The emphasis on national or ethnic heritage has had the effect of fragmenting the family of our ecumenical civilizations - from Russians and Georgians to Albanians and Romanians. This is particularly disturbing because nationalism is a phenomenon, with disastrous consequences.

The holy Orthodox Church searched long for a language with which to address nationalism, amid the strife and havoc this new idiology created in the Orthodox lands of Eastern Europe and for much of the 19th century. In 1972, the Holy Synod issued a definitive condemnation of the sin of phyletism, saying, "We renounce, censure and condemn racism, that is, racial discrimination, ethnic feuds, hatreds, and dissensions within the Church of Christ..."