LA IOANNES PP. XXIII, the usurper known as John XXIII, addresses the bishops of Slavic nations on the 11th centenary of the arrival of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Great Moravia, praising their missionary work, their attachment to Rome, their use of the Slavic language in liturgy, and proposing them as patrons and models for contemporary efforts toward “unity,” especially in the context of the ongoing Vatican II and aspirations for reconciliation with the Eastern churches. The letter weaves together historical recollection, exhortations to devotion, and an ecumenical program, subtly employing the figures of Cyril and Methodius to legitimize the conciliar revolution and a new vision of “unity” detached from the integral, exclusive claims of the Catholic Church.

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Magnifici Eventus: Instrumentalizing Saints Cyril and Methodius for the Conciliar Revolution

From Apostolic Zeal to Ecumenical Engineering

At first glance, the document appears pious: it recalls how Cyril and Methodius, “Apostles of the Slavs,” brought the light of the Gospel and ecclesiastical order to Slavic peoples, insists on their fidelity to Rome, and calls the Slavic bishops and faithful to renew devotion and prayer. Yet beneath this devotional surface, the text functions as a programmatic piece for the neo-church’s project: replacing the exclusive, dogmatic claims of the one true Church with a sentimental, diplomatic, and horizontal notion of “unity,” designed to serve Vatican II’s ecumenism and its overthrow of the public reign of Christ the King.

The antipope’s strategy is clear: cloak the conciliar enterprise in the prestige of Saints of authentic pre-schism Catholicity, while simultaneously diluting their witness to the necessity of submission to the Roman Church into a vague, bi-directional “mutual esteem” and convergence. The result is not homage to Cyril and Methodius, but their theological abduction.

Selective History: Omitting the Absoluteness of the True Church

On the factual level, the letter offers a generally accurate outline of the lives of Cyril and Methodius: their Byzantine origin, mission to Great Moravia, invention of the Slavic script, translation of Scripture and liturgical books, journey to Rome, approbation by Hadrian II, Cyril’s death and burial at San Clemente, Methodius as archbishop and papal legate, his hardships and perseverance in unity with Rome. These facts are broadly corroborated by traditional Catholic historiography.

However, what is decisive is not what is recounted, but what is systematically suppressed.

1. The letter underlines that the brothers were “Petri Sedi astricti et deditissimi” – bound and devoted to the See of Peter – but never draws out the traditional dogmatic consequence: that salvation and ecclesial life are objectively bound to visible communion with the Roman Church, outside of which there is no true unity and no right to exercise ecclesiastical power.

2. The document remains silent about the dogmatically defined principle that there is only one true Church, outside of which there is no salvation, and that schismatics and heretics must return by abjuration of errors and submission to the Apostolic See. This is not an accidental omission; it is a calculated suppression. Pius IX, in the Syllabus (prop. 18, 21), condemns the notion that Protestantism or national churches stand as legitimate forms of the same Christian religion, and affirms the Church’s right and duty to define Catholicism as the only true religion. This letter never even hints at this exclusivity.

3. Cyril and Methodius are invoked as patrons of “reconciliation” between East and West, but their historical role was precisely opposite to the conciliar rhetoric: they labored so that the Slavs, though inculturated liturgically, should be integrally within the one hierarchical, Roman, dogmatically homogeneous Church. The letter exploits their authority while muting the doctrinal content that guided their mission.

Thus, a genuine historical narrative is subtly bent toward a modernist end: Saints of unity under Rome are made mascots of a “unity” negotiated between parallel bodies treated as partners rather than as the one true Church and separated communities called to conversion.

Linguistic Subversion: Sweetness as a Cloak for Doctrinal Relativization

The rhetoric of the letter is a paradigmatic example of conciliar language: soft, irenic, evasive, saturated with emotive piety deployed to mask structural betrayals.

