Apostolic Journey to Schism: The Betrayal of Catholic Unity at Istanbul
Vatican News portal (November 30, 2025) reports on antipope Leo XIV’s visit to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, where he participated in a “Divine Liturgy” at the Patriarchal Church of Saint George alongside Bartholomew I. The event commemorated the feast of Saint Andrew, with both figures emphasizing “Christian unity,” “common efforts for full communion,” and collaboration on peace, ecology, and technology. The article highlights their references to the 1965 lifting of mutual excommunications between Paul VI and Athenagoras as a model for continued dialogue. This spectacle culminates decades of apostasy, reducing the One True Church to a mere “communion” with schismatics.
Blasphemous Equality With Schismatics
The very act of antipope Leo XIV attending a schismatic liturgy constitutes sacrilege. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus (“Outside the Church there is no salvation,” Council of Florence, Session 11) remains an immutable dogma, yet the article portrays the Orthodox as possessing “the same faith” defined by Ecumenical Councils. This is demonstrably false: the Orthodox reject papal supremacy (Vatican I, Pastor Aeternus), the Filioque (Council of Lyon II), and operate under valid but illicit sacraments due to their schism.
“the faith professed in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed unites us in real communion”
This statement ignores that communion requires submission to the Roman Pontiff, as Saint Ambrose declared: Ubi Petrus, ibi Ecclesia (“Where Peter is, there is the Church”). The First Council of Nicaea (325 AD) itself affirmed papal authority, with Emperor Constantine deferring to Pope Sylvester I. To equate Catholicism with Orthodoxy is to deny the Church’s divine constitution.
Ecumenism: The Synthesis of All Heresies
Patriarch Bartholomew’s claim that their meeting expresses “sincere aspiration to the restoration of full ecclesial communion” masks the Orthodox refusal to repent of their 1,000-year schism. Pius XI’s Mortalium Animos (1928) condemned such false unity: “The Apostolic See cannot on any terms take part in their assemblies, nor is it anyway lawful for Catholics either to support or to work for such enterprises.” The article’s celebration of the 1965 lifting of excommunications exemplifies modernism’s corruption—the Church cannot nullify divine judgments against heresy.
The “dialogue” framework presupposes parity between truth and error, violating Leo XIII’s teaching in Satis Cognitum: “The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium.”
Naturalism Replaces Supernatural Faith
Nowhere does the article mention repentance, conversion, or the necessity of submitting to Rome for salvation. Instead, it reduces Christianity to social activism:
“Catholics and Orthodox are called to be peacemakers… work together in promoting a new mindset [for] safeguarding creation.”
This echoes the modernist heresy condemned in Pius IX’s Syllabus of Errors (1865): “The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church” (Error #55). True peace comes only through Christ’s Kingship (Pius XI, Quas Primas), not UN-style ecological accords. The silence on the Mass as the Unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary reveals a Church stripped of its sacramental essence.
Omissions That Condemn
The article omits:
- The Orthodox Church’s explicit denial of papal infallibility and jurisdiction.
- The mortal sin of communicatio in sacris (“communication in sacred things”) with schismatics, forbidden by Canon 1258 of the 1917 Code.
- Christ’s mandate to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), replaced by a pluralistic “common journey.”
Conclusion: Apostasy Institutionalized
This event epitomizes the conciliar sect’s total rupture with Catholic Tradition. As St. Robert Bellarmine warned in De Romano Pontifice: “A manifest heretic automatically loses his jurisdiction.” Antipope Leo XIV’s actions confirm his departure from the faith—a usurper presiding over the abomination of desolation (Daniel 9:27). True Catholics must reject this sacrilegious pantomime and cling to the unchanging Faith “once delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3).
Source:
Pope at Divine Liturgy: May we continue to strive towards Christian unity (vaticannews.va)
Date: 30.11.2025