Discord Spillover Was "The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church"

[Suaidan]

If you want to start a discussion on that, you can have it. I rather wouldn't do that, if I were you.

Really. You must have some insight into my own motivations of which I'm unaware.

Please. Tell me more. Share with the class.

[Suaidan]

Now please delete this thread. You were able to do so with the Discord, so you can do it.

HAHAHA

Welcome to the St Euphrosynos Cafe! Things don't get deleted here because some guy on a Commie app says so lol

[Barbara]

Thanks for everyone's contributions toward presenting a picture of what's going on at Esphigmenou.
Did i understand that it's Pat. Bartholomew who is behind this operation, piqued that the monastery dares to defy him and won't submit to the EP ?
Is that the core of the problem ?

Then the monks have no recourse to anyone else to stand up for them because they are canonical loners ?

Is there a support group online for them - or a fundraising site that has been set up ? Maybe not, it sounds like !

Unseen Warfare, if you haven't already, why don't you tell us about your bacground finding Orthodoxy and the various places you were when acquiring knowledge along the way ? It would be interesting for readers to hear, or anyone just finding this site due to this thread. After all, there probably isn't too much material out there in English [says Icthys the fish], so interested persons might find their way to this website and this very thread.

Almond : nice to see you bac here ! Are you still planning on visiting the States this year ? Hope your jewelry business is doing well !

[Suaidan]

Thanks for everyone's contributions toward presenting a picture of what's going on at Esphigmenou.
Did i understand that it's Pat. Bartholomew who is behind this operation, piqued that the monastery dares to defy him and won't submit to the EP ?
Is that the core of the problem ?

Then the monks have no recourse to anyone else to stand up for them because they are canonical loners ?

Is there a support group online for them - or a fundraising site that has been set up ? Maybe not, it sounds like !

If you go to http://esphigmenou.com you can support the monks through different fundraising means. Obviously they can't have a gofundme, or the EP would shut it down.

[Suaidan]

"Let nothing be done without the bishop. See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop." - Epistle to the Smyrnaeans (St. Ignatius)

Following your logic and applying it to Esphigmenou, a local Church ceases to practically exist when the Bishop reposes and can do nothing until he's replaced. I argue you're misreading St Ignatius.

I'm not trying to enforce any discord server rules because frankly I don't care about discord.

You, hours ago:

Unseen broke the rules of the server, that's why he was banned, wherein he would misrepresent points people made and argue for hours against the points that didn't even belong to the people he was arguing against. When that would fail he would go to DMs just to profane others (really masculine behavior there, dude).
So strike two.

Of course, that's piggybacking off of previous posts on this thread completely focused on your Discord (which was also plugged here to "show proof") after saying that there are screenshots of Unseen allegedly bullying people and further an insinuation that I shut down my server for nefarious reasons when I was public enough to do a YouTube video on the thing.

If @Bruder Klaus has more he'd like to contribute on my motivations, he's welcome to.

There's a misrepresentation of the points made by us that is being misunderstood on the other side. Nobody, and I repeat, NOBODY said Esphigmenou deserves death and cops barging on their monasteries and having a bunch of Bart worshippers taking over. When it was said "brought this upon themselves" the isolation, the isolation from the rest of the TO world was brought upon themselves.

They aren't "isolated from the rest of the TO world"; different factions recognize different Bishops, and so Abbot Methodius' solution to commemorate all Orthodox Bishops to retain the brotherhood's unity is pastoral.

(Skipping the Greek part, I literally said nothing about that)

Their struggle against Ecumenism is a blessed one, but they've made mistakes that made everyone else distance themselves from them. Which happens, it's a thing humans do, mistakes. Their stance against barcodes is an extremely strict one, they don't remove barcodes, they won't touch anything having barcodes, which includes the things you've removed the barcodes from, Father. To them, you've filled your altar with demonic artifacts. It's not a case of being wary of surveillance, nobody thinks that CBDCs aren't a problem or that tracking doesn't exist.

Well, if they told me I'd filled my altar with demonic artifacts then I guess I'd have to look for a better way to light things in the altar (and I'm working on it.) The point is the monastics are the STANDARD for the way of the Church. It's a given we'd fall below it, but we should at least aspire to it. Having such nasty artifacts is still in my opinion better than putting the mark of the beast in my altar, so it helps me have a goal.

My point regarding being anti-Augustine pertained to the people in the server, not the Greek TOs in general.

