Opinions on the Corrective Baptism issue?

[ArmyMatt]

Fair point Fr, I've edited as necessary.

just looking out for you.

 

[E.C.]

just looking out for you.

I appreciate it. Considering that not only does he not have a bishop, but also no bishop wants him, is quite problematic.

Uncut Mountain recently published a book claiming to be "the" authoritative source for the reception of converts into the Church. There are no authors though I suspect that Fr Heers and other similar clergy with that Pharisee level of rigorism are behind it. They are making a mountain out of a molehill and since the OCA doesn't listen to me anymore, hopefully you can help them take charge of this matter.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I appreciate it. Considering that not only does he not have a bishop, but also no bishop wants him, is quite problematic.

Uncut Mountain recently published a book claiming to be "the" authoritative source for the reception of converts into the Church. There are no authors though I suspect that Fr Heers and other similar clergy with that Pharisee level of rigorism are behind it. They are making a mountain out of a molehill and since the OCA doesn't listen to me anymore, hopefully you can help them take charge of this matter.

sorry, help who take charge of what?

 

[ArmyMatt]

and I will say, having met Fr Peter a few times, while he can be blunt as a dull spoon, I have never known him to be dishonest. he says it’s being rectified, and I believe him.

 

[Not David]

I appreciate it. Considering that not only does he not have a bishop, but also no bishop wants him, is quite problematic.

Uncut Mountain recently published a book claiming to be "the" authoritative source for the reception of converts into the Church. There are no authors though I suspect that Fr Heers and other similar clergy with that Pharisee level of rigorism are behind it. They are making a mountain out of a molehill and since the OCA doesn't listen to me anymore, hopefully you can help them take charge of this matter.

That book controversy is what motivated me to post about it.

 

[rusmeister]

It’s easier to take complaints about someone like Fr Peter more seriously if the complainer also complains about AB Elpidophoros, the late Met Kallistos Ware, and other hierarchs promoting bona fide heresies. When the anger is politically targeted against one side only, well, that’s the very definition of partisan. Aside from the other concerns, I think people coming into the Church with bad ideas and seeking to change what the Church has always taught, the heresy of thinking one knows better than the Church, the individual as one’s own authority (and right now I have Orthodox guests in my home who essentially think that, so I’m not talking about abstractions), with bad, little, or no catechism is a far greater danger than a man who thinks we ought to reconsider how people are accepted into the Church from a Western Christian culture that is falling completely away from even what their own ancestors recently believed, and in fact, if the Church would agree in Council about these two definitely-related issues, an end could be put to that heresy, which is a central cause of the divisions we now see in the Church.

In short, whatever Fr Peter may be wrong about regarding baptism, the combined issue is definitely causing great evil and ought to be addressed, and at least he is addressing it.

 

[Justin-H.S.]

In another thread, we discussed how we shouldn't even attend heterodox churches or services or even to pray and/or commune with them. In this thread we discuss how heterodox baptisms are fine. Very confusing because we don't accept any other sacrament of the heterodox.

Is it because baptisms can be performed by the laity?
If that's the case, and a brother or sister is discomforted by being received only by Chrismation, couldn't an Orthodox layperson baptize that person with the triple-immersion?

Just trying to throw out some suggestions to the ones who see baptisms as a stumbling block or a molehill.

 

[Not David]

In another thread, we discussed how we shouldn't even attend heterodox churches or services or even to pray and/or commune with them. In this thread we discuss how heterodox baptisms are fine. Very confusing because we don't accept any other sacrament of the heterodox.

Is it because baptisms can be performed by the laity?
If that's the case, and a brother or sister is discomforted by being received only by Chrismation, couldn't an Orthodox layperson baptize that person with the triple-immersion?

Just trying to throw out some suggestions to the ones who see baptisms as a stumbling block or a molehill.

If someone got married in a Baptist or Roman Catholic Church, does that make the marriage invalid?

 

[Justin-H.S.]

If someone got married in a Baptist or Roman Catholic Church, does that make the marriage invalid?

That reminds of the couples who got married in the heterodox fashion requesting and being granted an Orthodox marriage ceremony, so you'd have to ask those couples that question. I'd wager it has something to do with the spiritual reality even if they weren't able to articulate it.

"Why was it necessary for you to be re-married in the Orthodox Church?"

 

[rusmeister]

If someone got married in a Baptist or Roman Catholic Church, does that make the marriage invalid?

No. It makes it not blessed by the Church. The Church recognizes that people outside the Church can be married; no one thinks that a married couple in India or Kansas is committing fornication just because they have not had an Orthodox wedding service.

I think the central issue is saying that the differences don’t matter; in baptism or marriage or worship seeing the non-Orthodox alternative as sufficient and “just as good”.

 

[ArmyMatt]

If someone got married in a Baptist or Roman Catholic Church, does that make the marriage invalid?

no.

 

[gzt]

Oh dear, I think you should find out who his bishop is so you can apologize to the bishop for disrespecting one of his priests.

 

[E.C.]

