Be Prepared, The Coming Years will be Filled With Strife

rusmeister said:

That just begs the question, bar for what? We agree that there is no definitive proof beyond the shadow of a doubt. I would only disagree if you are saying we may not consider the very real possibility that he was one, or consider it likely. I see enough to consider it very likely. But I grant that it’s not the final word and that we cannot affirm that he certainly was.

The likelihood is serious enough to consider its impact, if true, on us.

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I never said folks can't consider the possibility, I only said there is no hard evidence that I have seen, and I am not going to say he was one until I see some hard evidence.

As a hypothesis which I think we are bound to consider, it does go a good ways towards explaining the direction the EP and Phanar have been going in for the better part of the last century.
Not that I think the Russian Church or other Churches in a state of blooming health.
“The shadow of one dark wing is over all Tellus.”

rusmeister said:

As a hypothesis which I think we are bound to consider, it does go a good ways towards explaining the direction the EP and Phanar have been going in for the better part of the last century.
Not that I think the Russian Church or other Churches in a state of blooming health.
“The shadow of one dark wing is over all Tellus.”

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Russia is still dealing with Sergianism - hence why they are building the "Great Patriotic War" cathedral. Sad that St. Herman's is censoring out works about what happened with Russia...

As for the others, I'm afraid I've found it difficult to find information about what's up with them. WCC is certainly a negative influence (and no Orthodox Church should have a part with them and their Sophia worship.)

rusmeister said:

That just begs the question, bar for what? We agree that there is no definitive proof beyond the shadow of a doubt.
The likelihood is serious enough to consider its impact, if true, on us.

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The impact remains the same whether he is a formal member of a lodge or not. We are in a point of time where the culture has largely given way to the Western Esotericism that was/is taught by the lodges. Joel Olsteen and Oprah claim to be Christian and have many followers making the same claim, yet their teaching most closely follows Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy. It is largely accurate to say that, as Fr. Seraphim Rose did in several of his books, that Western Realism is the equivalent of Bolshevism or Nazism - all three of which have the same ultimate reason for being that is sourced from Western Esotericism.

We already see in Athenagoras, that he served as a CIA asset, and so he had divided himself between two masters at the very least and he not only preached that Western Realism that Fr. Seraphim warned us of - but was also an active agent for it in the world and in the Church.

But we should also remember this;

"There are two kinds of heretics: Those whom the Church has put on trial and has convicted and excised from Her Body, and those who have neither been convicted as yet by the Church, nor have left the Church of their own volition, but instead have remained in the Body of the Church. One such case is the case of the Patriarch. Patriarch Athenagoras has preached heretical beliefs. But he has not been convicted yet by the Church, nor has he renounced the Church and removed himself from Her. He has remained inside the Church and continues to minister inside the Church and consequently, he is still a channel of Grace; He performs Sacraments." (- Archimandrite and canonist Epiphanius of Athens in his letter to Fr Nicodemos ( 22 July 1971))

The question is how do we view this history in the light of the Spirit and in the mind of the Fathers in order to deal with the problems of today.

While I don’t want to pretend that I am absolutely sure about the charges against Pat. A., I AM absolutely sure that at all levels people are teaching and believing contrary to definitive Church teaching and Tradition as established throughout history, and this seems like an extraordinarily likely case.

I took part in a talk in a small group at my church on Sunday with my priest (the one being treated for cancer). The issue that began the discussion was unity in the Church, as per the Scripture reading. I expressed my concern about lack of unity over teachings that had always been settled in Christian history, both affirmed by the fathers and by the common people.i was asked to bring an example, and I brought the one most obvious to me in our parish: marriage and divorce. (I felt it unfortunate that one of the ladies who had divorced from her fellow parishioner was present, I didn’t want her to feel personally judged.) What it all came down to was that the defenders of modern divorce (and other things) in the Church hold, consciously or not, that our will is irrelevant, that if things get difficult enough we cannot fail to bow to our emotions and a priest must give economia to divorce because otherwise his parishioners will commit murder or suicide. While I do find in Tradition that a person who who cannot contain should marry, that not all are given to perfectly carry out the best ideal, and to them a lesser ideal that is still good is prescribed, I am unaware of the approval of small sin that a bigger sin might not be committed. And I made clear that I was not talking about people outside the Church, or our fallen lives prior to the Church, but only of those who say “I want to follow Christ. What must I do to be saved?”, who are now in the Church and trying to live that life.