Key traits:

– Constantly affectionate and inclusive language: “Venerabiles Fratres,” “fraterna caritas,” “vox laetitiae,” “siderea amicitia,” employed to create an atmosphere in which contradiction, condemnation of error, and the stark alternatives of salvation vs. perdition become psychologically unthinkable.

– Vague formulae about unity: the text speaks of aspirations that “orientales qui christiano nomine decorantur” might restore communion, and insists that what unites is “far greater” than what separates; it promotes “mutua bona existimatio et fraterna caritas” as the path to unity. This vocabulary aligns seamlessly with the condemned liberal-ecumenical thesis that unity can be restored through horizontal diplomacy and mutual respect instead of clear doctrinal submission.

– Strategic silence on heresy and schism: there is no precise naming of Eastern schism, no insistence on rejection of doctrinal errors, no reference to the solemn condemnations of indifferentism and false ecumenism. This silence is itself a betrayal, for *silentium de necessariis est grave crimen* (silence over things necessary is a grave crime).

– The invocation of “Vox temporis vox Dei est” (the voice of the time is the voice of God) as a hermeneutic key is especially perverse. This slogan functions here as a practical denial of the immutability of doctrine condemned by St. Pius X in Pascendi and in Lamentabili sane exitu, where the idea that “truth changes with man” and that dogma evolves with history is branded as modernism. To suggest that contemporary tendencies toward ecumenism and convergence of confessions are a divine indication because they are “signs of the times” is to enthrone history as magisterium — precisely what pre-1958 doctrine rejects.

The bureaucratic sweetness, the sentimental evocations, the reluctance to speak the hard words of conversion, error, heresy, and submission to the one Church, are not stylistic quirks; they are the linguistic symptoms of a new religion. This paramasonic structure knows that if it spoke in the clear tones of Pius IX or Pius X, its own program would be unmasked.

Theological Corruption: Ecumenism Against the Exclusive Kingship of Christ

On the theological level, the document must be weighed against the pre-1958 Magisterium, which is the immutable rule. By that standard, its core thrust is profoundly disordered.

1. The concept of unity

The letter describes the hoped-for restoration of communion with Eastern churches thus:

“Praeter modum maiora ea sunt, quae utrimque iungunt quam ea quae seiungunt in hac nobilissima et utilissima causa restaurandi in illibatae unitate fidei concordiae nexus…”

(“By far greater are the things that on both sides unite than those that divide in this noble and useful cause of restoring the bonds of concord in the immaculate unity of faith…”).

This formula is already poisoned:

– It treats “both sides” symmetrically, as if there were two legitimate subjects approaching each other, instead of one true Church and separated bodies bound in justice to return.
– It insinuates that unity rests on discovering already-shared elements rather than on the repudiation of error and submission to Roman primacy as divinely instituted.
– It reflects precisely the mentality condemned by Pius IX in the Syllabus (prop. 15–18) and by Pius XI in a different context in Mortalium Animos, which rejects the idea that unity can be based on a lowest common denominator of doctrines “which all profess.” Even if the specific encyclical is not cited here, its doctrinal content remains binding and diametrically opposed to the letter’s trajectory.

To speak of “mutua existimatio” and “fraterna caritas” as foundational means for unity without first, clearly, absolutely affirming that the Eastern schismatics must submit to the See of Peter, reject their doctrinal errors, and abandon nationalistic ecclesiologies is to invert Catholic order. Charity is rooted in truth; without doctrinal clarity, such language becomes a solvent of faith.

2. Misusing Cyril and Methodius as precursors of liturgical-experimental and ecumenical agendas

The letter emphasizes that Cyril and Methodius translated Scripture and liturgical books into the Slavic language and that Rome approved this, which is historically true. But it weaponizes this fact to support a conciliar paradigm:

– It implicitly suggests that vernacular liturgy, “inculturation,” and liturgical pluralism as promoted by the conciliar sect stand directly in continuity with the work of Cyril and Methodius.
– It thereby conceals a crucial distinction: the Saints’ work always remained entirely subordinate to the Roman rite’s doctrinal content and to the discipline and dogmatic clarity of the universal Church. Their liturgical creativity was not a laboratory for democratizing worship or flattening dogma; it was a missionary tool under strict papal oversight and within an unaltered sacrificial, propitiatory theology.

