What Is Up With Sr. Vassa?

[ZaidaBoBaida]

Vassa Larin

Please tell me I'm wrong, but it seems to me that she's saying that we should conform ourselves to the current culture and whatever happens to be in fashion right now in order to stay relevant?

I mean I know for me and many other converts part of what attracted us to the Orthodox Church was it's unchangingness.

Plus, I must admit - the picture of her out of her habit really bothers me. I don't know why. I even wondered if she's going to stop being a nun.

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

I don't trust her, Jay Dyer or Lazar Puhalo.

I feel like they have hidden agendas.

.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I definitely take what she says with a grain of salt.

 

[E.C.]

I don't trust her, Jay Dyer or Lazar Puhalo.

I feel like they have hidden agendas.

.

I've heard of Archbishop Lazar, but who's Jay Dyer?

I definitely take what she says with a grain of salt.

Same here.

For some reason I always got a weird Protestant-youth-minister-esque vibe from Sr Vassa and never listened to her podcasts. Something about a monastic that isn't the abbot or abbess, or a priest, broadcasting online just seems a little odd to me.

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

I've heard of Archbishop Lazar, but who's Jay Dyer?

YouTube

.

 

[prodromos]

Plus, I must admit - the picture of her out of her habit really bothers me. I don't know why. I even wondered if she's going to stop being a nun.

That, and all the positive comments her picture is receiving. There is a story of a monk who was complimented on his beautiful hair. He responded by dunking his scalp in scalding hot water so his hair would fall out. He felt that he was vulnerable to vainglory, so got rid of the potential cause.

 

[rusmeister]

A LOT of people in the Church are conforming to the world. It would be more accurate to say that we all come into the Church with our own baggage, and a lot of us think that baggage IS Orthodox belief. There is great unwillingness to lay aside wrong ideas that seem loving and sympathetic, kind and Christian, even though they violate what has been taught since the beginning. This is clearest in sexuality and marriage.
What she violates in her words here is a first principle. That while external practices may change, belief must be unchanging if it is truly eternal truth. If belief is something that can pass, then it is of this world. And even practices that are based on eternal truth and not merely how to conduct a service must fall under that. Thus, you really could argue about spoons. But things like a female diaconate, which in the past existed because of a specific need for women to assist in baptism of naked women is irrelevant today, because of a legitimate change in practice that determined that the baptizee need not be naked, and at the same time, cuts into the deeper reasons as to why clergy should be men in general, that we barely understand, but are connected to the mystery of sex, out of which God tells us to speak of Him as “Father” and not “Mother”, and Christ’s Incarnation as a Man, not a Woman or an Intersex (which would make a lot more sense out of the modern push to treat all humans as fully interchangeable and calling that “equality”).
I’m not trying to make this thread about that issue, though. It is about the rebellion against ancient practice and belief, the language that talks of a “living Tradition” more than of a living God, when they really mean “changing tradition”, one that conforms to the spirit of the world. It says that the past is irrelevant (unless we want it to be; the appeal to deaconesses in history is an example of that hypocrisy), and that we can make of the present what we will. It offers a false love that refuses to be tough love and speak hard truths, and hold hard standards. It seeks to take those standards and make economia the rule, and holding any standard an odd exception.

 

[buzuxi02]

She's a modernist. She is also inaccurate on church history. She needs to be silenced.

 

[tapi]

She has the blessing for her ministry from her bishop. It is unlikely that ROCOR revokes it, whether you like it or not.

 

[rusmeister]

She has the blessing for her ministry from her bishop. It is unlikely that ROCOR revokes it, whether you like it or not.

And thus the Church continually falls apart. It will never finally fall apart, but the damage done by people who mean well, Chesterton’s “splendid dupes” is far worse than the enemies outside the Church could do. The real dangers have always been among us, and the first one is a refusal to accept correction from our own Tradition.

So because our Tradition has authority to correct us, the very thing she and her followers reject, you are right, and no one here thinks they have the authority to remove or silence her. But we can still sorrow and regret her errors, and help warn each other and others against the nature of her error.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Same here.

