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An extract from the intervention of His Beatitude to the Vatican Council on November 18, 1963, criticizing the text for Christian Unity in the chapter “On Ecumenism.”
[The Greek Melkite Church at the Council, Eparchy of Newton, Sophia Press, 2014. p 336]
Ecumenism is an effort for the gathering together of the whole Christian family, that is to say, the consolidation of all those who have been baptized in Christ. It is thus a strictly intimate family affair. Non-Christian are thus not involved. One cannot see what the Jews are going to do in Christian ecumenism, and why they have been introduced to it.
…the Eastern patriarchs have particularly insisted on the undesirability of a special mention of the Jews… The consequences of such an interpretation would be serious for the Christian minority in the said [middle eastern] countries.
In other words, inviting those who trivialize or deny the fundamental work of Christ into ecumenical consideration, will obliterate Christianity.
