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Lawsuit against this website |
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* * * On
November 9, 2011, I received an international document summoning me before a judge in
Belgium, accused of having damaged Mrs Ryden's and her Foundation's honour and reputation,
and requesting the reparation of the damage as well as the removal of some articles from
the website. Last
July, I had already received a prior letter from Mrs Ryden's lawyers, then accusing me of
offences of a criminal nature punishable by imprisonment. The letter strongly suggested in
the letter that all this could be avoided if I accepted a list of Mrs Ryden's demands. Briefly,
the present civil cause summons charges me of having written in March 2011 that the
Patriarchate of Constantinople's document was a "decree of excommunication" [1] and of having intended to damage Mrs. Ryden "by belittling her status of mystic among her
faithful". The importance given to this action in court is evidenced by the fact
that the Foundation asked Mrs Ryden's followers for donations in this sense [2]. Are
my articles denigrating or are they the expression of my freedom of opinion? Mrs Ryden is
a public and controversial personality. She openly says that the messages she writes come
from directly from God and that a public challenge to their divine origin is blasphemy
against the Holy Spirit [3]. Such declarations unavoidably arouse
critical questioning. Even
though Mrs Ryden focuses her message on the unity of the Churches [4],
she takes public actions which, from my point of view, contradict the search for unity.
Indeed, I am being charged for qualifying as "schismatic" the nature of Mrs
Ryden's decision to proceed with her tour of conferences in "Even
if the Patriarchate has indeed asked Mrs Ryden to cease her activities among the orthodox
community, one has to admit that Mrs Ryden has submitted to the Patriarchate's will.
Indeed, since the Patriarchate's communication, Mrs Ryden has only participated in
conferences that took place exclusively in northern When
Mrs Ryden expresses herself in public, even in front of a non-Orthodox audience, she is
presented as an Orthodox faithful. Now, it is the orthodoxy of her teachings that is
denied by the Patriarchate. It doesn't matter to whom Vassula addresses her teachings: a
person who declares herself Orthodox – according to the Patriarchate's document -
must not spread those teachings. Those who nevertheless do so "are not admitted to ecclesiastical
communion" (http://www.infovassula.ch/tliggreekorthodox.htm
). There
is also the question of knowing who should discern charismas: we or the Church? Can
someone proclaim himself "mystic"? Does such a proclamation confer a
"status" that cannot be questioned? Moreover,
it is inaccurate that Mrs Ryden "has
only participated in conferences that took place exclusively in northern The
Belgian meeting "Unis par Christ" (United by Christ) to which Mrs Ryden
participated on April 2 and 3, 2011, after the publication of the Patriarchate's document,
was an ecumenical event, open to the participation of the Orthodox faithful. There are
between 70.000 and 80.000 Orthodox people in On
October 23 Mrs Ryden held a conference in On
November It
seems to me that I am mostly charged for not accepting the interpretation given by Mrs
Ryden on the documents issued against her by the Churches, as well as questioning the
actions she takes. Although Infovassula is "home-made" and cannot compete with
the many websites, blogs, Facebook page, etc. supervised by Mrs Ryden's organization, my
website's articles are a nuisance because they provide difficult to find information and
raise the real questions that any believer needs to ask when confronted with the
discernment of a private revelation such as this. Maria
Laura Pio November
25, 2011 [1]
The Patriarchate's document is not a "decree of excommunication", but rather a
condemnation (the Foundation for TLIG considers it an "accusation of heresy").
The document states that "the proponents of
these unacceptable innovations [= TLIG teachings] and the supporters who maintain them
(…) henceforth are not admitted to ecclesiastical communion". See: http://www.infovassula.ch/tliggreekorthodox.htm
[2]
In September 2011, the Foundation for True Life in God made a "Call for donations for
the defence of Vassula". The author of the letter, Albert Muller, the Foundation's
Executive Secretary, wrote: "The persecution
recently suffered by Vassula and the True Life in God messages has increased to the point
of spreading the rumour of her excommunication by her Church. (…) We are examining
the measures that can and must be taken for the public defence of Vassula with all the
means available. (…) We therefore call upon the True Life in God family, so that it
unites and rises to defend Vassula and our faith in the True Life in God messages.
(…) In order to choose the best way of sending us your donations, we invite you to
consult the section "Donations and Support" on the website www.tlig.org ". [3] See http://www.infovassula.ch/tligmortalsin.htm A
long-time follower of Vassula described her as “one
of God’s great Prophets, comparable with the Prophets of the Old Testament. The
prophecy of the True Life in God messages is
not an optional extra.
This treasure from God is one of God's great gifts to mankind. If rejected, it really does
seem to me to amount to the unforgivable rejection of the Holy Spirit” (http://www.tlig.net/newphpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1576&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=16 ). [4]
The letter sent to me by Mrs Ryden's lawyers begins as follows: "Mrs Vassula Ryden is the author of a work titled
True Life in God: a divine dialogue which contains many messages designed to promote the
reunification of the Christian Churches under the
authority of the Pope and the Foundation's founder [= Vassula]". [5]
Numbers taken from "Histoire
de l'Eglise orthodoxe en Europe occidentale au 20ème siècle" http://orthodoxie.ch/p/2004-2005/news_12.shtml.
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