Yes. A VERY good point Anastasios.
An appeal from ROCA clergy
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Joe Zollars
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Etienne wrote:
Ania, can you run that past me again, 'cos I can't make sense of it? Sorry............
I was just supporting anastasios' statement... if we said those who collaborated with godless authorities are graceless heretics, we'd have to examine all the people the Orthodox church has had dealings with since the begining. Muslim Turks, Tartar & Roman pagans, and any and all athiests. I know people could say the that emporors of Constantinople & Rome were technically Christian after Constantine, BUT, some of them were completely corrupt & godless. And here's food for thought...
Stalin himself was a baptized Orthodox Chirstian.
Yes, over the centuries within the earthly Church there has always been tares and wheat.
Whether all these examples can be equated is, perhaps, something else. The Ottomans took money against any appointment for Patriarch. The doing away with the Russian Patriarchate and imposition of a "Holy Synod" by sovereigns who were at least 'superficially' Orthodox was on a par with the Soviet brutal and almost total suppression in the 20s and 30s, and the cynical 'resurrection' during World War 11, when the instrument of an openly and viciously anti-religious state gave its oppressed population a 'Church'; is on a par?
Yes, Stalin was a Georgian Orthodox Christian apostate and a cruel oppressor. He wanted the suppression of all religious belief. Indeed he and his successors produced more martyrs than in all the preceeding centuries.
I am unconvinced that anyone can say all the historical examples cited are on a par, as previously stated. Others will undoubtedly disagree. I will cling to my opinion - bolstered by listening to a liturgical 'hymn' composed by Peter the Great, and vainly looking for any equivalent contribution by Uncle Joe Stalin.
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尼古拉前执事
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Sergianism as a Heresy?
Here is a good explanation by an Archbishop as to why Sergianism is a heresy: http://www.euphrosynoscafe.com/forum/vi ... php?p=9186 and of course another essay on this can be found at http://www.russianorthodox-roac.com/10.html