Roman Catholic Godparents in Greek and Antiochian Parishes

[timothyvargas]

Thankyou Timothy for this info.

Your very welcome!

All I know is the Greek Orthodox are not allowed to partake, also we are not allowed to recieve through any other church but orthodox.

Now you KNOW more! The official position of the Patriarch of Turkey (EP) is to allow intercommunion, and accepts the validity of the priesthood and mysteries of the Roman Catholics, Monophysites and Anglicans. Until a retraction of these documents from the Patriarchates of Turkey, Antioch and Moscow, we should not be surprised of reports of intercommunion with non-Orthodox.

Its sounds as if you disagree with the official position of your Patriarch.

[ANGELA]

I know there are problems, however God will be the judge in the end.

I can only love God and my faith and pray.

[Maria]

I know there are problems, however God will be the judge in the end.

I can only love God and my faith and pray.

I will pray for you too.

For 15 years while I was in worldwide Orthodoxy, I buried my head in the sand thinking the dust would blow over, but finally, after hearing several bishops preaching a false ecumenism and no longer upholding the Fathers of the Church regarding *certain items of faith and morality, I realized that I could no longer support their dioceses and those with whom they were in communion.

On forums which advocate worldwide orthodoxy, I try to encourage inquirers and catechumens to learn the true faith, and I pray for them. However, knowing my own struggles when I left Catholicism and worldwide Orthodoxy and how close I came to losing my faith altogether, I am careful not to promote True Orthodoxy on those forums dedicated to Worldwide Orthodoxy as it would only backfire, and I would be ridiculed and labeled as a member of "The One True Old Posters of the Genuine Ancient Way in Exile From Christian Forums Resistance in Communion with Baklavas Synod in Exile Abroad." Hey Baklava sounds good! Anyway, such labeling would just close the minds of any inquirers to the Truth as they would associate me with the likes of Bishop DraperyRod. I will have to find a picture of him. However, on a more serious note, if individuals from those forums were to ask for my opinion by PM or email, then I would respond, and indeed have responded in a charitable manner where I encourage them to look into True Orthodoxy.

So, Euphrosynos Cafe remains the only forum where I have been freely sharing my conversion experiences in the open and private forums, and where I am standing up for True Orthodoxy.

• Ecumenism concerning Baptism and Holy Communion, not obeying the valid laws of the land, translating the Holy Services and the Holy Bible into a low vernacular with inclusive language, modesty, fornication, homosexuality, abortion, and abortive birth control (ABC), were just some of the issues that concerned me. For example, in the OCA and GOARCH, it was/is commonplace for known active homosexuals to serve in choirs, parish councils, metropolitan councils and/or as Archons, where they caused/cause much dissension. Many moms in the OCA and Greek Orthodox parishes told parish priests that they could not dictate to their young daughters (as early as six years old) what to wear to church or buy in the stores, so immodesty in dress with short short mini skirts and dangerously plunging necklines was allowed. Not surprisingly, many of these pre-teens and teenagers grew up and abandoned their faith. However, modest children stayed within the church or transferred over to the True Orthodox jurisdictions.

[ANGELA]

Thankyou Maria.

God will judge all of us and the Bishops. When I go to Church I go for God, Jesus, Panagia, Saints and our Angels and for myself.

God judges differently than we judge, and He judges correctly.

[joasia]

Maria wrote:

On forums which advocate worldwide orthodoxy, I try to encourage inquirers and catechumens to learn the true faith, and I pray for them. However, knowing my own struggles when I left Catholicism and worldwide Orthodoxy and how close I came to losing my faith altogether, I am careful not to promote True Orthodoxy on those forums dedicated to Worldwide Orthodoxy as it would only backfire, and I would be ridiculed and labeled as a member of "The One True Old Posters of the Genuine Ancient Way in Exile From Christian Forums Resistance in Communion with Baklavas Synod in Exile Abroad." Hey Baklava sounds good! Anyway, such labeling would just close the minds of any inquirers to the Truth as they would associate me with the likes of Bishop DraperyRod. I will have to find a picture of him. However, on a more serious note, if individuals from those forums were to ask for my opinion by PM or email, then I would respond, and indeed have responded in a charitable manner where I encourage them to look into True Orthodoxy.

So, Euphrosynos Cafe remains the only forum where I have been freely sharing my conversion experiences in the open and private forums, and where I am standing up for True Orthodoxy.

