PAPISM
IS THE MOST RADICAL PROTESTANTISM
Papism has determinedly and
persistently worked at replacing the God-Man by a man, until it has replaced Him
forever with the ephemeral “infallible” man, with the dogma of papal
infallibility. By this dogma, the Pope was clearly and decisively pronounced
not to be only somewhat higher than a man, but also higher than the holy
apostles, the holy fathers and the holy Ecumenical Councils. With such
distancing from the Theanthropos, from the universal Church as a theanthropic
organism, Papism has outdone Luther, the creator of Protestantism. In fact, the
first, radical protest in the name of humanism against Christ the God-Man and
His theanthropic organism, the Church, can be traced to Papism, not Lutheranism.
Papism is actually the first and earliest Protestantism.
Make no mistake: Papism is the
most radical Protestantism, for it has transferred the foundations of
Christianity from the eternal God-Man to ephemeral man. It has proclaimed this
as its central dogma, as the highest truth, the highest value, the highest norm
for all beings and things in all worlds. The Protestants only accepted the
essence of this dogma and worked it out to a fearsome extent and in fearsome
detail. In fact, Protestantism is nothing other than generally-applied Papism,
for in Protestantism every man individually lives out the main principle of
Papism. Following the example of the infallible man in Rome, every Protestant
is an infallible man, for he pretends to personal infallibility in matters of
faith. It could be said that Protestantism is vulgarized Papism, devoid of
mysticism, authority and power.
. . .
INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE OF THE ULTIMATE HERESY
According to the true Church of Christ
that has existed since the advent of Christ the Theanthropos into the world as
His theanthropic Body, the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope is not only a
heresy, but the ultimate heresy. No other heresy has so radically and so
comprehensively risen against Christ the Theanthropos and His Church as Papism
has through the dogma of the infallibility of the Pope, a man. This is undoubtedly
the heresy above all heresies. It is the horror above all horrors. IT is an
unseen rebellion against Christ the God-Man. IT is, alas, the most dreadful
banishment of the Lord Christ from the earth. IT is the repeated betrayal of
Christ, the repeated crucifixion of the Lord Christ, not on a wooden cross this
time but on the golden cross of papist humanism. All this is hell thrice over
for the wretched earthly being called man. (Justin Popović, The Orthodox
Church and Ecumenism, pp. 119-20, 149-50, as quoted in The Orthodox
Patristic Witness Concerning Catholicism [Uncut Mountain Press, 2024], 483-84,
485)
