Three questions that are troubling me

storxian said:

1. How to find a spiritual father?
   
   
2. What is the greater heresy, Nestorianism or Monophysitism?
   
   
3. For hundreds of years, the Russian Orthodox church directly owned people, 'church serfs'. How to grapple with this fact? It seems abhorrent.

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1.) Pray and search by going to a parish and/or search online and email.

2.) Both

3.) I’m unsure. Looking to others for this one.

Welcome to CF, and to TAW.

1. Ask your priest.

2. Wrong is wrong, and I'm doubtful of any benefit of analyzing either heresy to be "more" incorrect.

3. This is a pretty bold claim, and I'd be grateful if you'd be able to cite a source that this ever occurred. In particular that the Russian Orthodox Church "directly owned people". I've not heard, or read this so I'd be appreciative of a source.

1. pray and talk to experienced priests and elders.

2. both are bad.

3. people do wrong things in the name of the Church. nothing new.

welcome!

storxian said:

Thanks for the welcome, I need more sense of orthodox community in my life. My source on point 3 is Alexander Pushkin's history of the Pugachyov rebellion, but it's not hard to find info on, just search 'church serfs Russia'. Even more disturbing is how much their conditions inspired them to revolt. Church serfs were a thing from early on in christianisation. Peter III (1762) nominally liberated them but the effect was very slow to take hold.

Meanwhile in Romania, monasteries owned straight up slaves (Roma/gypsies).

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I'm not sure why you marked my post as being optimistic. That implies that I didn't believe you, and I was doubting that your facts were true to optimistically defend the Russian Orthodox Church, or their past actions. Which is untrue.

The fact is I checked google before I asked, and I've checked google again with different key words. I still don't see anything on the Russian Orthodox Church specifically owning serfs which indicates, at least to me, that the information isn't widely available in English. That's not to say they didn't hence why I asked for a source. Thanks for that; I'll have to check it out sometime.

Otherwise I'd say Father Matt nailed it on the head.

storxian said:

For hundreds of years, the Russian Orthodox church directly owned people, 'church serfs'. How to grapple with this fact? It seems abhorrent.

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According to Wiki, the majority of serfs in Russia were people living in poverty who voluntarily sold themselves into serfdom to avoid poverty, so really you could almost see it as more like a social welfare program. They go to be a servant in a warm house, and they get free room and board.

1) Visit parishes and monasteries and speak with the priests there. Don't try to find one online and don't take someone as your spiritual father whom you haven't met in person.

2) Heresy is heresy. If you want to know which was more damaging, I'd say Monophytism because the Copts, Armenians, Ethiopians, Syriacs, and the Church in India are not longer in Communion with us over that heresy. Neither one of us are Monophysites, but because of linguistic errors in the 5th century, well, the rest is history.

3) That's a new one, never heard of it.

E.C. said:

either one of us are Monophysites, but because of linguistic errors in the 5th century, well, the rest is history.

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not to be a bugger, but it wasn't just linguistic errors and political bad blood (although those were factors). there really is theological disagreement.

1, I've just left the Anglican Church and working that out myself.
2, Heresy is heresy.
3, Serfdom came about through the development of the feudal system in western Europe around the time the Papal heresy developed. It didn't exist in England until the Normans invaded under the Popes blessing and imposed it on us along with the heresies of Rome. So I very much doubt that it existed in Russia.

East Anglican said:

So I very much doubt that it existed in Russia.

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for one, welcome to TAW!

but I gotta say, it did exist in Russia, but the Russian Tsar had a very different role than a Western king (which was not always perfectly followed to say the least).

I would also add, I think you can say Nestorianism is worse in the sense it still exists in the Assyrians. Monophysitism pretty much died out (non-Chalcedonians also condemned that heresy as well).

storxian said:

hundreds of years, the Russian Orthodox church directly owned people, 'church serfs'. How to grapple with this fact? It seems abhorrent

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Who said it's abhorrent? Serfdom was the way of humanity for 80% ( pareto principle) of the worlds population, up until a century ago. This is how the vast majority of the Agrarian epoch worked. Still does, why do you think everyone says we need the undocumented to pick the crops. Don't listen to modernists who have no inkling of the socio-economic structures of ancient times. Serfdom was so prevalent that according to the bible it was God's punishment on mankind for eternity: Genesis 3:17- 19