Two leading Judaic scholars seriously doubt Fr. Lurie's 'genetic claim to fame' [One is my contact from Brandeis University, Boston MA]. Fr. Gregory Lourie claims to be descended from the renown Israeli-born and Israeli-deceased Kabbalist "Isaac Louria" of the 16th century. The burden of proof is on Igumen Gregory Lourie to prove his spell-casting 'genetic claim to fame.' Marian Petty of the well-established "Heirlines Genealogical Services" [Est. 1972] spoke with me at length stating that a 400+ genealogical-trace backwards is considered by genealogists to be "outside the pale of credibility." She continued, "100 years retroactive is workable, 200 years backward is problematic, 400 years is insuperable." My contact at Brandeis University, Professor J. Rosenbloom is of the same opinion.
I begin setting forth my case against defrocked ROAC priest Lourie's 'genetic claim to fame' with this brief biography of the 'far-removed-from-Russia' Kabbalist "Isaac Louria."
1534 - Isaac Louria was born at Jerusalem to an Ashkenazi {German] father and a Sephardi [Spanish Marrano] mother. [It is conjectured by many Jewish Scholars that Isaac may have adopted the surname "Luria" later on in his adult years. [I suspect Fr. Gregory 'Lurie' of the the very same thing.]
1540 - Isaac Louria's father dies.
1541 - Isaac Louria's mother removes to Egypt were child Isaac is brought up by her rich brother Mordecai Francis, a tax-collector at Cairo Egypt who placed him under the best Jewish teachers.
1549 - At the age of fifteen Isaac Louria marries his cousin, and being amply provided for by his wealthy uncle, was enabled to continue his Jewish studies.
1551 - Isaac Louria pursues a career in business, but soon turns to asceticism and mysticism.
1551 - Isaac Louria at the age of twenty-two years old becomes engrossed in the study of the "Zohar," a thirteenth-century work of Kabbalah which had recently been printed for the first time, and adopts the life of a recluse.
1553 - Isaac Louria retreats to the banks of the Nile and visits his family once a week on the Sabbath day talking very little. [There is no record of Isaac Louria ever having children - Jewish scholars to a man simply state "we do not know."
1556 - At this time, [as Isaac Louria later informed his disciples], he claimed to have been often 'visited' by the prophet Elijah who revealed in 'interviews' with Louria, the 'mysteries' of heaven and earth .Louria claimed many such 'visits' by all the great Judaic 'lights' of the past both in interviews and by his soul ascending into heaven during his sleep to meet with past Jewish prophets and sages.
1569 - Luria moves to Safed, Israel. He forms a circle of kabbalists to whom he imparted his doctrines by means of which he hoped to establish a new basis for the moral system of the world based on the premise of a "chaotic" pre-eternal state to be resolved by [jewish] human efforts. [Safed Israel remains to this very day, a large community of Kabbalists and the center of Kabbalism in the world]
1570 - Disciples form around Isaac Louria, of which emerges his biographer Chaim Vital of Calabria who committed Isaac Louria's teachings to written form.They meet every Sabbath's Friday, and each confessed to another his sins. Lourie claimed that he could 'read' his disciple's foreheads and recognize specific reincarnated souls that were united to that person. In practice, Louria ritualized his own invocations and conjurations to dead Jewish sages, taking his disciples to their gravesites so as to receive their 'mystical emanations.' Louria led his disciples to believe that the prophet Elijah, his personal mentor, revealed this practice to him. [In all the above we see a merging of valid Christian conduct with outright occult practice, a very useful 'merging' for defrocked ROAC priest Lourie' priest.
1571 - Luria's kabbalistic circle gradually widened and became a separate congregation, in which his mystic doctrines were supreme, influencing all the religious ceremonies. On the Sabbath day. Luria dressed himself in white and wore a fourfold garment to signify the four letters of the 'Ineffable Name,' 'I AM THAT I AM' [YHVH].
1572 - Isaac Luria dies at the short-lived age of 38 yrs old in Safed, Israel.
2005 - Ultra-religious Jews known as Chasids, particularly the "Lubavitcher" sect, venerate "Ha Ari," [The Lion] Isaac Ben Solomon Luria as a great rabbinic master. To this day, October 13, 2005, you will find them congregating at Louria's grave-site in Safed Israel, conjuring 'down' his spirit to enter into theirs for a 'kabbalistic' salvation.
BOTTOM LINE - I challenge defrocked ROAC priest Gregory Lourie to demonstrate to this Forum that he is indeed a descendant of Isaac Louria, b. 1534 in Jerusalem; d. 1572 in Safed Israel. But be forewarned defrocked ROAC priest Gregory 'Lourie' - I've got evidence to the contrary.
Nathaniel/Psalm 143