Hey, I feel the same way. When I wrote something a little traditional-minded, I got blasted.

[JHunt777]

For 15 years while I was in worldwide Orthodoxy, I buried my head in the sand thinking the dust would blow over, but finally, after hearing several bishops preaching a false ecumenism and no longer upholding the Fathers of the Church regarding *certain items of faith and morality, I realized that I could no longer support their dioceses and those with whom they were in communion.

• Ecumenism concerning Baptism and Holy Communion, not obeying the valid laws of the land, translating the Holy Services and the Holy Bible into a low vernacular with inclusive language, modesty, fornication, homosexuality, abortion, and abortive birth control (ABC), were just some of the issues that concerned me. For example, in the OCA and GOARCH, it was/is commonplace for known active homosexuals to serve in choirs, parish councils, metropolitan councils and/or as Archons, where they caused/cause much dissension. Many moms in the OCA and Greek Orthodox parishes told parish priests that they could not dictate to their young daughters (as early as six years old) what to wear to church or buy in the stores, so immodesty in dress with short short mini skirts and dangerously plunging necklines was allowed. Not surprisingly, many of these pre-teens and teenagers grew up and abandoned their faith. However, modest children stayed within the church or transferred over to the True Orthodox jurisdictions.

All of the problems you mention above are certainly problems. They are not excusable and we should pray that such things will be corrected before the hierarchs and clergy which have permitted such abuses have to answer for such things before God. However, reading such lists of abuses (which in my experience are not found in every parish of “Worldwide Orthodoxy”, thank God), I do wonder to what extent the problems we see today are much different than the problems that existed in the churches during the time of the Fathers. St. John Chrysostom would often speak in his homilies of the very poor state of church life even in the churches where he would preach and over which he presided. St. Basil, in his letters, also spoke often of how the churches during his time were being overrun by heretics and the level of Christian piety seemed to be at an almost hopeless low. Reading the words of such Fathers as Sts. John Chrysostom and Basil the Great, the state of church life in “Worldwide Orthodoxy” today, while perhaps very bad in some cases, does not seem to come close to the state of the churches in the past. For instance:

St. John Chrysostom,
Homily VI on St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians
http://m.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf113.iii.iv.vii.html

Plagues too, teeming with untold mischiefs, have lighted upon the Churches. The chief offices have become saleable. Hence numberless evils are springing, and there is no one to redress, no one to reprove them. Nay, the disorder has assumed a sort of method and consistency. Has a man done wrong, and been arraigned for it? His effort is not to prove himself guiltless, but to find if possible accomplices in his crimes. What is to become of us? since hell is our threatened portion. Believe me, had not God stored up punishment for us there, ye would see every day tragedies deeper than the disasters of the Jews. What then? however let no one take offence, for I mention no names; suppose some one were to come into this church to present you that are here at this moment, those that are now with me, and to make inquisition of them; or rather not now, but suppose on Easter day any one, endued with such a spirit, as to have a thorough knowledge of the things they had been doing, should narrowly examine all that came to Communion, and were being washed [in Baptism] after they had attended the mysteries; many things would be discovered more shocking than the Jewish horrors. He would find persons who practise augury, who make use of charms, and omens and incantations, and who have committed fornication, adulterers, drunkards, and revilers,—covetous, I am unwilling to add, lest I should hurt the feelings of any of those who are standing here. What more? Suppose any one should make scrutiny into all the communicants in the world, what kind of transgression is there which he would not detect? and what if he examined those in authority? Would he not find them eagerly bent upon gain? making traffic of high places? envious, malignant, vainglorious, gluttonous, and slaves to money?

Where then there is such impiety as this going on, what dreadful calamity must we not expect?

St. Basil the Great
On the Holy Spirit, chapter 30
http://m.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf208.vii.xxxi.html

