AN ORTHODOX LETTER OF CONGRATULATIONS TO HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV

ON THE OCCASION OF HIS ELECTION TO THE HOLY SEE OF ROME

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. +

To His Holiness Pope Leo XIV, 

Bishop of Rome, Patriarch of the West, 

Successor of Saint Peter and Shepherd of the Latin Church: 

Your Holiness, 

With respectful affection in the Lord Jesus Christ, we, the bishops, clergy, and faithful of the Orthodox Archdiocese of America, send you heartfelt congratulations on your election to the See of the Old Rome. Your elevation as Pope Leo XIV comes at a time of great spiritual need in the world, when the voice of every Christian pastor is sorely needed to cry out for justice, repentance, and the mercy of our crucified and risen Savior.

We assure Your Holiness of our prayers for your health, your governance, and your soul as you take up the immense burden of guiding the vast flock of the Roman Church. May the Holy Spirit give you wisdom to shepherd with humility, courage, and love - following the pattern of Saint Peter, who confessed Christ not by throne or sword, but by tears and martyrdom.

As Orthodox Christians, faithful to the Apostolic Tradition received in the West from Saints Peter, Paul, Linus, Cletus, Clement, Cyprian, Augustine, Martin, and Benedict, we hold a deep historical and spiritual kinship with the ancient See of Rome. We acknowledge Rome’s early role as a pillar of the catholic faith, and we honor the memory of those holy bishops who once presided “in caritate” before the rise of later innovations. For centuries, the Church in these isles and lands looked to Rome as an elder sister - until the bonds of conciliar communion were strained and broken by novel claims and unilateral definitions.

With reverence for the dignity of your office, we also feel a fraternal obligation to confess, in charity and truth, that the papal doctrines formally defined since the eleventh century - particularly the claims to universal jurisdiction and infallibility - stand in sharp divergence from the witness of the undivided Church of the first millennium. These teachings, unknown to the Fathers and unreceived by the Orthodox Churches, remain a chief impediment to the restoration of full communion.

Nevertheless, we hope and pray that your pontificate may be marked not by the consolidation of central power, but by a return to the older and nobler Roman heritage - grounded in Scripture, nourished by the ancient liturgies, and adorned by the collegiality of the Apostolic episcopate, which is true “Synodality.” In this spirit, we echo the words of Saint Mark of Ephesus: "We desire unity, but a unity in truth.”

Should Your Holiness seek to take steps toward conciliarity and mutual recognition among the Apostolic Churches of East and West, we would receive such gestures with open hands and prayerful hearts. Though we remain divided at the chalice, may we grow nearer at the foot of the Cross.

May the Most Holy Trinity preserve you, may the Blessed Virgin, the Most Holy Theotokos, intercede for you, and may the glorious Apostles Peter and Paul guide your feet in the path of humility, repentance, and true apostolic Orthodoxy.

With all fraternal goodwill in Christ, 

The Most Reverend ++Rogelio

Metropolitan Archbishop of Manila and Luzon, 

The Holy Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church in the Philippines 

Presiding Metropolitan of the Orthodox Archdiocese of America