Given that your "Church" was founded by genocidal tryants it is somehow not surprising that you would stick up for the MP.
That is a ridiculous ad-hominem attack and has nothing to do with anything.
With Love in Christ and prayers for your salvation,
Theophan.
Ugh. Don't use prayer as a further stick to beat someone.
Some of you may wonder why I am so upset by this. The answer is simple. I work very hard to present the GOC as a stable, normal Church (which it is) against those who think it is made up of wackos and nutcases, for the benefit of those who are watching. I have actually had some success in bringing people over through these labors (I give all glory to God of course). And then stupid arguments like this come along and people once again get bad ideas about the GOC.
For the record, I think the solution is simple: Theophan, you should apologize for making a claim you didn't have evidence to back up. I would not be surprised if there were icons of Stalin in some MP Churches but we can't go around making such claims without proof. That the people who got nasty with you are ecumenists are irrelevant. They are the people we are supposed to be missionizing but instead, by getting into such marginal arguments, we fail and drive them away--whether there are icons of Stalin in MP churches is in the end irrelevant since the MP is fallen into ecumenism anyway. The GOC for me has been a happy place, where my spiritual life has grown a million fold. It is the True Orthodox Church and I believe this with all my heart. But I long to see all men brought to it, not turned away from it. We need to post with sobriety and measured speak, not cracking the whip or allowing our frustration to come through. Our LOVE and TRANSFORMATION should show through, not our anger. Many things frustrate me about ecumenists and branch theorists who claim to be Orthodox, but sometimes we have to hold our tongue (and sometimes we do have to be blunt, but we must always be careful when to do which). I love these people so much and many of them are my friends. I want to share the wonders of the True Orthodox Church with them, not beat them down because of their Churches' errors.
Anastasios
Having scraped through the site, I find that this image is being referenced in a livejournal article. To whit, this one.
Babelfish isn't quite up to making sense of the text:
Закомиксованные апокрифические наветы на аватару Духа-Отца, Адама Фюрера и православного царя, воплащения Матери-Материи Лилит Сталина выложены в новом разделе "комиксы".
If the "icon" of Stalin is odd, the one to its left-- of Hitler-- is far more puzzling. (I have no hope of reading or even transcribing the inscriptions on it, though I'm guessing the upper right word is "Adolf".)
Dear Theophan,
With all due respect I and others are still waiting for evidentiary support of your claim that the MP hierarchy somehow approves of or condones icons of Stalin in its parishes today or in the recent past. If you cannot produce reasonably convincing physical or documentary evidence of known provenance to support your allegations, then the honorable and intellectually honest thing to do would be to retract your claims for the time being. If later you should find such evidence, then of course it would be proper to reopen the discussion. As I stated at the other forum, so long as your claims remain both unsupported and unretracted, you are in fact defaming a real organization and real people, which is a serious spiritual and ethical matter, and potentially even a legal matter. Theophan, you would do well to heed Anastasios' advice on this.
For the record, my interest in this matter is purely personal. I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the MP or any Russian jurisdiction, including ROCOR or the OCA. Nor do I have any direct or indirect association with these jurisdictions. Nor do I have any ties to Russia in general or interest in defending those of Russian ethnicity or heritage. In short, I have no dog in the fight except an interest in what is factually true or factually false. I say all this because you seem to have a predilection for ad hominem type arguments.
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely Yours,
Brian
Brian wrote:Dear Theophan,
With all due respect I and others are still waiting for evidentiary support of your claim that the MP hierarchy somehow approves of or condones icons of Stalin in its parishes today or in the recent past. If you cannot produce reasonably convincing physical or documentary evidence of known provenance to support your allegations, then the honorable and intellectually honest thing to do would be to retract your claims for the time being. If later you should find such evidence, then of course it would be proper to reopen the discussion. As I stated at the other forum, so long as your claims remain both unsupported and unretracted, you are in fact defaming a real organization and real people, which is a serious spiritual and ethical matter, and potentially even a legal matter. Theophan, you would do well to heed Anastasios' advice on this.