For some reason I always got a weird Protestant-youth-minister-esque vibe from Sr Vassa and never listened to her podcasts. Something about a monastic that isn't the abbot or abbess, or a priest, broadcasting online just seems a little odd to me.

yeah, don't get me wrong, she has some good stuff (I even used some of her info to counter a schismatic who was on here a while back), but some of her other stuff is just off.

 

[Jesus4Madrid]

I feel a bit torn, since I agree with the general spirit of most of the comments here, whilst I also follow her and am convinced that she is a great witness who is faithful to the Orthodoxy of the Fathers.

I also don't get why she appears like that in the photo. It seems unnecessarily provocative and incongruous. If you are a nun, dress like one.

Before one throws around the term "modernist", which I am certainly not, I would just note that the issues she raises are, I think, ones about which reasonable Orthodox may disagree:

- autocephaly
- Church Calendar(s)
- divorce
- the female diaconate
- Post-COVID 19 approach to communion spoons

Can we not even discuss these issues without being labelled a "modernist"? These issues are very different from the innovations that liberals in other communions would like to introduce, such as in the Anglican and Catholic churches. She is not talking here about homosexuality, or pre-marital sex, or a female "priesthood" (don't lay hands on hairspray). So the issues she is addressing are not the sort that keep me up late at night worrying for the Church. I certainly don't think the Church is at risk of "falling apart" if we discuss these, unlike say homosexuality, where I frankly don't think there is much room for reasonable debate.

 

[rusmeister]

I feel a bit torn, since I agree with the general spirit of most of the comments here, whilst I also follow her and am convinced that she is a great witness who is faithful to the Orthodoxy of the Fathers.

I also don't get why she appears like that in the photo. It seems unnecessarily provocative and incongruous. If you are a nun, dress like one.

Before one throws around the term "modernist", which I am certainly not, I would just note that the issues she raises are, I think, ones about which reasonable Orthodox may disagree:

- autocephaly
- Church Calendar(s)
- divorce
- the female diaconate
- Post-COVID 19 approach to communion spoons

Can we not even discuss these issues without being labelled a "modernist"? These issues are very different from the innovations that liberals in other communions would like to introduce, such as in the Anglican and Catholic churches. She is not talking here about homosexuality, or pre-marital sex, or a female "priesthood" (don't lay hands on hairspray). So the issues she is addressing are not the sort that keep me up late at night worrying for the Church. I certainly don't think the Church is at risk of "falling apart" if we discuss these, unlike say homosexuality, where I frankly don't think there is much room for reasonable debate.

I'm surprised you left out the advice to the mother of the young man who was "coming out" as "homosexual". It is precisely that that shows that she is indeed a modernist. The term is apt and accurate. She calls on the Church to change with the times, to become like the world today. That is the essence of what the word "modern" means - that which goes with and changes with the times (chronos), and passes away with them, as opposed to kairos, the eternal. The terrible thing is that she combines the good things you mention about the actual teachings of Orthodoxy that she also says right and true things about. That's what makes her more deadly to the Church than any Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, or Muslim apologist - that she is active IN the Church, and HAS promoted and IS promoting these things. It is even right or necessary for the Church to declare that a person has excommunicated him or herself, though here if anyone, it is the bishops who know she is speaking and are silent and refuse to say anything to their fellow bishop who lets her do all of this. As Fr Matt said, it is supposed to be on the bishop, and I take from that that the most appropriate people to call out a bishop gone bad is other bishops in consensus. Her continued activism against the normal and traditional is a failure and the fault of the bishops. We can know this because we can ask our Tradition what the Church teaches. (Divorce between two practicing Orthodox Christians is a huge issue, by the way, that I now believe much more a closed issue and not nearly as open to individual situation, interpretation, and economia as many now think. Tradition points precisely the other way. But I missed what she has had to say specifically about divorce, and would be interested if anyone could point her words on that out.)

 

[rusmeister]

yeah, don't get me wrong, she has some good stuff (I even used some of her info to counter a schismatic who was on here a while back), but some of her other stuff is just off.

