What do false mystics do, besides peddle spiritual messages and collect money from naive followers? They sue people who try to expose them.
Last March the Patriarchate of Constantinople warned against Vassula Ryden’s claims of presenting messages from Jesus. It was an impressive statement from her own church (English translation here), which should help to diminish the bad influence of this long-exposed phony, especially when it is added to the warnings from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1995, 1996, and 2007.
In March 2011 the critical web site infovassula.ch, based in Switzerland, wrote, apparently incorrectly, that the document was a formal excommunication of Ryden, and in November 2011 Vassula’s organization sued the site author, Maria Laura Pio. A hearing about some issues was held on January 6.
The impression of an excommunication is understandable, since the Patriarchate’s document stated:
we call upon the proponents of these unacceptable innovations and the supporters who maintain them, who henceforth are not admitted to ecclesiastical communion, not only to not be involved in the pastoral work of the local Holy Metropolis, but also to not preach their novel teachings, to prevent the appropriate sanctions under the Holy Canons.
Of course we are dealing with translations, so ambiguities are possible. It sounds at least as if the followers of Vassula are to be denied Holy Communion until they desist.
I wish Ms. Pio all the best in dealing with this legal harassment from the Vassula camp.