The Orthodox almost universally have very good things to say about these things. Look to the Russians for sterner words than are heard anywhere else. Patriarch Bartholomew is an anomaly.

As an Orthodox Christian myself, I’m dumbfounded when others at my parish attempt to compartmentalize their faith by saying politics can be separate from Christianity or, worse, try to reconcile pro-choice views with the writings of the Fathers and the life of the Church, et cetera. But my jaw hit the floor when I read that this was an Orthodox hierarch that had said these remarks. Disheartening would be an understatement.

On the other hand, if the heresies that fractured the Church in the first millennium were mostly Christological (e.g. Arianism, Nestorianiam, Monophysitism), and the second witnessed ruptures that were largely ecclesiological (not to overlook the role of bald politics in any of this…), the great heresies of our age are clearly anthropological, and the See of Constantinople is apparently on something other than orthodox ground on the most crucial matters of the day – again. Might this possibly turn out to be, at long last, a kind of wake-up call in the Orthodox world that would make a modern “Florence” moment fecund?

However, the position stated is in no way a normal Orthodox thought. If His Beatitude still truly believes these things, I’m glad he does not have the power to make it some sort of dogma, nor do I think the Church would accept it.

32 B.C. ?

You can’t respect human life “generally,” you can either respect it or not respect it.

The Patriarch had a column on “climate change” in the WSJ yesterday or Saturday. Hmmmm.

This is used as one of two statements describing the RCC in this story as if it were a widespread phenomena. How many times has it been done? Fewer than it ought to be, to be used as a way of characterizing what the Church’s opposition to abortion. In fact, the most prominent pro-abortion (not just “pro-choice”) Catholics in the US continue to receive Communion publicly.