+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

19 June 2015

Vatican Secretariat of State

The feast of Sts Cyril and Methodius and the feast of Master John Huss (5 and 6 July 2015) will be the culmination of national repentance.

The Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate hereby presents a proposal to the Vatican for three historic gestures of repentance to be made in Velehrad:

1) The Church in the Czech Republic shall waive the right to restitution.

2) A gesture of repentance shall be made in the form of renunciation of heresies, syncretism and immorality.

3) The Czech martyr John Huss shall be declared a saint.

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God,

and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

31 May 2015

With the approach of the 600^th anniversary of the martyrdom of John Huss, the Byzantine Catholic (Universal) Patriarchate hereby declares the Bohemian priest John Huss a martyr of Christ.

600 years ago, on 6 July 1415, he was unjustly and dishonestly burnt at the stake in Constance. John Huss was and is a martyr for truth and moral values.

JUSTIFICATION AND AN EXAMPLE TO FOLLOW:

If we ask what eternal life is, Jesus gives us the answer: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Jesus speaks here about eternal life which is connected with the knowing of God the Father, and with the knowing of Jesus Christ. We may know God – Jesus Christ even now in prayer, in reading the Gospel, in suffering and especially when we renounce our own will and make an act of love by accepting the will of God by faith and in self-surrender. Jesus spoke about eternal life even before, when He said: The Father has given the Son authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as He has given Him.

During the prayer stops we can think particularly of the words: “know You”.

This whole system of Feng-Shui is tied up with pagan magic practices and with false faith focused on a number of absurdities through which man is deceived, bound and promised false happiness and false prosperity. It does not say a single word about eternity, conscience or morality. One only speaks about spirituality, about harmony with so-called “ch’i” energy, and that according to yin and yang philosophy. It is a whole system of lie. Certain objects are attributed spiritual power. Those who are just superficial Christians let themselves be deceived by these massmedia-advertised practices.

The root of paganism is an effort to find favour with “a deity” or to get harmonized with so-called energies – demons. However, who meets with Christ’s Gospel, the life of the one undergoes a radical change. The one transforms one’s mind and believes in the Gospel (cf. Mk 1:15).

Nowadays paganism is carrying out an effective mission in Europe which has fallen away from the living Christianity.

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

What accord has Christ with Belial? We can never say that Christianity and paganism are equal ways to salvation! Salvation is only in Jesus. If pagan ways led to salvation, Christ would not have come to our earth and died for our sins. But, as the Scripture says, He came and endured pain, suffering and humiliation to save us and to deliver us from darkness and from the slavery of the devil. Today the exact opposite is being proclaimed. This being the case, mission becomes pointless. It is not even possible to carry out any mission, nor are we allowed to say who we are because pagans, as the saying goes, would take offence. 20 years ago, an editor of a Catholic magazine in USA was prohibited from publishing an article about the conversion of a Buddhist because the editor-in-chief told him that such article dishonoured other religions. So if someone converts to Christianity, it reportedly offends pagans. And it was no atheistic magazine! What destructive manipulation of human minds!

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

We need to know the essence so that we may be witnesses in the place where we are. Everyone should ask for the power of the Holy Spirit to be an evangelist, teacher or prophet at a particular place. An evangelist preaches the Gospel in power. A teacher interprets Scripture. A prophet is the one who sees and points out the essence of things. There is a so-called law of spiritual entropy. An example is the people of Israel. The Israelites came out of Egypt but then returned to their idols. As soon as Moses went up to the mountain, they made for themselves a metal bull calf. This is the picture of our old self: it is eager to bow before sin and demons, even to make sacrifices or observe fasts… For example, some Indian gurus are skin and bone, but not for the sake of Christ and for the salvation of their soul. They are stimulated by their pride and by demons to whom they opened. In contrast to them, we must be full of the Holy Spirit, we must be witnesses to Christ, we must have a sense of the essence. We shape our environment above all by the example of our life.

We must receive the Word of God as the Word of God, the simple truths of the Gospel of God as they are presented to us by Jesus. The apostles were no theologians. They were simple fishermen. But the whole world was saved through their preaching. Human pride and philosophizing is absurd. The Word of God is connected with mystery. Human reason must be conformed to the Word of God, then it can govern the will, and emotions come last. If we reverse the order and cast away the relationship with God founded on faith, everything in our life is turned upside down. This is the result of our pride. Many people have no experience of spiritual battle and of the cunning of human nature but they set norms and invent theories without ever trying them out in practice.

+ Elijah
Patriarch of the Byzantine Catholic Patriarchate

What is it in us!? Conscience, the voice of God, on the one hand and the poison of sin on the other. If people hear lies, they gladly believe in them. On the other hand, they keep questioning the truth. They even question the truths of our salvation – maybe it is true, maybe not… Our attitude must be unwavering: “Jesus said it and it is true! I won’t invent anything! He who believes will be saved; but he who does not believe will go to hell.” And what to say to those who speculate or to Jehovah’s Witnesses if they ask: “And what about hell? What is it like?” Say simply: “You’ll see for yourself when you are there! Don’t ask me; I’ve never been there and I don’t want to go there either!”

“Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.””