For the record, my interest in this matter is purely personal. I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the MP or any Russian jurisdiction, including ROCOR or the OCA. Nor do I have any direct or indirect association with these jurisdictions. Nor do I have any ties to Russia in general or interest in defending those of Russian ethnicity or heritage. In short, I have no dog in the fight except an interest in what is factually true or factually false. I say all this because you seem to have a predilection for ad hominem type arguments.
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely Yours,
Brian
Father Nicolai also has come across such things as he stated in the beinging of this thread. Documentation is coming.
Theophan.
GOCTheophan wrote:Brian wrote:Dear Theophan,
With all due respect I and others are still waiting for evidentiary support of your claim that the MP hierarchy somehow approves of or condones icons of Stalin in its parishes today or in the recent past. If you cannot produce reasonably convincing physical or documentary evidence of known provenance to support your allegations, then the honorable and intellectually honest thing to do would be to retract your claims for the time being. If later you should find such evidence, then of course it would be proper to reopen the discussion. As I stated at the other forum, so long as your claims remain both unsupported and unretracted, you are in fact defaming a real organization and real people, which is a serious spiritual and ethical matter, and potentially even a legal matter. Theophan, you would do well to heed Anastasios' advice on this.
For the record, my interest in this matter is purely personal. I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the MP or any Russian jurisdiction, including ROCOR or the OCA. Nor do I have any direct or indirect association with these jurisdictions. Nor do I have any ties to Russia in general or interest in defending those of Russian ethnicity or heritage. In short, I have no dog in the fight except an interest in what is factually true or factually false. I say all this because you seem to have a predilection for ad hominem type arguments.
I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely Yours,
BrianFather Nicolai also has come across such things as he stated in the beinging of this thread. Documentation is coming.
And by the way of course it would be in the recent past or today. The MP was a lot "saner" actually during the USSR period than it is today.
Theophan.
Anastasios wrote:Some of you may wonder why I am so upset by this. The answer is simple. I work very hard to present the GOC as a stable, normal Church (which it is) against those who think it is made up of wackos and nutcases, for the benefit of those who are watching. I have actually had some success in bringing people over through these labors (I give all glory to God of course). And then stupid arguments like this come along and people once again get bad ideas about the GOC.
For the record, I think the solution is simple: Theophan, you should apologize for making a claim you didn't have evidence to back up. I would not be surprised if there were icons of Stalin in some MP Churches but we can't go around making such claims without proof. That the people who got nasty with you are ecumenists are irrelevant. They are the people we are supposed to be missionizing but instead, by getting into such marginal arguments, we fail and drive them away--whether there are icons of Stalin in MP churches is in the end irrelevant since the MP is fallen into ecumenism anyway. The GOC for me has been a happy place, where my spiritual life has grown a million fold. It is the True Orthodox Church and I believe this with all my heart. But I long to see all men brought to it, not turned away from it. We need to post with sobriety and measured speak, not cracking the whip or allowing our frustration to come through. Our LOVE and TRANSFORMATION should show through, not our anger. Many things frustrate me about ecumenists and branch theorists who claim to be Orthodox, but sometimes we have to hold our tongue (and sometimes we do have to be blunt, but we must always be careful when to do which). I love these people so much and many of them are my friends. I want to share the wonders of the True Orthodox Church with them, not beat them down because of their Churches' errors.
Anastasios
Anastasios, it was a throw away comment about something I believed was a generally accepted phenomena- however I see I was wrong about that. Documentation God willing will arrive. Do you require written documentation all the time when some one in the real world tells you something? When the evidence does arrive I doubt it will be sufficient or could ever be so for some.
These are the type of people who turned a blind eye to what was happening in the days of the USSR- remember how the MP was accepted by all the mighty and sensible of the world while ROCOR was ostrisised for speaking the truth? Do you honestly believe that the vast majiority of modernists and false ecumenists stay away from the True Church because they believe it is false and driven by "wackoness"? Also they have the lives and writings of saints which are readily available to show them the wonders of True Orthodoxy in a way much clearer and better than I or indeed you either could.
Also the MP fell away because of Sergianism and not false Ecumenism.
Sergianism remains at the core of the MP's apostasy- false ecumenism is a side issue as far as that "Church" is concerned and indeed its policy in that regard could well change at it's masters bidding.
It was a mistake for me to joined OC.net for that ask your forgiveness.
Theophan.
