The OCA

[NikolaiOJ]

I'm very sad to hear so much anti-OCA talk among Orthodox Christians.

I am to be crismated in an OCA parish in june. so this affects me personnaly.

This bickering among christians is one of the reasons I left Protestantism. and this severe legalism is what turned me off to being Latin. I hate to see it here.

Maybe some on this site should remember that Christ was merciful. We can only say where his grace is, we cannot say where it's not.

How can anyone on here say that granting economia to people who sicerly accepted baptism in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is wrong and is part of "Ecumenist Heresy".

[Justin Kissel]

Forgive me if I have offended, Nikolai. I know for a fact that I have stepped over the line at times in my rhetoric, and the memory of some of those times still stings me. On the other hand, I don't think we can ignore things when they are bad, and just "let the bishops take care of it". That's no more Orthodox than letting the laity run the Church (the opposite extreme). So I question. And maybe, in my more sinful moments, I rashly judged. I ask your forgiveness for the judging; though I also ask for your ear and words in response when I question.

I hope you are having a profitable Lent!

[romiosini]

Lord Have Mercy!

[Elijah]

First of all please forgive me a sinner if I come across as being offensive. I just wish to explain to my best ability why it is that traditionalist Orthodox Christians seem to come across as negative to ecumenical Orthodox Churches such as the OCA and don’t commune with them.

To start one must look closely at the word ecumenical and what it means:

Ecumenical: Concerned with establishing or promoting unity among churches or religions.

You see ecumenical Orthodox Churches such as the OCA are (whether they realize it or now) heading down the path to a one-world religion. To put it in even more serious and frightening terms the OCA is heading down the path to the anti-christ. I really don’t know of any soft way to say it, and I believe that maybe I shouldn’t try to soften my words for my greatest desire is for the OCA and other ecumenical Orthodox Churches to realize where there actions are leading them and to return to the true Church which Christ himself formed.

The canons and rules, which traditional Orthodox churches follow are NOT a random group of canons on rules we threw together. These are the canons and rules, which God has given us through his Son, the Apostles, and the Holy Fathers of the Church. A priest monk who was at the time at Holy Trinity Monastery once gave a metaphor to my mother. He explained that the traditional canons and rules which the Church has past down through the centuries are like the thin eggshell of our faith. Yes, the spirituality (inside of the egg) is what matters, but without the canons and the rules that spirituality will have no protection and will spill out and ultimately will be destroyed by the world.

Without the unchanged canons and rules of the true Church the spiritual understanding which, as you say Romiosini, is what really matters will eventually drift away. In fact just by dropping the canons and rules which Christ gave us shows a beginning of losing true spiritual understanding in itself. This is because the canons and rules were given to us to guide our spiritual life.

Again please forgive me a sinner if I have been offensive.

With love in Christ,
Elijah

[Daniel]

How can anyone on here say that granting economia to people who sicerly accepted baptism in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is wrong and is part of "Ecumenist Heresy".

Nikolai,
Please forgive me as well if I have personally offended you. I know I am often too harsh and abrupt in the things I say.

But I would like add to what Elijah said.

I do not object to the general use of economy, but more in the OCA's approach to it. Your above quote illistrates my concern. It gives the impression that you beleive what ever previous heterdox baptism you had was valid and effectual for salvation. There in lies the problem. No baptism outside the church is valid and salvific. In fact they are often called a pollution. Even the canons that deal with baptismal economy say that heretical/schismatc baptisms are of no effect.

What saddens me the most about the OCA's practice of receiving converts is that they would refuse to baptize you even if you asked to be! The only answer I got as to why that is done was a reference to a SCOBA agreement about how to receive most protestants. Otherwise I can only guess that why they refuse to baptize heterodox converts is they feel they are repeating a valid baptism.

again, I beg your forgives if I offended you.

in Christ,
Daniel

ps-Met. Anthony Khrapovitsky wrote an excelent essay on this subject entitled: THE BASIS ON WHICH ECONOMY MAY BE USED
IN THE RECEPTION OF CONVERTS

[Joseph D]

Elijah:

Actually, Ecumencial means something like "among the Orthodox Churches collectively." An organization like SCOBA is intended to be Ecumenical by the classic protocol.

The University I formerly attended, a private college affiliated with the Presbyterian "Church", proudly built a mosque on campus last year (and I mean the president of the University said it would be "the jewel of the campus"). When I asked the dean of Arts and Sciences why we were building a temple to the enemy's god, he responded that the board of directors was "just trying to be ecumenical."

"How can we be ecumenical with apostates?" I asked.

"I don't know what you mean," he said, apparently shocked.

I wondered to myself how a professor of Latin could be so misinformed. I quit that school, quite disgusted with their perverse cultural policies. It used to be a liberal arts college, but soon enough it will turn into a glorified trade school for sports scholars, "engineering" apprentices, and bio-business and other pre-professional charlatans. The whole world is dumbing down and the "Ecumenical movement" is simply a further element of it.

Sincerely:
Joseph

[Incedentally, Allan Watts' theory of education is by far the most ideal I have come across within the surview of Western post-industrial ethos -- he thought most "college" was a waste of time and money. And he was from the UK!]

[Waldemar]

[Re: "What saddens me the most about the OCA's practice of receiving converts is that they would refuse to baptize you even if you asked to be!"

I was baptized 4 years ago in an OCA parish.

I was immersed (single) in an evangelical Protestant Church years before. My priest consulted with Metropolitan Theodosius (my parish is in the Diocese of Washington, DC) and much to my delight, I was informed at my last catechetical session, "You will be baptized and chrismated!"

I didn't ask to be baptized (I don't believe that converts have the right to negotiate terms of their reception into the Church.) but submitted to the decision of my Priest and his Bishop.

I don't think you can make any blanket statements about how the OCA receives converts.