I think "off" is an understatement, to put it as gently as possible. It is that very mix of very true and very false that is the problem. I see the failure or refusal to turn to the saints and fathers and their huge consensus on many of these things to be the problem. Number one is that we need to set aside our own baggage, and submit WHATEVER we think, all of our opinions, to the test of what the Church teaches, everywhere that there is clear teaching, and be ready to give up whatever is in conflict with that. That is the very first principle of Orthodoxy, and what the very idea of a catechumenate is based on.
Is that not right?

 

[gzt]

I've heard of Archbishop Lazar, but who's Jay Dyer?

Jay Dyer's a recent convert who's very into conspiracy theories and telling popular Orthodox figures they're wrong and evil.

 

[gzt]

Sr Vassa's a very nice and very informed historian. However, as with anybody in the Church, she's just one voice among many expressing views you can take or leave. There's a lot of diversity in the Church.

I think her remarks here, however, are fairly intelligent and worthy of consideration and engagement even if you do end up disagreeing.

 

[Frugality]

Edited: I see the picture in question now.

 

[ArmyMatt]

I think "off" is an understatement, to put it as gently as possible. It is that very mix of very true and very false that is the problem. I see the failure or refusal to turn to the saints and fathers and their huge consensus on many of these things to be the problem. Number one is that we need to set aside our own baggage, and submit WHATEVER we think, all of our opinions, to the test of what the Church teaches, everywhere that there is clear teaching, and be ready to give up whatever is in conflict with that. That is the very first principle of Orthodoxy, and what the very idea of a catechumenate is based on.
Is that not right?

yes, we conform to the Church, not the other way around.

 

[Jesus4Madrid]

I'm surprised you left out the advice to the mother of the young man who was "coming out" as "homosexual". It is precisely that that shows that she is indeed a modernist. The term is apt and accurate. She calls on the Church to change with the times, to become like the world today. That is the essence of what the word "modern" means - that which goes with and changes with the times (chronos), and passes away with them, as opposed to kairos, the eternal. The terrible thing is that she combines the good things you mention about the actual teachings of Orthodoxy that she also says right and true things about. That's what makes her more deadly to the Church than any Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, or Muslim apologist - that she is active IN the Church, and HAS promoted and IS promoting these things. It is even right or necessary for the Church to declare that a person has excommunicated him or herself, though here if anyone, it is the bishops who know she is speaking and are silent and refuse to say anything to their fellow bishop who lets her do all of this. As Fr Matt said, it is supposed to be on the bishop, and I take from that that the most appropriate people to call out a bishop gone bad is other bishops in consensus. Her continued activism against the normal and traditional is a failure and the fault of the bishops. We can know this because we can ask our Tradition what the Church teaches. (Divorce between two practicing Orthodox Christians is a huge issue, by the way, that I now believe much more a closed issue and not nearly as open to individual situation, interpretation, and economia as many now think. Tradition points precisely the other way. But I missed what she has had to say specifically about divorce, and would be interested if anyone could point her words on that out.)

Yes, she did give bad advice to that mother, and was roundly criticised for that, including by me.

You should not be surprised that I left that out, because we were talking about her recent Facebook posting, that doesn't even mention homosexuality. If I were criticised in every post for things I said in other posts, I wouldn't want to post much.

We need to avoid the "slippery slope fallacy" whereby we avoid talking about relevant topic A, because we are afraid that it may lead to irrelevant or harmful topic B. Just because we don't want to discuss (and shouldn't) whether Jesus was begotten, not made, doesn't mean that we cannot discuss communion spoons (whose form have changed radically from the Early Church).

We do need to speak about spoons and autocephaly and the Church calendar because Orthodoxy looks a bit chaotic in the way that it is responding to a changing world. Leaving everything to oikonomia in practice means that we invite innovation, just what you seem to oppose.

And we need to speak about divorce, precisely because as you say it is a "huge issue". There is a heterogeneity of praxis in the Orthodox Church that is remarkable and maybe that needs to be corrected, but we can't do that if we cannot talk about it without being labelled a "modernist".

 

[buzuxi02]

She has the blessing for her ministry from her bishop. It is unlikely that ROCOR revokes it, whether you like it or not.

No she doesn't . She is a mouthpiece of the EP which was supposed to stop after severing ties with them. She is defiantly against her bishop.