Refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19 is a ’sin’ & anti-vaxxers must spend their life repenting

Platina said:

Unfortuantely, Fr. Damick's response is far from adequate. As several commentors pointed out to him, AFR actually seems to have no problem with getting into politics in general. And yes, it continues to host people that it knows full well support all kinds of moral degeneracy.

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are you talking about his tweet? I ask because he did a blog post which was much clearer that I know folks appreciated a lot more.

Platina said:

Unfortuantely, Fr. Damick's response is far from adequate. As several commentors pointed out to him, AFR actually seems to have no problem with getting into politics in general. And yes, it continues to host people that it knows full well support all kinds of moral degeneracy.

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I tried to have that discussion a few years ago with him. Alas, he took me for a troll, and very likely thought I may have been accusing him personally, and he blocked me. Now the chickens are coming home to roost over that failure in communication. He didn't understand my context and no one helped him to do so - legitimate concerns at the time about a podcaster promoting a well-known HBO series full of inappropriate contentographic sex and violence, graphic rape, incest, and so on, for titillation, not to condemn the evils. I tried to say that however engaging a story, that kind of moral content is inappropriate for believers in general, let alone children. He ignored me, Bobby Maddex dismissed my concerns in an e-mail, saying that their "spiritual advisor" had approved the podcast content which encouraged young viewers to watch the series. And that's one story out of a hundred by now where, at the very least, those in charge have dropped the ball, even if they intended none of it. And rather than apologize and correct errors, they justify and go on doing the same-old same-old. Is this gossip, or is it legitimate concern about the witness of our Church, to those both within and without? I say it is the latter, and it is legitimate to call for submission to Orthodox Tradition and to call to repentance those in the Church who identify as one of us and at least give an appearance of desiring to take up their cross and follow Christ. All hosting of proponents of sexual perversion and challenge to Holy Tradition must stop. Now. If they will not, then they are not of us, however beautiful the Church music they broadcast. Unless Fr Andrew faces up to the fact that AFR has not been doing that (and other members have accumulated ample evidence that that is the case), then this is going to end badly for everyone. It has already become a cause of scandal and is becoming a cause for further schism.

There are people who really do seek to subvert the teachings of our Faith, to replace them with modern versions suitable to the world and not the historical Church. And it looks like it's pretty clear on which side of the general divide most stand - the side pushing the government narrative including mandatory vaccines is heavily (not totally, but heavily) on the same side as those promoting sexual anarchy (read: "LGBT, Met Kallistos and others approving same-sex sexual relations, etc) schism in the name of canonical understandings that have lost all of their original purpose (read: the EP firing up schism with Russia by embracing schismatics who happen to to Ukrainian nationalism as more important than faithfulness and obedience to the Church, while driving away the faithful who stayed with their bishop and Patriarch), "deaconnesses" in the Church and other manner of embracing the fashionable teachings of the world on sexuality, race, etc. Not everyone is guilty of everything. A few defend ONLY the government measures (including vaccination) and nothing else. But this is the general tendency that we see.

We could start by affirming that Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life, that no man comes to the Father, except by Him, and that any hierarch or laity member who suggests otherwise is anaxios. That would be a good beginning to attaining unity here. The words of the Nicene Creed are not enough. Not everything that is genuinely Orthodox fits into the Creed. Those that seek to subvert us will start by denying that the fathers had a general consensus on most, if not all of these issues, and cast doubt on certain teaching while promoting alien teaching filled with words like "love", twisted from their Christian context to one of permissiveness to our will. They see that most fathers went wrong in some thing or other and draw the conclusion that they didn't agree on all that much. They say falsely that we need agree only on the Creed itself.

The St Tikhon's program linked on this thread was meant to promote the vaccine, and to silence naysayers and the undecided. It was definitively political, in that it supports policy measures the government is seeking to enact, and they were not unbiased, and had no real interest in exploring legitimate objections in depth. But AFR has been going the way of the world in other things; what on earth should make us trust them in this? If they want trust and support, they need to clean up their act, and stop trying to be so "inclusive" and all the rest.