Exactly, because among the Greek TO's this is a dead question. So why is it a question on your server?

An abbot is not a bishop, Esphigmenou is still the only non-commemorating monastic body in Athos without a bishop, and yes, that does mean they're headless, because they're a clerical and monastic collective without an episcopacy overseeing them. Doesn't mean they're not Orthodox, but it does mean they have no bishop, ergo, headless.

Monasteries are technically independent through the Abbot, and the Abbot subscribes to the Bishop. That said, as True Orthodox, we all know what "headless" means-- World Orthodox ecumenists apply it to us all the time. So stop trying to matter-of factly insult the struggle of holy monastics.

My salvation and Unseen's salvation are our own personal struggles and we're free to see to them as much as we want. The only reason I popped in the thread, was because both Byzantophile and Rocaremnant were being misrepresented and the fact that they're unable to have their own opinions and scrutinize errors because they're not Athonite monastics, is fallacious, an appeal to authority. You don't have to be a priest to criticize, were we supposed to silence ourselves when the Chrysostomos of Attica gave away relics?

Once again: this isn't Discord. I don't know what you're talking about, but the Cafe has a literal open thread on the topic right here: https://euphrosynoscafe.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12898

To add to it, these criticisms do not belong only to a bunch of "blue haired discord communists" but to a lot of clergy and monastics within TO, that's why the other synods won't make a statement in outright support of Esphigmenou.

Now you've misrepresented me. I didn't say that "blue haired discord communists" had these criticisms. I've pointed to the fact that (a) Discord is actually owned and run by blue haired communists and (b) once you have a public community, in fact blue haired communists have the right to police you. And those alone are good enough reasons to get off Discord. But this sort of pack/herd mentality is why I saw Discord as poison, and people can disagree with me, but I feel safer on FB than on Discord. Now that's a pretty low bar.

Unseen still thinks "they brought this upon themselves" means that Esphigmenou deserves to get torched to the ground, which is what: "You’ve admitted it yourself. It came out your own mouths that they were at fault for their current persecution and you repeatedly call them headless." implies. We. Never. Said. That.

Even in this discussion you called them "headless" and Unseen said the exact opposite of what you're claiming.

It's an impossibility on his part to think that maybe he misunderstood what we meant, even though in this thread, we repeatedly said what we meant. But apparently clarifying our point is not good enough, the point we made is the point Unseen thinks we made, we don't have our own voices, only what Unseen thinks we said.

I mean, I'm seeing what you said, and it's kind of looking worse.

I will not allow either myself, or Rocaremnant, or Byzantophile to get slandered to third parties for absolute fabrications.

They literally are on this thread. There's no secrets, no hiding, no conferences. They're both men, and can speak for themselves. Did they even ASK you to go defending them?

Nobody and I repeat NOBODY said ESPHIGMENOU DESERVES TO GET PERSECUTED AND THAT THEY'RE NOT ORTHODOX, nobody, and by nobody I mean no-one, and by no-one I mean nobody. That's a strawman. End of story.

Ok, then when people say "they brought it upon themselves by leaving the GOC-K" then that has a different meaning. (That's historically false anyway.)

Getting baptized is a good thing, and the sooner you can get to it (properly, with a proper catechism, try not to misrepresent this point either) the better. St. Constantine got baptized at the end of his life, glory to God, but there's a reason we have infant baptisms, and it's not just infant mortality. It's about being able to partake in the mysteries of the Church as much as possible while you're alive.

I agree people need baptism (I push for it regularly) but I'm not going to point out the hypocrisy of arguing this position here. It is a lesson to those needing to see.

And finally, as much as Unseen wants to portray it as such, it's not a debate. He's arguing that we said B when we said A and he's attacking us for saying B. It's a strawman, I don't have to refer to it as a debate. Especially when we're being referred to as effeminate heretics because we don't exactly belong in his own super-correct cognition of what True Orthodoxy is about.

It's worse than a debate. It's an attempt at a public flogging from a Discord server that went wrong. Really. This is infantile.