By ignoring this, the letter serves the same agenda that would, in a few years, deform the liturgy into an anthropocentric assembly — which Pius XI’s Quas Primas implicitly condemns by insisting that all public and private life must submit to Christ’s objective kingship, not to cultural negotiation. To reduce Cyril and Methodius to icons of “openness” is to falsify their ecclesial obedience and to co-opt them into a project they would have abhorred.

3. A naturalized vision of ecclesial progress

The text repeatedly appeals to historical circumstances, opportunities, “signs,” and the favorable alignment of events: the centenary, Vatican II, the participation of observers from “separated churches,” the supposed convergence of hearts. Nowhere does it recall that the Church’s mission is supernatural, founded on immutable revelation, not subject to *vox temporis* as to a norm.

In light of Lamentabili sane exitu, the following tendencies are recognizable:

– The practical assumption that ecclesial consciousness and practice must adapt to contemporary desires for universal fraternity (condemned where dogma is treated as the product of collective religious consciousness).
– The idea that unity will be advanced primarily by common initiatives, congresses, pilgrimages, and symbolic gestures (Velehrad, Apostolate of Cyril and Methodius, etc.), rather than through the conversion of those in error.

Such a vision effectively subordinates dogma to diplomacy and liturgy to politics. It is not the continuation of the pre-1958 Magisterium, but its mutation.

Silencing the Real Enemies: Modernism and the Masonic Assault

One of the gravest indictments of this letter is what it refuses to name.

– There is no mention of the principal plague denounced by St. Pius X: modernism, “the synthesis of all heresies,” which corrodes faith, Scripture, doctrine, and ecclesiastical authority from within.
– There is no reference to the systematic, ideological war against the Church led by atheistic Communism and Freemasonry as exposed by Pius IX and his successors, nor to the paramasonic networks infiltrating ecclesiastical structures and using ecumenism as a weapon.
– The antipope speaks in emotional terms about “afflictions,” “storms,” and hopes that gales will become “a gentle breeze,” but without naming the concrete, organized, doctrinally-defined enemies: socialism, communism, liberalism, secularism, condemned in the Syllabus and in many encyclicals.

This is not pastoral sensitivity; it is acquiescence. By replacing precise denunciations of error with vague meteorological metaphors, the letter conforms to the logic of the conciliar sect: it hides the revolution it serves. The traditional Magisterium exposed the synagogue of Satan and the masonic sects as active enemies of the Church; this text, issued from structures already being overtaken, retreats into sentimentalism.

Unity Without Conversion: The Programmatic Ecumenism of the Neo-Church

Centrally, the letter functions as a charter for the new ecumenism being codified by Vatican II, in direct opposition to the pre-1958 doctrine.

The key pattern:

– Affirm Saints Cyril and Methodius as models, stressing their love for Rome and their inculturation.
– Shift the emphasis from their demand for submission to the Apostolic See to a mutual journey of East and West toward “restored communion,” based primarily on discovering common ground.
– Elevate “mutua existimatio” and “fraterna caritas” as operative principles, without stating that charity without truth is counterfeit.
– Present the conciliar project as the providential “time of grace” — *tempus acceptabile* — thus implicitly granting divine endorsement to the very council that would enshrine religious liberty and false ecumenism, condemned in substance by the Syllabus and by the constant prior Magisterium.

This is precisely the inversion that Pius XI warned against when he taught that true peace and order are only possible in the kingdom of Christ, publicly acknowledged by individuals and states, and that secular attempts at peace without submission to Christ’s social kingship are doomed. Here, instead, unity is detached from the regal, juridical, doctrinal authority of Christ operating through His true Church, and reimagined as an affective and historical convergence. That is theological bankruptcy.

