Welcome new member Revnitel

[Matthew]

Greetings and Welcome to our new member, Revnitel!

Please tell us a little about yourself.

[Revnitel]

Thank you very much! I am a GOC. My journey to Orthodoxy began as a lapsed Catholic with a failed marriage and a copy of Jaroslav Pelikan's books on the history of Christian theology. A coworker of mine was becoming a Greek Orthodox nun and I was pointed in the direction of a Greek church. The organs and Vatican II atmosphere repulsed me. The miniskirt contests left me disappointed after the manly glimmer faded. I approached the priest one day and said, "Surely, you can do better than this?!" He asked, "What do you mean?" Then I began to tell him about modernism in the Catholic Church, how I was raised believing it was heresy, how we had a complete life in the papal church before Vatican II and how all the customs and celebrations withered away afterwards and how his Greek despite Orthodoxy church was doing the same thing. He didn't like it. Mumbled things about "obedience" to me. I said to him I remember that - you mean "obedience to the Chair of Peter - Wouldn't that make you all disobedient? So how can anyone be obedient to the disobedient? Explain to me how you can compel obedience, when you are denaturing its basis, FIDELITY." He didn't like that at all... All sorts of inane comments came out of his mouth, amongst which were the words "schismatic, fundamentalist, Old Calendarist".

I looked him directly in his dark eyes, forced a pause, and told him, "That is what Rome has been saying about you all for over 10 centuries. Are you sure you just aren't a papist playing Orthodox?!" "But you know the papal church you want to be like condemned the modernism you are espousing as heresy under Pius X."

I left with him stupefied, not knowing what to say, but angry. Then I googled schismatic, traditionalist, Old Calendarist, everything this man hated, because it probably was the Orthodoxy he was bastardizing and obscuring in his papal wannabe Greek social club church.

I found a community with HOCNA. That didn't last too long as it broke itself apart and about 36 months ago I received a copy of Orthodox Tradition and have visitied those GOC communities as well as others aligned with Astoria. I was baptized and chrismated and communed in a TOC church under Arch. Kallinikos.

I am a pharmacist, have no kids, like monastic diets and baroque music and work in the Detroit area. So gloom is a run of the mill occurence for me. Orthodoxy lifts me out of it. I am ethnically Scots, Welsh, Czech and Dutch.

[Matthew]

Dear Brother Revnitel,

Thank you for sharing your story with us. It is all the rage to bash the True Christians as "fundamentalists" and other terms. It is in vogue to talk of love and brotherhood, mutual understanding, tolerance, freedom of conscience, when relating to the Pope and the Protestants, muslims, and the rest. It is like the priest you encountered has been entirely "trained in all the learning of the Egyptians," as St. Paul says concerning Moses. Some will be wise like Moses and not be seduced by these false gods of those who presume they are civilised elites. Moses departed from Egypt and unlearned all that false knowledge and as a simple shepherd in the desert for 40 years he learned virtue and spiritual wisdom. The truth is found in obscure and isolated places both outwardly and inwardly isolated and obscure. The True Orthodox Believers are few in number and our faith obscure by modern standards. I hope you will be able to grow and find great joy in your parish there in Detroit. Fr Steven Allen is very good.

[Barbara]

Welcome.
What does this name mean ?

Sounds like Prof Magerovsky's Journal from the War days... I mean the war against the union...

Interesting discussion with the New Calendar Greek priest.

Did that friend actually go through with becoming a nun? Which convent was she headed for ?
Out of curiosity.

[Revnitel]

Revnitel is Russian for zealot. I learned it from a book I believe that was translated by Fr. Seraphim (Rose). I came across it in my early readings on my road to Orthodoxy. I liked it. She did go on to join a new calendarist Greek convent I believe in PA, Saxonburg. Good people there, even though they are indifferent to the parody of Orthodoxy going on in New Calendarist parishes.

[Barbara]

Oh ! Thans you very much for that translation. Nice.

This is the Home of the Zealots, so make yourself comfortable, you are among kindred spirits !

I wish that nun the best ; I am sure she is well intentioned.
Saxonburg ? Is that the one founded by the Romanian former princess, daughter of Queen Marie, who became an abbess?
No maybe that was an OCA convent in Pennsylvania.

[Maria]

Revnitel is Russian for zealot. I learned it from a book I believe that was translated by Fr. Seraphim (Rose). I came across it in my early readings on my road to Orthodoxy. I liked it. She did go on to join a new calendarist Greek convent I believe in PA, Saxonburg. Good people there, even though they are indifferent to the parody of Orthodoxy going on in New Calendarist parishes.

Welcome, Revnitel.

At first I thought that you were the Rev Nitel. :shock:

Good to know that "revnitel" means "zealot" in Russian.