Corrective baptism is a very modern innovation, and it is mainly preached by those who have zeal but not according to knowledge, such as Mr. Peter Heers.

Agreed and it proves that even "staunchly traditional" ROCOR is innovationist. They created this mess. If ROCOR followed the canons to the letter like they claim they do, they would have joined the OCA years ago.

Oh dear, I think you should find out who his bishop is so you can apologize to the bishop for disrespecting one of his priests.

HA! That's part of his problem, he has NO bishop and NO bishop will or wants to claim him! Even Arius had a bishop for crying out loud.

 

[gzt]

His "I'm a priest that has not been canonically disciplined in any way but I don't have a bishop to confirm this," shirt is raising a lot of questions answered by his shirt. Metaphorically, of course, I realize that he is traditional enough not to wear a t-shirt with writing on it, which just raises further questions about how we're reading this off of his shirt. But I'm sure, as he says, and has been saying for literally years, he's going to resolve this soon. I wonder if he has a t-shirt saying that...

 

[Light of the East]

It’s easier to take complaints about someone like Fr Peter more seriously if the complainer also complains about AB Elpidophoros, the late Met Kallistos Ware, and other hierarchs promoting bona fide heresies. When the anger is politically targeted against one side only, well, that’s the very definition of partisan. Aside from the other concerns, I think people coming into the Church with bad ideas and seeking to change what the Church has always taught, the heresy of thinking one knows better than the Church, the individual as one’s own authority (and right now I have Orthodox guests in my home who essentially think that, so I’m not talking about abstractions), with bad, little, or no catechism is a far greater danger than a man who thinks we ought to reconsider how people are accepted into the Church from a Western Christian culture that is falling completely away from even what their own ancestors recently believed, and in fact, if the Church would agree in Council about these two definitely-related issues, an end could be put to that heresy, which is a central cause of the divisions we now see in the Church.

In short, whatever Fr Peter may be wrong about regarding baptism, the combined issue is definitely causing great evil and ought to be addressed, and at least he is addressing it.

I don't know much about AB Elpidophoros, but Met Kalistos promoting heresies? What did I miss in what he said? What heresies? I always thought he was spot on.

 

[gzt]

I don't know much about AB Elpidophoros, but Met Kalistos promoting heresies? What did I miss in what he said? What heresies? I always thought he was spot on.

He didn't, but some people aren't careful with how they read or what they say in response.

 

[rusmeister]

Click on this:
Here is the direct link:

Met Kallistos dances around the subject, but essentially promotes the idea of blessing same-sex relations in the Church that are “committed” and “loving”. He does this through clear suggestion, rather than baldly stating it.

But the bigger heresy he promotes is the idea that Church teaching changes over time, that our Tradition is silent and ignorant about human sexuality, and that the Church can and should accept correction and teaching from the modern world, modern science, and here, specifically, modern psychology. He takes the new lies talking about “sexual orientation” and speaks as if they were true, and the Church fathers ignorant of the concept.

He says true things none of us would argue with. Most of what he says on the second page, though in academese, is true, and even references a couple of saints. But this is the essential problem, the lie that succeeds, that obtains followers, is the one so entwined with truth. (It seems to be a tactic of those who embrace these things now to quote Church fathers when saying the parts we would agree are true, and then to cite modern speakers with little or no special authority when mixing in the falsehoods.) A blatant falsehood would be easy to expose. The half-truth is worse because one must be able to parse out the truth from the lies. The whole article is infused with the idea that Orthodox need to change the thinking and teaching of Holy Tradition and this is suggested multiple times. So here we go.

He says:

“First, until recent times, Orthodox thinkers did not make use of the concept of sexual orientation, as this is understood in contemporary psychology. More precisely, they assumed that there is only one orientation, and that is heterosexual. They considered that persons of homosexual inclination were such because of personal choice and were therefore willfully wicked. Nowadays Orthodox writers would normally prefer to make a distinction between orientation and action.”

“Make use of” What slippery language!
He proceeds to assume that the concept of “sexual orientation” is legitimate, though we find it nowhere in our Tradition. He further speaks of contemporary psychology as authoritative in correcting our understanding of Church teaching. He says “Orthodox thinkers”, by which he manages to include all of the saints and fathers of Church history (“until recent times”) without identifying them as such, and then says “they assumed” and then proceeds to speak as if they assumed wrongly. Finally, in the last two sentences, he implies that the Church fathers and in fact, all believers until our time made no distinction between state-of-being ((what “orientation” is meant to imply) and action. This is absurd. Sin has always been spoken of in regard to our actions and choices, voluntary and involuntary, yes, but as actions, not as who we are as human beings. Herein lies the lie. The Metropolitan swallowed the lie of modern identity politics, that this is “who they are” (as a natural and unalterable state) rather than what they do (which is what Holy Tradition bases all righteous judgement of our actions on).

