"The Pope is a divine man and a human God. Therefore, no one can judge him or about him. The Pope has divine authority, and his authority is unlimited. He can do on earth the same thing as God can do in heaven. What the Pope does is the same as what God has done. His commandments must be fulfilled as the commandments of God. Only God alone is like the Pope; the Pope commands heavenly and earthly things. The Pope is in the world what God is in the world, or what the soul is in the body. The authority of the Pope is higher than any created authority, for it in some way extends to things in heaven, earth, and the underworld, so that the words of Scripture may be justified in him: 'You have put all things under his foot.' Everything is given over to the power and will of the Pope, and no one and nothing can resist him. If the Pope were to drag millions of people into hell with him, none of them would have the right to ask him: 'Holy Father, why are you doing this?'
The Pope is infallible, like God, and can do everything that God does.
The will of God, and therefore of the Pope, who is God's vicar , has supreme authority everywhere. He is girded with two swords, that is, he rules over the spiritual and the secular: over patriarchs and bishops, over emperors and kings. All people in the world are his subjects. He is everything, above all, and contains everything within himself. What he praises or blames, everyone must praise or blame.
The Pope can change the nature of things, make something out of nothing. He has the power to create right out of wrong, and he has the power to do whatever he pleases against the right, without the right, and contrary to the right. He can object to the Apostles and to the commandments handed down by the Apostles. He has the power to amend whatever he deems necessary in the New Testament, and he can change the very Sacraments instituted by Jesus Christ. He has such power in heaven that he can even elevate to sainthood whomever he wishes, even against all foreign beliefs and in defiance of all cardinals and bishops who might dare to oppose him.
The Pope has power over purgatory and hell. He is the Lord of the universe. With his unlimited authority, he does everything entirely according to his own whim, and can even do more than we or he knows . To doubt his power is sacrilege. His authority is higher and more vast than that of all the saints and angels. No one has the right to even mentally protest his sentence or judgment.
The pope's authority has no measure or limits. Anyone who denies the pope's supreme authority and primacy sins against the Holy Spirit, divides Christ, and is a heretic. Only the pope has the power to take anything from anyone and give it to another. The pope has the power to take and distribute empires, kingdoms, principalities, and all property. The pope receives his authority directly from God, and emperors and kings receive it from the pope.
The Pope is the vicar of God , and whoever denies this is a liar. The Pope is God's substitute ruler over good and evil angels; whatever is accomplished by the Pope's authority is accomplished by the authority of God.
He who disobeys the Pope disobeys God. Everything the Pope does pleases God.
No one can judge the Pope, for it is said: "He who is spiritual apprehends all things, but he himself is apprehended by none." His authority extends to heaven, earth, and the underworld. He is the likeness of Christ , and the Holy Spirit dwells in his body.
The Pope is the sovereign of all, the king of kings and the cause of all causes.
The Pope is the bridegroom and head of the Universal Church. The Pope cannot err; he is omnipotent, possessing all authority. He is superior to the Apostle Paul, for by his calling he stands equal to the Apostle Peter. He can therefore object to the Apostle Paul's epistles and issue orders contrary to them.
To blame the Pope is the same as to sin against the Holy Spirit, which is not forgiven either in this age or in the next.
The triple crown of the Pope signifies the trinity of his power: over the angels in heaven, over people on earth, and over demons in hell.
God has given all laws to the power of the pope, and the pope himself is above all laws.
If the Pope has pronounced a sentence against the Judgment of God, then the Judgment of God must be corrected and changed.
Pope is the Light of faith and the reflection of Truth.
Pope is everything above everything and can do everything."
This is the verbatim decree of the First Vatican Council, made under Pope Pius IX in 1870! Not in some distant medieval time, but just in the last century—about a hundred years ago!
Are all Orthodox Christians aware of this decree? Do even Roman Catholics know its full text?
Hardly! For the conscience and healthy moral sense of an honest person cannot reconcile themselves to such a blasphemous "dogma" that ascribes to mortal man, no matter how high he may stand in the church hierarchy, qualities that belong only to God!
And if they know, then they prove their impiety and lack of principles by recognizing such a “church,” which allowed the proclamation of such a “dogma,” as the gracious Church of Christ, in the bosom of which one can receive eternal salvation.
