This topic has been split from the following thread: http://www.euphrosynoscafe.com/forum/vi ... 033#p56360
I read the entire short piece now.
As an aside, what does he imply by this :
"There are women who ignore the needs of their kids because they're too consumed by the Internet."
That women are on facebook, I guess ? Whatever would make them that obsessed, though, that they couldn't stop their
social site to take care of a child ? I can't imagine that. Is it common here in America ?
I wonder about the rest of the world, too ?
About that article, though, like all of his, it has a shallow character which doesn't leave one feeling educated by what he had to say.
Compare his [to ME : meandering] writing with the powerful expression of Bishop Akakije in the Annunciation sermon.
There is NONE.
Abbot Tryphon is kindly but too wishy washy for my taste. I can see why he went for the union indiscriminately.
He gives out usual material, nothing original.
Whereas, Bishop Akakije's words are FIERY and FIERCE, the way they NEED to be !
Lastly, at the risk of offending some, I used to once in a long time look at that morning offering, maybe just for the Saints of the Day.
But i stopped completely when I saw an essay by this Abbot awhile back sounding - to me - way too open to homosexuals for someone in Rocor.
He sounded like maybe SOME in the OCA might. But not even all OCA members : many -- from the look of that one blog Maria mentioned a long time ago are adamantly against them.
To sum up, I feel this Abbot does more harm than good in his 'internet prosetylization efforts'.
Even "petty things" bother me [his latest essay]. For example, it SEEMS that to "sell" gatherings organized at that Monastery, he entices people with mention of some kind of Lenten Chocolate Cake. I predict he won't attract very discerning souls when having to resort to appeal to the generic love of sugar and chocolate. Only very average souls.
Sugar and chocolate are both antithetical to the ascetic life. They attract DEMONS. So it's a poor advertisement for a spiritual retreat !
Well, there is a place for everyone, but one can see WHY this Abbot would have been railing against our True Orthodox Churches,
though I didn't happen to see that essay. I couldn't stand to stay any longer on that site !
P.S.: He talked about his talk on "Fasting according to the Early Fathers" as being able to be generated by internet research alone.
But to me, picking up a REAL BOOK is infinitely more useful and satisfying ! One can thumb through other pages easily or let it fall open to a
particular page which maybe is what God wishes us to see first and foremost, rather than what WE imagine we need to look up.
A cold, digitized, one-dimensional computer screen can not remotely substitute for thumbing through a solid BOOK. That's my opinion.
So again, his glowing praise of the internet for research is not borne out, at least for many of us.