The rest of Met Kallistos’s text follows suit. He goes on to say, rightly, that people become guilty by deliberate choice (truth mixed in). As an aside, he says, “Indeed, the language of the second marriage service is somewhat too outspoken for modern taste, and I suspect that it is not often used.”, when he is unilaterally supporting the modern taste! I suspect that that language is too outspoken for the Metropolitan’s taste. But I digress.

“Persons of heterosexual orientation have the option of getting married, and so in a positive way they can fulfil their erotic desire with the Church’s blessing through the God- given sacrament of holy matrimony. But homosexuals have no such option. In the words of Vasileios Thermos, “A homosexual subject is called to lead a celibate life without feeling a vocation for it.” Are we right to impose this heavy burden on the homosexual?”

He speaks of “us” “imposing” the heavy burden, as if the person’s experience of the passion, the broken and wrong desire, were OUR fault, and something that we could “relieve” him of by “not imposing it”. Here he treats the same-sex sexual passion as if that passion ought to “get a pass”. He would not say this about drunkenness or gluttony (I hope). The truth we have always been taught is that there is a right and wrong use of things, but this becomes lost when we begin thinking that “this is who the person is by nature”, an unalterable characteristic, like race or sex, which is what the wicked idea of “sexual orientation” does to people’s thinking, and the Metropolitan has been wholeheartedly deceived. I could go on. The article is full of the assumption. But that seems like enough to make the point that the Metropolitan, and the writers of “The Wheel”, and those here who support them, are deceived.

And who does he cite as an authoritative figure here to whose authority we would all agree? St John Chrysostom? St Gregory the Great? St Anthony of the Desert? No, he cites “Vasileios Thermos”. Who? It took seconds to find out that his focus is on things like this - by Rev. Dr. Vasileios Thermos: “The academic literature connecting religious fundamentalism and psychosis is extensive. In my experience as both a clinical psychiatrist and priest, I believe that we see this illness both individually and collectively within the Orthodox Church.” Another modern “expert”. And decidedly NOT the Church fathers.

As an added observation, he references an article in the same magazine promoting these evils (“The Wheel”), and says “With regard to homosexuality, the Orthodox Church today has undoubtedly to confront a series of difficult issues. Without accepting everything that is said by the three authors of the text “Jesus Christ and Same-Sex Marriage,” I fully recognise that they are dealing with genuine problems. I can see at least three anomalies in our current treatment of homosexuals.”

Jesus Christ & Same-Sex Marriage

Jesus Christ & Same-Sex Marriage

www.academia.edu

As if the Church has never confronted sexual sin and those seeking to openly practice it in the Church.

I suppose we should be thankful that he doesn’t accept everything, though it is plain that he accepts most of it, and the article he references is more blatant in its promotion of changing Orthodox teaching.

Anathema and anaxios!

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

I don't know much about AB Elpidophoros, but Met Kalistos promoting heresies? What did I miss in what he said? What heresies? I always thought he was spot on.

Kallistos did a lot of speculation about things, probably from his academic background. Of course, it's easy to argue with someone who is dead because they can't answer the charges. He opened one of his lectures with a joke that two men were in Hell in cauldrons with boiling water. After a while, one guy's cauldron was like a hot tub. The other kept having demons throw logs on the fires to keep them going. The first guy asked a demon what was going on. The demon replied that the guy was an author and each time someone bought his book, the demons threw on a log.

Of course, some in here are far more knowledgeable about Kallistos's judgement than the Almighty.

He chrismated me and my family back in 2002, and I got to spend part of that weekend with him. Very typical Brit with a dry sense of humor. Can't believe it has been a year since his passing. I remember hearing the news right around this time that he was on his death bed. I remarked to my priest that I wouldn't be surprised if he passed on the Feast of the Dormition. He lived until Aug 24.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I recommend folks read the earlier editions of his works, as they became more erroneous with each edition from what I have heard.

that said, the good he did for Orthodoxy in the Anglosphere I think outweighs any errors he had.

and just for clarity’s sake, the determination of whether or not a departed bishop is anathema and/or anaxios is for the Church through a synod. the statements they made can be called out, but not the person.

 

[rusmeister]

I recommend folks read the earlier editions of his works, as they became more erroneous with each edition from what I have heard.

that said, the good he did for Orthodoxy in the Anglosphere I think outweighs any errors he had.

and just for clarity’s sake, the determination of whether or not a departed bishop is anathema and/or anaxios is for the Church through a synod. the statements they made can be called out, but not the person.

To be clear, my use of the Greek terms is specifically against the ideas, and meant to condemn their promotion, not judgement of anyone before God. I think that distinction makes all the difference. And it is a huge reason why I no longer trust hierarchs.

Yes, we are lucky that his errors were mostly below the radar, and I am grateful for his early book, “The Orthodox Church” (now gathering dust on a shelf in Russia)
But they DID fuel the deception that the Wheel and Fordham people seek to spread, and those errors HAVE to be called out and denounced. If AFR would take the lead in that, that would do a lot to alleviate the dismay and distress I have experienced in recent years over my discovery that so many people in the Church are ready to deny and challenge traditional Church teachings.