The point here is not marriage or divorce, but about how modern thought has infiltrated the Church, causing us to say and think things that we imagine are compatible with Tradition, but in fact are not. And that thinking is infiltrating on the pastoral level, not just from the laity. Many of us are, consciously or not, “meliorists”, my coined term for the modern heresy of thinking that we know better than the fathers, than their consensus, and that of Christians of the past in general, because of modern science, our modern educations, iPhones, the internet, and so on. (Melio, or meglio, means “better”) If, for example, you trust modern psychology as much, or more, than what the Church taught for two millennia, then you are a meliorist.

GoingByzantine said:

When I read back on the various points in history where the Orthodox Church was threatened with tumult - The Advent of Communism, The Ottoman Invasion of Europe, The Rise of Islam, The Iconoclast Movement etc. I never dreamed that I would live through one of these periods myself. Yet, while I pray that my premonitions are wrong, I suspect that we are on the verge of another period of great strife.

Battle lines are being drawn in the sand, and the devil is yet again taking aim at Christ's Church on Earth. For those of us in the West, the pain will be greatest. I suspect that the following events will take place in the next few years:

1. The Orthodox Church will Fracture along Greek and Slavic lines. This event has already begun. The Greek Church and Alexandrian Patriarchate will likely be excommunicated by the Russian Church this Friday, and the Church of Cyprus has all but announced that it too will recognize the EP. Antioch is wavering on the fence, and will too likely join the EP in time, and with the Russian Church encroaching on Georgian lands it seems possible that the Georgian Church will also back the EP. Meanwhile, the EP has encroached into the jurisdiction of the Czech Church and more schismatic churches are calling for recognition by the EP. Sadly, anyway that you look at these events, it is plain to see that there is a growing rift between the two main cultural groups of Orthodoxy.
2. The Jurisdictional Issues in the West will only Get Worse. As we all know, the jurisdictional issues of the Orthodox Church outside of its traditional hearth have always been contentious, but these issues are likely to only get worse in light of the Orthodox fracture. Some groups will change jurisdictions, others will disintegrate and fracture, but the biggest issue will be with the rifts that come from the aforementioned Greek and Slavic split. As things stand, members of the Russian Church abroad are not allowed to attend Greek Churches, but as more mother churches take sides this problem will only grow. Soon, some jurisdictions will be completely isolated from one another, and parishioners will be left confused about where to go and who they can commune with. This would not be a problem if all the Orthodox parishes in say the United States were under a single jurisdiction, but alas, they are not.
3. The Greeks Will be Tempted to Join Rome. Just as the Council of Florence almost reunited the two churches a millennia ago, with the EP getting close to Pope Francis and even participating in Roman Liturgics it seems possible that Bartholomew will begin a reproachment process with the Roman Church. This should come as no surprise to anyone, given the friendship of the two leaders and their past statements. For the EP, who is alone and isolated in Turkey, and who has seen his office's power wane over the years, this would be an amazing accomplishment to carry out. History would remember him as a great unifier, rather than a forgettable Wikipedia stub. Perhaps the Romans would also put pressure on the Turkish Government to restore the EPs power and institutions. It would be a win-win for Bartholomew.
4. Converts Will be Disenfranchised. Lured to Orthodoxy by its unity, but its lack of a Pope. Many converts will become disenfranchised by the Church as it fractures. They will see it as being rife with politicking, power struggles, and insincerity. Already, people in the West are confused and scared by the events abroad, and in their weakened state the lure of false religion could become tempting.
5. The Culture War will Continue. As all this is going on, the culture war will continue. The war on the unborn, on people of faith, and on moral values has been ongoing for some time and it will not stop anytime soon. While the church fights internally, the devil will continue to chip away at our young.

While I pray that none of this will happen, and while you will likely see it as alarmism, I am writing this so that we can focus on preparing. We must be prepared for this worst-case scenario, and our parishes and people must begin to talk about how we will preserve our unity even in the face of what is happening in the world. Now is the time to do this, let us not wait until it is too late.

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It's not a Slavic-Greek split as much as it is a Greek-everyone else split. Didn't the Georgian and Romanian church and the Patriarch of Jerusalem side with Moscow? They aren't Slavic.

Al Masihi said:

Also is worth noting that the Melkites were once identical in liturgy and worship to the Syriac Orthodox, the Chalcedonian Church of Antioch once used Syriac in the liturgy along with their Non-Chalcedonian counterparts before they adopted the Byzantine liturgy at the influence of the Eastern Roman Empire. Also just a slight correction the imbedding of Latin monks in the Levant actually started in the first crusade when the Latin Church controlled large parts of the Levant under the crusaders. The Latins sway you with with their power and richness, many easterners like myself either nearly fell for that or did intact fall for it. I came to realize, however that grandeur doesn’t equal truth. It’s sometimes really comforting for middle eastern Christians to know that they have a big, huge, super rich, and powerful Church looking after them from Islamic domination rather then being in communion with Churches that are under Islamic rule themselves. For many of us it’s a huge factor for why you end up turning into an arm of the Latins. I wanted to do it myself for that same reason, but it’s better to be poor and suffer and hold to Orthodoxy then to be rich and powerful and hold to heresy.