[Unseen.Warfare]

"Let nothing be done without the bishop. See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop." - Epistle to the Smyrnaeans (St. Ignatius)

I'm not trying to enforce any discord server rules because frankly I don't care about discord.
There's a misrepresentation of the points made by us that is being misunderstood on the other side. Nobody, and I repeat, NOBODY said Esphigmenou deserves death and cops barging on their monasteries and having a bunch of Bart worshippers taking over. When it was said "brought this upon themselves" the isolation, the isolation from the rest of the TO world was brought upon themselves. On the matters of authority on "being Greek" it's not about being Greek, it's about speaking the language, when Methodios speaks, it's about living in the area where he resides for decades, meaning I can understand his culture, meaning that I can talk to people who have met him in person meaning I can understand him a bit better than Anglophones separated by an entire Atlantic ocean between them, they don't even have captions on their videos, you can't listen to Methodios without speaking Greek, if that's some kind of mistake on my part, feel free to think that.

Their struggle against Ecumenism is a blessed one, but they've made mistakes that made everyone else distance themselves from them. Which happens, it's a thing humans do, mistakes. Their stance against barcodes is an extremely strict one, they don't remove barcodes, they won't touch anything having barcodes, which includes the things you've removed the barcodes from, Father. To them, you've filled your altar with demonic artifacts. It's not a case of being wary of surveillance, nobody thinks that CBDCs aren't a problem or that tracking doesn't exist.

My point regarding being anti-Augustine pertained to the people in the server, not the Greek TOs in general.

An abbot is not a bishop, Esphigmenou is still the only non-commemorating monastic body in Athos without a bishop, and yes, that does mean they're headless, because they're a clerical and monastic collective without an episcopacy overseeing them. Doesn't mean they're not Orthodox, but it does mean they have no bishop, ergo, headless.

My salvation and Unseen's salvation are our own personal struggles and we're free to see to them as much as we want. The only reason I popped in the thread, was because both Byzantophile and Rocaremnant were being misrepresented and the fact that they're unable to have their own opinions and scrutinize errors because they're not Athonite monastics, is fallacious, an appeal to authority. You don't have to be a priest to criticize, were we supposed to silence ourselves when the Chrysostomos of Attica gave away relics?
To add to it, these criticisms do not belong only to a bunch of "blue haired discord communists" but to a lot of clergy and monastics within TO, that's why the other synods won't make a statement in outright support of Esphigmenou.

Unseen still thinks "they brought this upon themselves" means that Esphigmenou deserves to get torched to the ground, which is what: "You’ve admitted it yourself. It came out your own mouths that they were at fault for their current persecution and you repeatedly call them headless." implies. We. Never. Said. That. It's an impossibility on his part to think that maybe he misunderstood what we meant, even though in this thread, we repeatedly said what we meant. But apparently clarifying our point is not good enough, the point we made is the point Unseen thinks we made, we don't have our own voices, only what Unseen thinks we said. I will not allow either myself, or Rocaremnant, or Byzantophile to get slandered to third parties for absolute fabrications. Nobody and I repeat NOBODY said ESPHIGMENOU DESERVES TO GET PERSECUTED AND THAT THEY'RE NOT ORTHODOX, nobody, and by nobody I mean no-one, and by no-one I mean nobody. That's a strawman. End of story.

Getting baptized is a good thing, and the sooner you can get to it (properly, with a proper catechism, try not to misrepresent this point either) the better. St. Constantine got baptized at the end of his life, glory to God, but there's a reason we have infant baptisms, and it's not just infant mortality. It's about being able to partake in the mysteries of the Church as much as possible while you're alive.

And finally, as much as Unseen wants to portray it as such, it's not a debate. He's arguing that we said B when we said A and he's attacking us for saying B. It's a strawman, I don't have to refer to it as a debate. Especially when we're being referred to as effeminate heretics because we don't exactly belong in his own super-correct cognition of what True Orthodoxy is about.

Putting words in my mouth. Didn’t call any of you heretics. Nobody is slandering you. You keep repeating they have isolated themselves and they are at fault for their current situation and are headless. My baptism is none of your business. Rocor remnant isn’t baptized either. Tell him to shut up and focus on his spiritual life. What else does “they brought this upon themselves” mean. Does that mean you don’t care if they get torched to the ground? It’s still a bad take. What makes you feminine is repeatedly trying to use whatever you can as leverage. We get it, you’re Greek. You’re always right. They have a abbot. It’s been covered. Christ is the head of the Church. You’re brainless for that take.

[Rumpelstiltskin]

The "Esphigmenou is headless" thing also doesn't compute for the fact that we know, historically, there have been times were faithful didn't have a bishop so they could not commemorate any bishop by name.