To Metropolitan Paul of Astoria

[Incognito1583]

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[nicholas candela]

INCOGNITO: Those bishops who declared the NC churches without grace at that time, did not represent the universeal consensus of the Orthodox episcopate.

NICHOLAS: Who DID, the Bishop of Rome was came up with the innovation? The Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jeruslaem and other hierarchs, and the representatives of the newly-formed Russian Patriarchate certainly expressed the mind of the Church, as you do NOT.

INCOGNITO: So the question arises: did they have the authority to take these matters into their own hands?

NICHOLAS: Rather than WHAT, wait for you to come along to teach them how to resist the calendar innovation?

As for your current insistence that the Lord Himself gave the Papapcy a DIvine right to rule over all the churches, and even Saint Maximos the Confessor accepted this "Divine right": the Saint reposed in 662 A.D. Had Rome yet apostatized? So your "argument" is fallacious. Besides, are you certain the citation from St Maximos is authentic? The Marist Father Migne who edited the Patriologiae Graeca (PG) was a Papist who included interpolations in his editions of the Fathers. In my essay AGAINST PAPISM I have included 10 pages of Papist interpolations in documents purporting to support Papal Supremacy.

You are fooling yourself if you believe the honorary primacy accorded Rome by the Ecumenical Councils--- because she was the place where Saints Peter and Paul were martyred and she was the capital of the Empire---will ever return (it's like longing for the time when Arios was Orthodox), for today Rome is not any source of unity whatsoever, except for all the syncretist ecumenists she can muster. Because of Rome' s false teachings, today there are Roman Catholics who do not accept anything Rome has taught since 1870. Because of Rome's false teachings, today there are Roman Catholics who are sede vacantists, believing there has been no Pope since Pius XII died in 1958. Today there are Roman Catholics who reject Rome's teachings on Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. Far from uniting as one all true Christians, Rome holds within her bosom men and women who practice contraception, who divorce and remarry, who procure abortions, who reject the male priesthood and episcopacy. You can say these are apostate Roman Catholics, but from the Orthodox point of view PAPISM ITSELF is apostate. You are not honest when you say St Photios the Great died "in communion with" Rome, as if this means the Rome of today has some credibility, as if Saint Photios made some announcment of his love of Rome. St Photios reposed knowing he had defeated in argument the tyrannical Pope Nicholas. In his MYSTAGOGY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT Saint Photios proved that the filioque was not only an illicit additon to the Creed the entire Church had agreed upon and had agreed not to add to, but he proved that the teaching was heretical. So I don't know what kind of "communion with Rome" you are saying he enjoyed, since his mind, his nous, was completely Byzantine. Besides, he died in 890, before Rome had officially added the filioque to the Creed; before Rome removed the chalice from the people; before Rome abandoned Orthodox ikonography and began to use humanistic portraiture; before Rome introduced Western music into its liturgical life; before Rome began to use unleavevend bread for the Eucharist; before Rome put pews in the churches; before Rome's clergy began to shave; before Rome began to persecute the Orthodox, sacking Constantinople and putting a prostitute on the throne of the Patriarch, invading Orthodox Russia through her obedient Poles and Lithuanians; before Rome formed the Unia through its antichrist method of violence; before Rome had declared the Virgin to have been immaculately conceived; before Rome declared the bishop of Rome to be infallible; before Rome's Franciscans oversaw the concentration camps where 800,000 Orthodox Serbs perished; before Rome exacted of her flock obeisance to all the Christian denominations and all the religions of this world: in other words, before the pan-heresy of ecumenism. So your argument that St Photios died at peace with Rome is specious.

Nicholas Candela

[byzantinestudio]

You've missed my point because you want to be in your confused state. You aren't really looking for answers or for help. You're letter is only a means for you to nag and point fingers and judge. Totally un-Christian behaviour.

You lack faith and are not looking for anything to help your faith.

This entire discussion should be ignored by all because it is nothing more than an attempt to cause problems.

[Incognito1583]

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[Incognito1583]

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[nicholas candela]

INCOGNITO:If I didn't express the mind of the Church, I would not be an old calendar traditionalist today

NICHOLAS: You are an Old Calendarist traditionalist and you think the Papists have a leg to stand on, even in "the early Church"?

Look, come out of hiding, send me your name and address and I will send you a cassette of my essay AGAINST PAPISM. That will help you out of the dead end you are rushing to. My email is nicholas_38018@yahoo.com. I guarentee if you listen to the essay, you will never say a good word about the Papacy again.

Nicholas Candela

[Incognito1583]

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