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I can see how being allied with Rome would have been tempting during the Crusader era or even during the last century of Ottoman rule. Unfortunately, I don't see there being much benefit to stay with Rome (other than tradition) in the modern era. Even the three Assyrian Churches (one under Rome, the other two on their own) have been talking about reuniting as one autocephalous Church, without Rome, in the last few years; most of it brought on by the passing of Mar Dhinka IV and the suffering in Iraq. I think Christianity in the Middle East would be able to survive a lot more cohesively, if not thrive, if the Eastern Catholics came back to Orthodoxy.

Why do the Melkites remain with Rome today? I'm just curious and not trying to start a fight.

Rusviking876 said:

It's not a Slavic-Greek split as much as it is a Greek-everyone else split. Didn't the Georgian and Romanian church and the Patriarch of Jerusalem side with Moscow? They aren't Slavic.

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I think they did side with Moscow.

Georgia had their patriarchate office abolished in the early 1800s when the Russians took over. They're autocephaly and patriarchal office wasn't restored until the Bolshevik Revolution. Which is why Patriarch Ilia's response to the Ukraine matter basically came down to "what are you in a hurry for? We had to wait 100 years!"

ArmyMatt said:

just pray. the Church has been in more dire times before this one. she prevailed then, she'll prevail now.

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Doesn't that depend on how you see it and how you define prevail? If you mean getting smaller and smaller through schisms then yes, she has prevailed. I'm saddened that this happens to Orthodoxy, I truely am.

With the risk of sounding to hegelian, it seems as if this is a spirit in our time. Just look at the Latin church and pope Francis. Its increasing inner rifts and new issues are arising every day.
As the OP pointed out, this is happening in the east aswell. It's just sad altogether.

I just wish that i woke up one day and we were all one again. One shepherd, one flock.
Division only serves the devil and not our christian witness.

I'm praying for the church of the east. May Patriarch Bartholomew regain his lost wisdom and put an end to this stupid argument

Stabat said:

Doesn't that depend on how you see it and how you define prevail? If you mean getting smaller and smaller through schisms then yes, she has prevailed. I'm saddened that this happens to Orthodoxy, I truely am.

With the risk of sounding to hegelian, it seems as if this is a spirit in our time. Just look at the Latin church and pope Francis. Its increasing inner rifts and new issues are arising every day.
As the OP pointed out, this is happening in the east aswell. It's just sad altogether.

I just wish that i woke up one day and we were all one again. One shepherd, one flock.
Division only serves the devil and not our christian witness.

I'm praying for the church of the east. May Patriarch Bartholomew regain his lost wisdom and put an end to this stupid argument

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but this is nothing new. the Church has always come out richer after these issues. it's nothing new. and even if Orthodoxy gets shrunk down to only a few faithful clergy and their people, she's just as full as she has ever been.

I wish we were one too, but I don't think it'll ever happen. we are way too different.

ArmyMatt said:

but this is nothing new. the Church has always come out richer after these issues. it's nothing new. and even if Orthodoxy gets shrunk down to only a few faithful clergy and their people, she's just as full as she has ever been.

I wish we were one too, but I don't think it'll ever happen. we are way too different.

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Sadly that's true. Whenever I'm reading catholic apologetics or orthodox apologetics I'm always struck by the same sense. You know, the sense of pride and nonexistent theological humbleness.
It goes for both parties as I see it.

Neither one of us could ever be able to admit interpreting anything erroneously in the past. I know that you'll defend Orthodoxy and I know that most well grounded and devote catholic priests would do the same for catholicism.

I once read about the council of Florence (two books, one EO and one RCC) and I remember how they both started off by saying that the important matter was truth and not to be correct themselves.

Then they both went on to label one another heretical and made absurdums out of their counterparts theological objections.
It was a sad display of hubris. This goes for both sides of the divide.

Individuals may realise a greater truth elsewhere, but large bodies such as the church seems unable to admit errors. Satan fills us with pride and it only increases with power.

I believe we're still one in many ways though. I know alot of Orthodox believers and I know that they consider Catholics to be separated brethren and most Catholics sees it likewise.

Doctrinal unity however seems hopeless. The two schools of thoughts are just to different I guess.

I've always had a feeling the Church will be one again but much much smaller right before the 2nd coming through the trial of persecution and martyrdom.

LizaMarie said:

I've always had a feeling the Church will be one again but much much smaller right before the 2nd coming through the trial of persecution and martyrdom.