One who does not acknowledge our Tradition in its totality and its right to correct us in our own opinions has no business pontificating or teaching on what is Orthodox, even here. See my signature. Unless we stand with the fathers, our opinions are worthless.

ArmyMatt said:

sure, but that's not the issue of whether or not Fr Tryphon was cancelled.

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Technically true.
But was he encouraged to go elsewhere? Evidently, and at least in part for reasons I myself have been outlining. They hold a double standard - "If you stand with the Left, "liberal Orthodoxy", then go ahead and peddle your politics. If against that, then, Whoa! We don't support political partisanship on this platform!" The St Tikhon's podcast is one of a number of examples of that. Trying to justify all that will only deepen divides, just as the failure, what was it, four years ago? - to satisfy my concern that AFR could be a safe place for my kids (and myself) to get content that supports, rather than works against our teachings and attempts to live a spiritual life, just as that failure led to the "kerfluffle" (which I think rather more serious than that word implies) that we are seeing now. The solution is to admit it, and to make the litmus test not, "Whether content is political or not", but "Whether they uphold our Tradition or not".

Platina said:

Unfortuantely, Fr. Damick's response is far from adequate. As several commentors pointed out to him, AFR actually seems to have no problem with getting into politics in general.

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"getting into politics in general" is not a problem. Endorsement of political candidates is. Fr Damick's response was/is absolutely correct in this regard:

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office. Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity. Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

Certain activities or expenditures may not be prohibited depending on the facts and circumstances. For example, certain voter education activities (including presenting public forums and publishing voter education guides) conducted in a non-partisan manner do not constitute prohibited political campaign activity. In addition, other activities intended to encourage people to participate in the electoral process, such as voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives, would not be prohibited political campaign activity if conducted in a non-partisan manner.

On the other hand, voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias that (a) would favor one candidate over another; (b) oppose a candidate in some manner; or (c) have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.

(source)

rusmeister said:

Technically true.
But was he encouraged to go elsewhere? Evidently, and at least in part for reasons I myself have been outlining. They hold a double standard - "If you stand with the Left, "liberal Orthodoxy", then go ahead and peddle your politics. If against that, then, Whoa! We don't support political partisanship on this platform!" The St Tikhon's podcast is one of a number of examples of that. Trying to justify all that will only deepen divides, just as the failure, what was it, four years ago? - to satisfy my concern that AFR could be a safe place for my kids (and myself) to get content that supports, rather than works against our teachings and attempts to live a spiritual life, just as that failure led to the "kerfluffle" (which I think rather more serious than that word implies) that we are seeing now. The solution is to admit it, and to make the litmus test not, "Whether content is political or not", but "Whether they uphold our Tradition or not".

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I don't know if he was encouraged to go elsewhere or they mutually agreed to part company. that's not relevant to what we are talking about.

either Fr Tryphon was cancelled or he wasn't. he wasn't. talking about not liking AFR's content or questioning its Orthodoxy is a different issue.

Antoni said:

Refusing to be vaccinated against Covid-19 is a ’sin’ & anti-vaxxers must spend their life repenting, says Russian Orthodox Church

I expected more from Metropolitan Hilarion.

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Pretty hilarious from hilarion

rusmeister said:

The St Tikhon's program linked on this thread was meant to promote the vaccine, and to silence naysayers and the undecided.

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I’m sorry for sharing it. My only excuse is that I’m a catechumen and probably should not have shared. I’m trying to figure things out and hoped it would give me some clarity but it didn’t.

Melily said:

I’m sorry for sharing it. My only excuse is that I’m a catechumen and probably should not have shared. I’m trying to figure things out and hoped it would give me some clarity but it didn’t.

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Melily - I think it was great for you to share it. I appreciated you pointing it out.

