Saint Philaret of Moscow on refusing to judge the nature/relation to Christ of the western Churches. This is taken from his conversation with a skeptic who doubts the Orthodoxy of the Eastern Church. (S is the skeptic, C is Saint Philaret) S. — I understand you. You mean that since the symbol (Nicene Creed) in sanctioning certain truths, does not thereby exclude or disavow others which are not contained therein verbally, it consequently does not prohibit belief in anything which God commands to be believed. — But all that you have said up to now on the Eastern Church and its dogmas serves little or no purpose in refuting the doctrines of other Christian communions. C. — My intention was not to refute the other Churches. S. — Do you want me to be part of all the dissident communions? C. — Not at all. S. — But to give preference to one Church over others, one must condemn the latter. C. — Have you carefully considered what you are asking? What does it mean to reprove the dissenting Churches? S. — It is to prove that they are heterodox, that is to say that they are not in the right, as regards faith. C. — But what is the name of the act by which we prove and decide whether someone is right or wrong, whether they are right or wrong? S. — Call it what you will, I hope it will not give rise to an argument. C. — I call it judgment. S. — I have nothing to say against that. C. — So you want me to prove that certain Churches are wrong and in error. S. — Yes. C. — So you want me to make a judgment on them? S. — Well! do you think you can stop me with this expression? C. — No; I know myself to be arrested by the word of God: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” “Judge not before the time, until the Lord come, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts.” S. — But are these divine words said in the Gospel about the subject we are now discussing? C. — The first words are spoken against those who generally love to condemn; the last are addressed precisely to those who judge the doctors of the faith, even those doctors who, on the foundation of Jesus Christ, "build wood, hay, and stubble." S. — It seems to me that judging the unworthiness of the doctors of the faith and the heterodoxy of the Churches are two different things. C. — Is it easier to condemn an entire Church than a single man? S. — But how can I convince myself that one Church is better than the other dissenting Churches, if I am not at all permitted to judge their heterodoxy? C. — How would you dare to judge them? Put yourself in the presence of God and your conscience, and ask yourself if you feel invested with the power to bind and loose the Churches?

Further on in the dialogue a few lines after the above, the skeptic asks if it can be said that both Rome and Orthodoxy are Churches... S. — According to this mark, the Eastern Church and the Western Church are equally of God. C. — Yes, since both confess Jesus Christ come in

Later in the dialogue, after a lengthy conversation about baptism in which the skeptic (who was baptised Orthodox as a baby but later fled from the faith) asks Saint Philaret again how can know whether the Eastern Church professed pure and unmixed doctrine, after this he asks

Later, after the Skeptic and Philaret have a long conversation about the Procession of the Spirit, the Skeptic puts forward the writings of a French Catholic who argued that the eastern Church is a false Church because it fell into the hands of the Turks, (a common argument we

…Does this not prove that God has not abandoned the Eastern Church, but that he blesses it, protects it and shows it all his benevolence! And it is this Church which is disdained as an insignificant part of Christendom! Remember here again the example which I cited to you just

yes