This blasphemous decree remains in force to this day, for it has not been declared void and invalid by any other act, even though the Second Vatican Council (1962), which was authorized to do so, met quite recently.
And this is understandable, because to cancel such a decree would mean to fundamentally undermine its prestige in the eyes of the entire world and destroy the centuries-old spiritual foundation on which this Latin "church" was erected, having formally separated from Holy Orthodoxy in 1054, precisely as a result of the false teaching that had already become established in it about the primacy and infallibility of the Pope of Rome, as the supposed "vicar of Christ."
That this decree continues to remain in force is especially clearly and expressively demonstrated by the service book recently published in Rome in Church Slavonic, where among the appendices, for the guidance of the serving priest, we find such a stunning text of the many years that must be proclaimed during the Divine Service to the Pope:
"A prosperous and peaceful life, health and salvation, and all good things quickly grant, O Lord, to the most holy, most blessed ecumenical Bishop and our Father, namely, the shepherd of shepherds, the unshakable rock and confirmation of faith and piety, the key-keeper of the Kingdom of Heaven, the bishop of the God-saved great city of ancient Rome, the pope and patriarch of the whole universe, the successor of the holy and all-praiseworthy first-ranking apostle Peter, and on earth the vicar of our Lord Jesus Christ, and preserve him for many years."
And yet, despite all this, the Patriarchate of Constantinople today, completely ignoring this truly blatant, fundamental and fundamental false dogma of papism—one that literally deifies the Pope and grants him the right to even rework, at his own discretion, the divinely revealed Holy Scriptures of the New Testament and proclaim new dogmas unknown to the ancient Church—has in fact already entered into prayerful communion with papism, which has apostatized from Orthodoxy. A new "union" with Rome has thus already been concluded, as the world press continually reports.
Isn't this a departure from Orthodoxy? Where do we go from here?
It is enough to take a quick look at the new “confession of faith” that has just been approved by the Patriarchate of Constantinople to be convinced of this!
And despite all this, those who broke away from our Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, which from the very beginning set itself the task of preserving the unchanging purity of Orthodoxy, regardless of any cunning trends of the times, and irreconcilability towards the enemies of Christ, who have been fighting so stubbornly and cruelly in recent times against the true Church, take it upon themselves to condemn us for allegedly separating from the "Ecumenical Church" and breaking communion with it!
The Patriarchate of Constantinople and all those who submit to it and maintain communion with it, despite the decisive steps it has taken to deviate from Orthodoxy, do not constitute the universal Church of Christ, with which all Orthodox Christians should cherish their communion.
The head of the universal Church is Christ himself (and by no means the Pope!), the evangelists and pillars of Her, the Holy Apostles, the great ecumenical teachers and saints - the Fathers of the Church and all the true ascetics of the Orthodox Christian faith and piety, revered by us in the host of holy saints of God - from them we do not separate ourselves and do not break communion with them, but on the contrary - we revere them and prayerfully honor them.
On earth, the universal Church is comprised not of those who merely call themselves "Orthodox" in name, but of those who truly sacredly and inviolably preserve Holy Apostolic and Patristic Orthodoxy, not "marching in step" with apostate times and not making concessions to the God-fighters and enemies of Christ. These are bishops who faithfully administer the word of Christ's Truth, priests and deacons who are obedient in all things to their faithful bishops, and laypeople who live according to the Gospel commandments and uphold the statutes of the Holy Church.
This is what the Universal Church is!
And we do not break, nor do we intend to break, communion with this universal Church, for we cherish it above all earthly things! But we do not share the same path with the enemies of Christ, the apostates and blasphemers. We can only call them to turn to the path of truth—the age-old, two-thousand-year-old path of the true Church of Christ—and not to obsequiously and servilely follow in step with them along the paths of this world, which lies in evil, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ (Col. 2:8). "We must serve not the times, but God"—this great testament of the pillar and father of Orthodoxy, St. Athanasius the Great, has been forgotten by modern patriarchs and their ilk. But we do not want to forget it!
"Free Speech of Carpathian Rus". 1976. No. 5-6.