PRONOUNCEMENT OF BISHOPS SIMEON AND ISAIAS

Thus we, the bishops of Olomouc-Brno Diocese of the Orthodox Church in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, being outraged by the content of videos published on 5 June 2015 and taken during a conference of clergy of Olomouc-Brno eparchy when canonical leadership was exiled, at a conference chaired by Mr Rastislav Archbishop of Presov and Mr Ioakeim former Archbishop of Hodonin, we feel our pastoral duty to express collectively our opinion and attitude to fulfil the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who teaches us: “‘Let your statement be : ,Yes, Yes or No, No…´” (Matthew 5:37)

On that video recordings were heard many rumours addressed on our fraternal Greek nation, insults and slanderous attacks on our Mother Church the Ecumenical Patriarchate, on the Church of Jerusalem, as well as towards other churches and people. There were accusation against the Ecumenical Patriarchate from fascism, heresy, corruption and effort to defalcate Czech restitution money and many other invectives. Likewise sounded unorthodox interpretations of the Gospel. We consider unorthodox and inexcusable all these statements, as well as the overall spirit of the thinking and behaviour of these bishops Rastislav and Joachim, which is contained in the entire video recordings.

Based on these statements of mentioned bishops, we regret that it is a manifestation of pride, contempt for the teachings of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, it is also ignorance of the orthodox tradition, the sacred canons, and disrespect to them, but not least it is the lack of elementary human decency and manners, which is to be expected not only by orthodox bishops but by any civilized person. It should also be noted that such expressions show a misunderstanding of the basic principle of existence of Autocephalous Churches – e.g. the family, because all the Autocephalous Churches and every bishop are members of this one family and should behave accordingly to it.

We do not agree at all with these false statements presented by bishops Rastislav and Joachim. These expressions are insulting us immensely and we strongly distance ourselves from them. We also believe that these bishops will do soon their sincere repentance, both publicly and personally, in front of all the people that were directly or indirectly slandered, attacked and insulted by them.

+ Simeon, archbishop of Olomouc and Brno Eparchy
Locum tenens of the metropolitan see of the Orthodox Church in the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic

+ Isaiah, bishop of Sumperk, the vicar of Olomouc and Brno Eparchy