ArmyMatt said:

are you talking about his tweet? I ask because he did a blog post which was much clearer that I know folks appreciated a lot more.

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i only saw his tweet

Platina said:

i only saw his tweet

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He linked to the blog post on his Facebook page

Platina said:

i only saw his tweet

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ah, si, si. he posted a much more detailed (and I think better) response on his blog.

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Melily said:

I’m sorry for sharing it. My only excuse is that I’m a catechumen and probably should not have shared. I’m trying to figure things out and hoped it would give me some clarity but it didn’t.

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There’s your first mistake. Orthodox catechumen aren’t supposed to be posting in this forum. Just kidding.

This is really unfortunate that this is happening in the midst of all the divides we have right now. AFR has provided so much to the Orthodox world in getting us materials that are in modern forms of communication, reaching out to the community, preserving teachings and talks from some wonderful people (such as Fr Thomas Hopko), etc.

I don’t know what happened behind the scenes, but I wish that this didn’t happen with Abbot Tryphon, as he also provides so much to the Orthodox community, and is beloved by the people of the Church. If it is against the rules of the hosting company (AFR), I’d prefer them to just remove the specific posts, or put a message on it, etc.
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I also prefer not to have politics brought in (as I’ve mentioned before) into Orthodoxy. I’d prefer Orthodox leaders to just say “this teaching is not Orthodox” and preach truth and not integrate politics into it. It’s tough now though since the political climate permeates culture and beliefs - we can’t stick our head in the sand.

I certainly hope that AFR would support his posts if he just spoke to issues (abortion, homosexuality, liturgical abuses, how we as Orthodox should handle the political / social climate and current event issues, etc.) - if he didn’t specify candidates or parties.

Just some thoughts….

returntosender said:

Pretty hilarious from hilarion

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You are in the Orthodox subforum. Kindly use my hierarch's proper title and capitalize his name. I don't care whether you agree with him. (Which I do, incidentally.)

Melily said:

I’m sorry for sharing it. My only excuse is that I’m a catechumen and probably should not have shared. I’m trying to figure things out and hoped it would give me some clarity but it didn’t.

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I say this as kindly as possible since you're still in your formation stage... you would do better to sort things out with your priest than here. I've never met a single person on this forum and thus take everything everyone says with a big grain of salt. You should probably do the same.

All4Christ said:

I also prefer not to have politics brought in (as I’ve mentioned before) into Orthodoxy.

Just some thoughts….

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That’s not Orthodox phronema according to Fr. Andrew’s new book “Arise O God.” In chapter 1 he went into detail about just how political the evangelion is.

The modern tendency is to separate church and state like you prefer. It’s an outcropping of “Enlightenment” thinking which was itself an outcrop of the wars of western religion which was the result of the Reformation. Separation of church and state was not the presupposition of the Ancient Faith. Separation is desacralization of Creation. It’s Gnostic thinking.

Everyday we pray “He is everywhere present...” That includes politics.

Melily said:

I’m sorry for sharing it. My only excuse is that I’m a catechumen and probably should not have shared. I’m trying to figure things out and hoped it would give me some clarity but it didn’t.

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I think it was a good contribution to the dialogue from a somewhat official source. On the other hand, web fora are dens of iniquity. A wise Russian man told me a long time ago, before I even heard of this site, that "Normal, well-balanced people do not post on web-logs."

gzt said:

I think it was a good contribution to the dialogue from a somewhat official source. On the other hand, web fora are dens of iniquity. A wise Russian man told me a long time ago, before I even heard of this site, that "Normal, well-balanced people do not post on web-logs."

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I appreciate your input and think I get what you’re saying. I’ve been moderating a health forum for just over 7 years. On the other hand I’ve interacted with some very helpful people here and I genuinely appreciate that fact.
I’m not going to let the current division deter me from continuing on the Orthodox Christian path although I suppose if vaccination is required to attend services I may have to find another parish.