan-oner-we-do-not-recognise-and-do-not-accept-the-deposition/.

8.  Protopresbyter Matthew Vulcanescu and Parish of Saint Edward the Martyr and Saint Paraskevi of Rome in Liverpool, Letter of Cessation of Commemoration of Metropolitan Silouan of the British Isles and Ireland, 20 December 2023, accessed 13 October 2024, https://orthodoxchurchliverpool.co.uk/2023/12/20/the-parish-of-st-edward-the-martyr-and-st-paraskevi-of-rome-together-with-father-matthew-vulcanescu-ceases-commemoration-of-the-heretical-bishop-silouan-oner-and-communion-with-all-ecumenists/.

9.  Canon 15 of the 1st-2nd Council of Constantinople, “[…] But as for those who on account of some heresy condemned by the Holy Councils, or Fathers, withdrawing themselves from communion with their president, who, that is to say, is preaching the heresy publicly, and teaching it barehead in church, such persons not only are not subject to any canonical penalty on account of their having walled themselves off from any and all communion with the one called a Bishop before any conciliar or synodal verdict has been rendered, but, on the contrary, they shall be deemed worthy to enjoy the honour which befits them among Orthodox Christians. For they have defied, not Bishops, but pseudo-bishops and pseudo-teachers; and they have not sundered the union of the Church with any schism, but, on the contrary, have been sedulous to rescue the Church from schisms and divisions”:  Agapios and Nicodemus, The Rudder, p. 471.

10.  Metropolitan of the Orthodox Christian British Isles and Ireland, Silouan. Letter to Clergy December 2023, 16 December 2023.

11.  Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland, Canonical Resources and Policies for the Reception of the Heterodox, 11 January 2024.

12.  St Dunstan’s Antiochian Orthodox Church, The Narthex: The Newsletter of St Dunstan’s Antiochian Orthodox Church, Poole BH14 9JG, January-February 2024.

13.  Saint Gregory Palamas, “Letter to the most pious Monk Dionysios” Saint Gregory Palamas – Complete Works, Vol. 4. [Αγίου Γρηγορίου του Παλαμά Άπαντα τα Έργα, Τόμος Δ’] (in Greek) (Thessaloniki: Paterikai Ekdoseis “Grigorios o Palamas”, 1983), p. 404.

14.  Professor Dimitrios Tselengidis, “The Importance of dogma in dialogues with the heterodox for the unity in Christ” (lecture, Conference House of Culture in Constanța, 1 June 2010).

15.  Titus 3:10

16.  Acts 11:26

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