But what storm at sea was ever so fierce and wild as this tempest of the Churches? In it every landmark of the Fathers has been moved; every foundation, every bulwark of opinion has been shaken: everything buoyed up on the unsound is dashed about and shaken down… We see, as it were, whole churches, crews and all, dashed and shattered upon the sunken reefs of disingenuous heresy, while others of the enemies of the Spirit of Salvation have seized the helm and made shipwreck of the faith. And then the disturbances wrought by the princes of the world have caused the downfall of the people with a violence unmatched by that of hurricane or whirlwind. The luminaries of the world, which God set to give light to the souls of the people, have been driven from their homes, and a darkness verily gloomy and disheartening has settled on the Churches. The terror of universal ruin is already imminent, and yet their mutual rivalry is so unbounded as to blunt all sense of danger. Individual hatred is of more importance than the general and common warfare, for men by whom the immediate gratification of ambition is esteemed more highly than the rewards that await us in a time to come, prefer the glory of getting the better of their opponents to securing the common welfare of mankind. So all men alike, each as best he can, lift the hand of murder against one another. Harsh rises the cry of the combatants encountering one another in dispute; already all the Church is almost full of the inarticulate screams, the unintelligible noises, rising from the ceaseless agitations that divert the right rule of the doctrine of true religion, now in the direction of excess, now in that of defect… Every one is a theologue though he have his soul branded with more spots than can be counted. The result is that innovators find a plentiful supply of men ripe for faction, while self-appointed scions of the house of place-hunters reject the government of the Holy Spirit and divide the chief dignities of the Churches. The institutions of the Gospel have now everywhere been thrown into confusion by want of discipline; there is an indescribable pushing for the chief places while every self-advertiser tries to force himself into high office. The result of this lust for ordering is that our people are in a state of wild confusion for lack of being ordered; the exhortations of those in authority are rendered wholly purposeless and void…

Furthermore, one can find Masonic and ecumenist hierarchs even prior to the 1920s. Patriarch Joachim III, who consecrated Metropolitan Chrysostom of Florina to the episcopacy, was a Freemason and an Ecumenist. His name appears on the lists of the Grand Lodge of Greece and in his 1904 Encyclical he spoke of the need for rapprochement with Roman Catholics and Protestants and “the unity of them and all who believe in Christ.” Anglicans were given communion in Serbia with the blessing of the patriarch in the mid 1800s, and instances of intercommunion between Orthodox and Roman Catholics (and other heretics) can also be found in various parts of the world even after the Council of Florence. This does not mean that any of these things were or are justifiable, but I think we have to be careful about drawing any conclusions about the Church based on such abuses. If we say that certain abuses which occur today imply that “Worldwide Orthodoxy” is no longer the Church and is deprived of grace, we would have to conclude that the Church became deprived of grace, and altogether vanished, many centuries ago.

[Ephrem]

Furthermore, one can find Masonic and ecumenist hierarchs even prior to the 1920s. Patriarch Joachim III, who consecrated Metropolitan Chrysostom of Florina to the episcopacy, was a Freemason and an Ecumenist. His name appears on the lists of the Grand Lodge of Greece and in his 1904 Encyclical he spoke of the need for rapprochement with Roman Catholics and Protestants and “the unity of them and all who believe in Christ.” Anglicans were given communion in Serbia with the blessing of the patriarch in the mid 1800s, and instances of intercommunion between Orthodox and Roman Catholics (and other heretics) can also be found in various parts of the world even after the Council of Florence. This does not mean that any of these things were or are justifiable, but I think we have to be careful about drawing any conclusions about the Church based on such abuses. If we say that certain abuses which occur today imply that “Worldwide Orthodoxy” is no longer the Church and is deprived of grace, we would have to conclude that the Church became deprived of grace, and altogether vanished, many centuries ago.

Forgive me, but you have got it all wrong. Abuses are not the reason that the World Orthodox are deprived of grace. There are "abuses" even in True Orthodoxy, and may God forgive us for them! Abuses aren't the same as heresy. The difference between abuse and heresy is the way we react to reproof from those who are strong in the faith.

If there is repentance, then we are guilty of abuse, and subsequently we must face the consequences. This is where the canons against praying with heretics come into play, for instance. If a priest prays with Jews or heretics out of ignorance or out of fear of persecution, then he is guilty and must be censured in accordance with the canons. Here we have an example of abuse. Yet, when the priest prays with Jews or heretics because he believes in their impious teachings or gives them sort sort of validity, then he is anathema, completely excluded from the Church. Such is the difference between the abuses you mention and the actual, evident heresy found in the World Orthodox Churches.

Take, for instance, the example of the current Patriarch of Constantinople. He is not a heretic because he broke the canons against praying with Jews and heretics; he is a heretic because he dares to say that the Orthodox and the Catholics are two lungs of the same body. He is not merely worthy of canonical censure; he is under anathema!

Such is the difference between abuse and heresy. Abuse makes us guilty, and so we are punished by the Church. Heresy makes us guilty also, yet when we are stubborn in heresy we are put out of the Church, and must answer to God. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."