“In All of This, There Can Be Discerned Some Kind of Rationally Acting Black Hand Which Is Working to Bind People as Tightly as Possible to This Temporary, Earthly Life by Forcing Them to Forget the Future Life, the Eternal Life Assuredly Awaiting Us All.” -Archbishop Averky of Syracuse

We are living in a strange time, when all the true and healthy Christian concepts are being replaced by false and deceitful concepts, discovered often with an evil intention with the undoubted intention, naturally, of drawing people away from the right path of a truly Christian life. In all of this, there can be discerned some kind of rationally acting black hand which is working to bind people as tightly as possible to this temporary, earthly life by forcing them to forget the future life, the eternal life assuredly awaiting us all.

Archbishop Averky of Syracuse and Jordanville

Archbishop Averky here describes well the movements that are taking place in our time. He speaks about his days (+1976) but it just kept growing up to the present time when people are no longer able to even think for themselves.

And maybe that “people” are this way isn’t such a shock. But when we observe it among “Orthodox” Christians it is very shocking. It is even more shocking when “Orthodox” leaders are in on the movement. And to make matters worse, the evil powers are guiding not only modern ecumenists but also they have employed some “traditional Orthodox”. This is equivalent to total confusion. How can we guide a people in such difficult times?!

People are made to doublethink!

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

George Orwell

For example, ecumenism is a heresy: However, others preach that those heretics can comprise the Holy Church! Others are preaching of course these ones are heretics, but they have valid mysteries.

St. Cyprian of Carthage (3rd century) (and other Fathers also) clearly state that “There is no salvation outside of the Church (Letter LXXII of St. Cyprian of Carthage). And how could there be salvation outside the Church when salvation comes first of all through membership in the Church?

St. Gregory the Great of Rome tells us, “Now the holy Church universal proclaims that God cannot be truly worshiped except within Herself, asserting that all they that are without her shall never be saved.” (Moralia, sive Expositio in Job)

St. Ignatius of Antioch doesn’t even foresee schismatics as inheriting the Kingdom of God when he says,

“Be not deceived, my brethren: If anyone follows a maker of schism [i.e., is a schismatic], he does not inherit the kingdom of God; if anyone walks in strange doctrine [i.e., is a heretic], he has no part in the passion [of Christ]. Take care, then, to use one Eucharist, so that whatever you do, you do according to God: For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup in the union of his blood; one altar, as there is one bishop, with the presbytery and my fellow servants, the deacons” (Letter to the Philadelphians 3:3–4:1 [A.D. 110]). 

Similarly, St. Irenaeus says,

“In the Church God has placed apostles, prophets, teachers, and every other working of the Spirit, of whom none of those are sharers who do not conform to the Church, but who defraud themselves of life by an evil mind and even worse way of acting. Where the Church is, there is the Spirit of God; where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace” (Against Heresies3:24:1 [A.D. 189]). 
and
“[The spiritual man] shall also judge those who give rise to schisms, who are destitute of the love of God, and who look to their own special advantage rather than to the unity of the Church; and who for trifling reasons, or any kind of reason which occurs to them, cut in pieces and divide the great and glorious body of Christ, and so far as in them lies, destroy it—men who prate of peace while they give rise to war, and do in truth strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel. For they can bring about no ‘reformation’ of enough importance to compensate for the evil arising from their schism. . . . True knowledge is that which consists in the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient constitution of the Church throughout all the world, and the distinctive manifestation of the body of Christ according to the successions of the bishops, by which they have handed down that Church which exists in every place [i.e., the universal Church]” (ibid., 4:33:7–8). 

Again, St. Cyprian of Carthage tells us,

Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress [a schismatic church] is separated from the promises of the Church, nor will he that forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is an alien, a worldling, and an enemy. He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother” (The Unity of the Catholic Church 6, 1st ed. [A.D. 251]). 

“Let them not think that the way of life or salvation exists for them, if they have refused to obey the bishops and priests, since the Lord says in the book of Deuteronomy: ‘And any man who has the insolence to refuse to listen to the priest or judge, whoever he may be in those days, that man shall die’ [Deut. 17:12]. And then, indeed, they were killed with the sword . . . but now the proud and insolent are killed with the sword of the Spirit, when they are cast out from the Church. For they cannot live outside, since there is only one house of God, and there can be no salvation for anyone except in the Church” (Letters 61[4]:4 [A.D. 253]). 
“When we say, ‘Do you believe in eternal life and the remission of sins through the holy Church?’ we mean that remission of sins is not granted except in the Church” (ibid., 69[70]:2 [A.D. 253]). 
“Peter himself, showing and vindicating the unity, has commanded and warned us that we cannot be saved except by the one only baptism of the one Church. He says, ‘In the ark of Noah a few, that is, eight souls, were saved by water. Similarly, baptism will in like manner save you” [1 Peter 3:20-21]. In how short and spiritual a summary has he set forth the sacrament of unity! In that baptism of the world in which its ancient wickedness was washed away, he who was not in the ark of Noah could not be saved by water. Likewise, neither can he be saved by baptism who has not been baptized in the Church which is established in the unity of the Lord according to the sacrament of the one ark” (ibid., 73[71]:11). 
“[O]utside the Church there is no Holy Spirit, sound faith moreover cannot exist, not alone among heretics, but even among those who are established in schism” (Treatise on Rebaptism 10 [A.D. 256]). 

In the works of Jerome we read,

“Heretics bring sentence upon themselves since they by their own choice withdraw from the Church, a withdrawal which, since they are aware of it, constitutes damnation. Between heresy and schism there is this difference: that heresy involves perverse doctrine, while schism separates one from the Church on account of disagreement with the bishop. Nevertheless, there is no schism which does not trump up a heresy to justify its departure from the Church” (Commentary on Titus 3:10–11 [A.D. 386]). 

and likewise in Augustine we read,
“Whoever is separated from this universal Church, by this single sin of being separated from the unity of Christ, no matter how estimable a life he may imagine he is living, shall not have life, but the wrath of God rests upon him” (ibid., 141:5). 

Origen speaks of the general belief of his time when he says,

“If someone from this people wants to be saved, let him come into this house so that he may be able to attain his salvation. . . . Let no one, then, be persuaded otherwise, nor let anyone deceive himself: Outside of this house, that is, outside of the Church, no one is saved; for, if anyone should go out of it, he is guilty of his own death” (Homilies on Joshua 3:5 [A.D. 250]). “