www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Controversial Multi-Excommunicated Bishop Deceased

Moses Görgün, bishop of the True Orthodox Metropolis of Germany and Europe, formerly known as the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church of Europe, later the Syrian Orthodox Church of Europe, and later the Antiochian Syrian Orthodox Church, before dropping his miaphysite affiliated ordination name of Severios and adopting Old Calendar Independent Eastern Orthodox practice, based in Altenbergen, German, is reportedly dead at age 45:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/aramaic.news/posts/10164749703107505/

Additional information about the independent jurisdiction and it's controversial origins:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Orthodox_Metropolis_of_Germany_and_Europe

https://everything.explained.today/True_Orthodox_Metropolis_of_Germany_and_Europe/

Christ is in our midst!!

If one is in an irregular jurisdiction, does excommunication mean anything? AS I understand it, excommunication means far more than simply being unable to commune in a liturgy. Excommunication meant being cut off from Christ, now and in eternity: "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven . . ."

On one very important level, communion means the building up of our life in Christ, in and through His Church.

So how does this work in irregular, independent, or non-canonical situations?

I don't believe excommunication is intended to extend beyond the grave. It is supposed to be a corrective action, to point out to the one who earns this time out by his or her own act, that something that occurred or is occurring is grave and requires a change/restoration for the person to be returned to a state of unity with the rest of the faithful and the Mysteries. At least in the Syriac Church, the excommunicated is not seen as necessarily forsaken forever or anything permanent. I'll show the obituary written by a Syriac writer in the next post as to the essence of a kind of patristic apokastasis embedded in Syriac theology

This is AI translated from the original German:

Moses (Muşe) Görgün *05.06.1981 (Füssen/Germany) | ♰ 27.08.2026 (Germany) has passed away – a former son and monk of our Syrian Orthodox Church, whose spiritual and monastic path began in it 🙏🏽🕊️
With dismay and deep sorrow, we have learned of Moses Görgün's passing, who after his later transfer to the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, served as an Archbishop and Metropolitan there. 🕯️
His church life was in a special way also connected with our Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch.
Moses Görgün was born on 5.06.1981 in Füssen. His theological and spiritual education began within our Church. In 2000, he joined the Mor-Ephrem Monastery in Glane, Netherlands, where he took up monastic life and later received priestly ordination.
His further church path led him later from his Syrian Orthodox mother church to another church tradition. This separation is part of his story and has been painful for many within our Church.
However, in the face of death, we do not want to look alone at the parting.
We do not forget the years in which he wore the robe of a Syrian Orthodox monk, lived in our monastery, celebrated our holy liturgy, learned our Syrian Aramaic tradition, and served our Church.
A human and spiritual life cannot be reduced to his partings.
Today, we stand before the mystery of death and entrust it to God's mercy and just judgment.
May our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on him, reward him with all that is good, what he has done in his life and in his earlier service to the faithful, and grant him the rest that only God can give. 🙏🏽🕯️
Our deep compassion goes out to his family, his relatives, his spiritual companions, and all people and believers who mourn him.
📖 "I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me will live, even though they die."
— John 11:25
May God be merciful to his soul and grant strength and comfort to all who mourn. 🕊️

Fush bashlomo. 🙏🏽🕯️ ALOHO mhasele 🙏🕯️
===

The last two Syriac exclamations is often prayed ceremonially at the funeral of prelates:
Abide in Peace! In God's Will!

Christ is in our midst!!

Michael_Thoma,

I was hoping you would see this thread. Thank you for your Church's understanding of excommunication.

My understanding comes from a book I have that is from Latin sources and was published in 1910. An excommunicate was not to be given Christian burial and could not be buried in consecrated ground.

It seems from the obituary you provide that moving from one tradition to another is not something that carried the harsh condemnation that I was taught one obtained by that move. Is it because each Apostolic Church in the Christian East, being under Islamic pressure and persecution, finds it best to support the individual in his faith pilgrimage rather than add Church persecution to a life?