Abuse of Authority: From Petrine Primacy to Collegial Ecumenical Diplomacy

The letter repeatedly acknowledges the Apostolic See as “firmamentum veritatis et unitatis christianae” (foundation of truth and Christian unity), but in practice undermines that claim by its ecumenical framing.

– The Petrine primacy is not proclaimed as a non-negotiable condition for unity, but as a historic bond that Cyril and Methodius respected and that might inspire future rapprochement.
– The antipope congratulates the presence of observers from separated churches at Vatican II as a hopeful sign — not as an occasion to exhort them to abandon their errors, but as a symbolic gesture of fraternity. This is an implicit recognition of their structures as quasi-legitimate ecclesial partners, contrary to the pre-1958 ecclesiology in which such communities are considered as separated from the one true Church and called to return.
– The repeated stress on joint initiatives (like the “Apostolate of Saints Cyril and Methodius” and congresses at Velehrad) is framed not as missionary tools for conversion, but as instruments of reciprocal listening.

Thus, under a thin veneer of traditional phraseology, the very notion of Catholic authority is democratized. Authority is no longer the divinely instituted, monarchic Petrine office demanding obedience, but a center of communion facilitating dialogue. This is the same deformation that leads directly to religious liberty, collegiality, and the cult of man.

Cyril and Methodius as Witnesses Against the Conciliar Sect

Ironically, everything the letter selectively praises in Cyril and Methodius, rightly understood in the light of the integral Catholic faith, condemns the conciliar sect that now dares to claim them.

– Their unwavering fidelity to the See of Peter presupposed a See professing integral doctrine, condemning errors, and refusing compromise with heresy or schism. They did not serve a “Church of the New Advent” enthroned on religious liberty and mutual recognition, but the same Church that later spoke in the Syllabus and in Pascendi.
– Their use of the Slavic language was not an experiment in relativizing worship, but a means to inscribe the full Roman faith into the heart of new peoples. They did not flatten the sacrificial nature of the Mass or dilute dogma; they translated, under Roman oversight, what was already fixed and immutable.
– Their mission was an act of supernatural charity: to transfer peoples “into the kingdom of the Son of His love,” not into a loose federation of communities united by common sentiments and partial truths.

If Cyril and Methodius stood today before the paramasonic structures occupying the Vatican, they would recognize not the authority they once served, but an antichurch that exploits their memory to advance a pseudo-unity without conversion. Their authentic legacy belongs to those who hold the same faith they confessed, the same sacraments, the same sacrifice, the same intolerant fidelity to revealed truth — not to those who have enthroned historical evolution, ecumenism, and humanistic rhetoric in place of Christ the King.

Conclusion: A Pious Veil Over Apostasy

This apostolic letter is not a harmless commemorative text. It is a calculated theological operation:

– It dresses the conciliar project in the vestments of ancient sanctity.
– It instrumentalizes genuine apostles of Slavic conversion to validate an ecumenical agenda whose premises were repeatedly condemned by the true Magisterium before 1958.
– It replaces the clear, exclusive claims of the Catholic Church with an emotive, naturalistic, and essentially modernist vocabulary of mutual esteem, “signs of the times,” and incremental convergence.

Measured by the immutable standard of the integral Catholic faith, the text stands condemned as an ideologically crafted piece of the conciliar revolution: honoring saints with its lips while betraying, in its principles and omissions, the very faith for which they labored.

The only coherent Catholic response is to reclaim Cyril and Methodius from this captivity, to profess with them the necessity of returning to the one true Church as she believed and taught before the conciliar subversion, and to reject the seductive language of an ecumenism that dares to invoke their names while dismantling their work.

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Source:
Magnifici eventus, Epistula Apostolica undecimo exeunte saeculo ab adventu SS. Cyrilli et Methodii in Magnam Moraviam, XI Maii MCMLXIII, Ioannes PP. XXIII   (vatican.va)
Date: 11.11.2025