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Perhaps it's all the devote Christians that are left, shattered around the world in their own denominations, coming together to flee persecution?

Where else should we go then, but to the source? By source I'm talking about some kind of Orthodoxy obviously.

That would actually be a real blessing in disguise.

Stabat said:

Perhaps it's all the devote Christians that are left, shattered around the world in their own denominations, coming together to flee persecution?

Where else should we go then, but to the source? By source I'm talking about some kind of Orthodoxy obviously.

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This is weird but I've always believed(hoped) that someday-maybe not in my lifetime(I'm early '60's) that there would be a separation first between a world church which has clearly compromised with the world and true orthodox(small o) Christians. Then I think under severe persecution the Protestant sects will either return to Holy Orthodoxy or Rome to get under the wing of Apostolic Protection. Then Rome and Orthodox will reunite. Maybe not in a visible way with a splash of celebration like the world does, but under persecution in the catecombs and underground. it seems so impossible now but I've always believed Jesus will return for one united Church. I'm confessional Lutheran but I am inquiring into orthodoxy and was seriously looking at the RCC at one time.

LizaMarie said:

This is weird but I've always believed(hoped) that someday-maybe not in my lifetime(I'm early '60's) that there would be a separation first between a world church which has clearly compromised with the world and true orthodox(small o) Christians. Then I think under severe persecution the Protestant sects will either return to Holy Orthodoxy or Rome to get under the wing of Apostolic Protection. Then Rome and Orthodox will reunite. Maybe not in a visible way with a splash of celebration like the world does, but under persecution in the catecombs and underground. it seems so impossible now but I've always believed Jesus will return for one united Church. I'm confessional Lutheran but I am inquiring into orthodoxy and was seriously looking at the RCC at one time.

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Only God knows how many days He will bless me with (im 29), but I believe that those in my generation who gets to live long lives will see something like this happening.
The raise of Islam and secularism provides a need for someone to blame and to "take it all out on".
I believe traditional Christians will be a very suitable choice.

Surely the distaste for Christ and "the old world" provokes the enlightenment inspired ideology. Besides as more and more churches grow benign towards globalism and religious syncretism we'll grow to become a more and more pain in the ass of the society.

It's only a matter of time I believe. Persecution doesnt come over night, but it slowly gains momentum.
We traditionalists have much more in common than we like to admit. I'd rather be called a heretic by a Orthodox priest for my belief in Transubstantiation than a unloving apostate by a gaylobbist cloathed in modern Catholicism.

It's better that we have our souls ignited by a love and passion for Christ than indifference. The fact that we're arguing and going off at one another at times only proves our love for Christ.
Its passion and love that are burning in our hearts and we seek to know him as best we can do.

The lukewarm only cares about cozy sweet talk. They dont give a ### about theology or knowledge of our God as long as we're friends.
Well, this is spiritual death coated in sugar frosting.

I too believe that we'll once again be united, but for that to happen the world must up its persecution and it does.

oops wrong post.

Stabat said:

Only God knows how many days He will bless me with (im 29), but I believe that those in my generation who gets to live long lives will see something like this happening.
The raise of Islam and secularism provides a need for someone to blame and to "take it all out on".
I believe traditional Christians will be a very suitable choice.

Surely the distaste for Christ and "the old world" provokes the enlightenment inspired ideology. Besides as more and more churches grow benign towards globalism and religious syncretism we'll grow to become a more and more pain in the ass of the society.

It's only a matter of time I believe. Persecution doesnt come over night, but it slowly gains momentum.
We traditionalists have much more in common than we like to admit. I'd rather be called a heretic by a Orthodox priest for my belief in Transubstantiation than a unloving apostate by a gaylobbist cloathed in modern Catholicism.

It's better that we have our souls ignited by a love and passion for Christ than indifference. The fact that we're arguing and going off at one another at times only proves our love for Christ.
Its passion and love that are burning in our hearts and we seek to know him as best we can do.

The lukewarm only cares about cozy sweet talk. They dont give a ### about theology or knowledge of our God as long as we're friends.
Well, this is spiritual death coated in sugar frosting.

I too believe that we'll once again be united, but for that to happen the world must up its persecution and it does.

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Agree with this completely.

Lord Jesus Christ God In The Name Of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit Please Keep The Church Together and help The Patriarchal Bishops to make the right decisions amen.


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rusmeister said:

“The shadow of one dark wing is over all Tellus.”

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(As an aside, am I right in thinking this is from CS Lewis’ That Hideous Strength? Maybe when Ransom was speaking to Merlin?)

“Paisios” said:

(As an aside, am I right in thinking this is from CS Lewis’ That Hideous Strength? Maybe when Ransom was speaking to Merlin?)

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Yep.