An Orthodox hierarch had proclaimed that “the Holy Spirit prevails during each and every Christian baptism” and that the re-baptizing of heterodox Christians by the Orthodox is inspired by “narrow-mindedness, fanaticism and religious intolerance….it is an injustice towards the Christian baptism and indeed a blaspheming of the Holy Spirit”[i]!

            Another hierarch had claimed to certain heterodox that:  “We are all members of Christ; the one and only body, the one and only “new creation”, since our common baptism has freed us from death”[ii].

            Ecumenist ecclesiology was also expressed by Orthodox lips, in the following way:  “It is our duty to be prepared to acknowledge the presence of the Church, even beyond our own canonical boundaries, to which we attribute the one, holy, catholic (overall) and apostolic Church.[iii].

            But there are some other, even bolder ones, who have envisioned the “re-founding” of the Church, through the unification of all Christians.  An Orthodox hierarch asserted that: “we are in need of a new Christianity, which will be based entirely on new perceptions and terms. We cannot preach the religion that we received, to the coming generations”[iv].